I miss those old days when I had the luxury of time to indulge myself with books.

Love … and always will love books. For the geek in me,  surrounding myself with books makes me less lonely and fearless to face this world we call life. There are lots of things going on in my head at all times… restless mind I call it and almost always this chaotic mind of mine will settle only after I feed it with knowledge and answers.

When I am in doubt almost all the time I turn to books for answers … yup! I read.

Lately, I noticed that I don’t read that much anymore.

Being busy between parenthood, traveling, photography and working … or is it that I got myself tangled deeper than I expected into the social network (Facebook, twitter, IG, blogs etc) superhighway?

The last book that I bought and read halfway was in July 2014 … gosh! seriously. And, I used to travel with one book in hand and disciplined myself to finish up at least 1 book during each trip.

For the past four (4) months I have traveled to 4 different countries with 4 different groups of people and I was not accompanied by any physical book at all.

I was fiddling and experimenting with the idea of replacing the physical books with e-books actually. I downloaded selective e-books to my iPad and made a promise to myself that I would continue reading digitally.

Well … I noticed that reading from iBook is way too distracting for me and I ended up being busy either scrolling the internet or updating my Facebook or Instagram status (for hours). I wasted too much time with social networks during my travel time and I ended up restless for no reason.

I figured that I needed a new strategy to optimize my travel experiences and these are my 2015 New Year travel resolutions:

One: I will discipline myself to stay disconnected from the distracting gadgets and focus only on my whereabouts. No more hours getting connected to the net or even chatting through my WhatsApp 😉 … gosh! I am a champion if I can do this … Sally is a SURE champion lol.

Two: I will update my blog while on the road too. I want to capture my own emotions while traveling and log them into my digital journal here. I think years from now, I would be curious about how I felt during each trip. The old mature me would reminisce about the younger crazy me … 😉 ‘when you get older, your wild heart will live for younger days’ ~ Avicii – The Nights

Three: I will read at least one (1) book during each trip. The only way to nourish this noisy mind of mine is through reading. Sharing a few tricks on how to read more … you can read it here.

And, I want to add one more resolution for this year …

Four: I will have more of a ‘mellow down’ type of traveling this year. I want to slow down and smell the roses at each stop during my trips. Being alone in Seoul for 5 days, spending 11 days in ‘just’ Tokyo and hanging around in ‘just’ Dubai for 7 days were more fulfilling for my mind and soul than struggling through the ‘touch and go’ trip covering 10 places in 8 days kinda trip. I can watch and learn more if I slow down a bit … I presume 🙂

Sharing a few photos during my ‘mellow down’ trip recently. While hanging around loosely around the park, shrine, subways, public buses, or the grocery stores, the introverted me gets to chill out with the local people and communicate mostly in sign language lol … very interesting indeed.

I realized that moments are best enjoyed at a slow-mo pace.

It is like eating your ice cream (eating ice cream during winter is the best) … you need to sit down, be comfortable with your surroundings and start licking your ice cream slowly while enjoying the tingling sweet cold taste in your mouth.

I think love should be shared and enjoyed in a slow-mo moment too … kan? You won’t get poorer if you stop and slow-mo for a second (from your ‘rush’ quest for materials) and have a look at my face … lol. Not complaining just being sarcastic… 🙂

I was in Dubai a few days ago and a slow-mo routine ride from Deira side to Bur Dubai side via the abra or water taxi turned into a great moment when someone started to feed the hungry seagulls while we were taxing across the river.

Gorgeous moments shared together with my BFF … we wore the biggest satisfied smile on our faces that day … alhamdulillah simple life pleasure kan?

Yeah … I spelled out and shared my travel resolution for this year here in my digital journal and in December 2015, I will come back to this post again to check on my yearly achievement;-).

“Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.”

~ Albert Einstein

Cheers

MM

p/s slow-mo aka slow-motion