Saturday, November 25, 2017
My North American travel have come to an end. 3 months of travels, done. Yet another huge trip that I've set myself out to do, completed. Time to head back.
Vancouver > Seattle > Portland > Sacremento > San Francisco >> Hefei >> Los Angeles > San Diego >> Denver >> San Diego > Tijuana > Mexicali >> Guadalajara > Leon > México City > Querétaro > San Luis Potosi > Monterrey > Austin > Dallas > Houston.
Let's catch up.
Mexico was something amazing. From just wanting to see Mexico City and Guadalajara became an entire different trip all together. Along the way, everything pieced nicely together. I remembered how clueless I were entering Guadalajara and almost unsure how the next few days were going to be. No one could speak English, everyone was busy working, no one drove (unlike America), it was hard to go places, I was still injured, etc. and I thought I wasn't going to enjoy it. But as we went on, everything panned out pretty nicely and I really had a good time!
Then Leon happened, where I met all the communities from all over the globe. To see all the different people and different lives from different cities coming together in a massive jumble was dope as hell. It also shaped the rest of my trip up pretty nicely, as I knew people from everywhere.
One of the nicest thing that happened in this trip was having the communities helping me out a great deal in getting me paid workshops in return of me imparting some of my knowledge back to the community. I never thought of travelling to give workshops, maybe due to my laziness (tbh), but this experience motivated even more to start really shaping up the kind of classes I want to teach in the future. First it was just me being a guest coach for Oblivion of Gravity, then getting a paid ride to Perfect Jump to teach in the (most successful) gym in Mexico. Then I started to ask in the guys in San Luis Potosi and Monterrey could help me with setting up a class. It all turned out better than expected.
Money was never exactly a huge factor really, and I was definitely hugely underpaid but it is still an experience and some money is always better than none (it lasts way longer in Mexico too). Learning about the rates of classes (and everything else really) is quite a shocker. I guess we do have it lucky sometimes.
San Luis Potosi was my highlight of all the cities I've visited in Mexico. It's so amazing to experience the lives of the locals and honestly I'm very jealous of it. They have this cool little park where they hang out every night where they chill (i.e smoke) at and catch up with everyone. They have nice food everywhere. They have some of the most amazing spots. They have a sick little downtown. They have a super solid community with really good people, even for the new gens. And San Luis is also the state of some of the most beautiful nature that I sadly didn't get the chance to visit. I just love so much about the little unheard town. It was again slightly sketchy at first with hardly anyone speaking English, but wow as each day passes, it got really really enjoyable.
Monterrey was a huuuuuge downer. The weather was shit the entire four days I was there, and I fell realllyyyyy sick during the days I was there and even spent an entire day in the bed fighting a burning fever. I thought I could survive the entire trip without falling sick, but I guess this was the only bad thing that happened in this trip (save for misplacing some stuff here and there lol).
Now, Texas. Tbh it really was just a random choice and as it was the cheapest city to fly home from and where I could travel by land to (cheap!), so I decided to give it 10 days for a full Texan experience. I tried to set up workshops in all 3 cities but just looking at that, I can really tell the difference between the two countries. How everything in America are calculative and about trying to make a business, judgmental even, and in Somatic's case, almost just lazy, as opposed to in México where it is a case of just simply giving and being able to do well even out of spontaneity. It is somewhat disappointing, but maybe it can really be quite difficult too so I can't expect a lot.
That rant apart, I honestly had an amazing time in Texas. Again it's humbly to run into so many people who tell me that they love my stuff and have been following me for a while. Austin was a hippy city with a bunch of gyms popping out everywhere. It was fun training with a bunch of cool guys and then soon enough I saw myself moving to another city again. Dallas was dope! Did so much there, and ending every night in the gym where I spend doing so many challenges and also managed to get some good stretching going along finally and also juggling! Fort Worth Urbex was so cool too. Houston was almost scary because I thought I was not going to have a roof over my head for the first time in this entire trip, but AJ managed to help me get Zach to host me and zero regrets as it was an extremely fun two days with this guy. Perfect way to end the trip really. No complaints.
Now I'm finally on Singapore Airlines with a S$600 flight back home from Houston, about to take a break from the hectic travelling and nonstop training, going to have to figure my life out straight and edit a bunch of footage, also working on rehab of my whole body, work tons on getting the gym to happen, catch up with people, edit a bunch more, finish up my bike license, and figure out what full time job to apply for, or what I will be doing for money the next few months.
But before all that, I'm going straight to the police station (in handcuffs). Cruel reality strikes again immediately after landing in Singapore. Price of fame indeed. Such a crazy unfortunate thing to have happened that dragged so much hard work to the ground and also put so many of my friends into trouble. Not sure how I can resolve this hot mess but we can only move on...