​How do you know where to go?
 
 Maybe it starts with a recommendation from a friend, or a post you see on Instagram. A cheap flight that you randomly found online, a long layover or a crazy close your eyes, spin the globe and go where your finger lands? Whichever way it may be, I’m sure that somewhere soon after you’d Google.

“You know the saying, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere? Well, there’s a saying in Berlin, if you can’t make it here, you can’t make it anywhere.” – My Berliner roommate. 
 
*So I guess I can’t make it anywhere…

HELLO, from the settled side!
 
You know, the life I said I’d try out this year?

Thus far, settled life has included the usual, discovering more about myself, acing adulting, and enjoying life even more. I have also been thinking less about life after “Hai” and focusing more on spending quality time in this vibrant city - even taking fewer and shorter trips out of Shanghai.

Traveling is awesome!
 
Going places, meeting new people, trying new foods, swimming in oceans and hiking to mountaintops. Viewing cities from skyscrapers, drinking wine street side, and checking out street style are all experiences that can make traveling somewhat of an addiction. 
 
But sometimes, the actual journey to get there isn’t as glamorous. The long flights and layovers, smelly buses, taxis and the taxi driver that rips you off or drops you off at the wrong hotel, leaving you stranded and confused. Getting lost in a new country after a long flight.
 
Ferries the bring on seasickness, tuk-tuks in hot dusty weather, the middle seat, looking for your hotel and hauling heavy bags along the street hungry, tired, and in desperate need of a shower!!

​
​“Go with the flow, but in style.”

It’s my motto, in life and in travel, and creating a brand like BagLady Basics has made this seamlessly possible. It’s also the mentality I had when my friend Ayesha invited me to meet up with her in Prague.

She’d extended the invitation at the end of summer, as I was still in Berlin (on my “Little Shepherd Girl” shit), and I figured, why not. I’d been keen on visiting this superbly beautiful city for some time, and it was only a cheap bus ride away!

​Wow guys! My last post of 2018!!

Do you remember the promise I'd made to you on the gram' on New Year’s eve of 2017? I was livin' ma best life on Boracay Island, and I promised that I would share more of myself with you in 2018.

I've tried my best to come through on that promise!

​Last Christmas I was on a beach, this Christmas, I’m on a couch...

I’ve completed my 31st year of life today, and am about to embark on my 32nd. Today, at 31 years old, I feel totally in control, as I'd promised myself I would be. 
 
My life has been filled with so much uncertainty, and as you all know by now, I’ve gotten a bit tired of living life “on-the-whim”. Now at 31, literally on this day, I finally know what I want, where I want to be, and what I have to do to get there. 
 
It’s time for real “adulting”. 

How do you know when it’s time to give up on something or someone? 
 
Messages from the Universe can be so abstract sometimes. Does this mean that there really isn't any right or wrong decision- or one that will steer you on the wrong path? Maybe doing your best is indeed good enough. And we should be confident and at peace with that.

​“What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”
 
It’s a quote that most of us know, and a question that has been running circles around my mind for the past few weeks, and my most recent trip to Hong Kong made it ever so present and relevant. 
 
Hong Kong holds a special place in my heart, as it’s the place where my brand, BagLady Basics made its initial debut- it’s the city of “firsts” for BagLady Basics!