150 Days, 150 Blessings

I will concede that my 150 days on the road thus far have not always been easy. I've shed some blood, sweat, and tears along the way (hell, just in the scuba course alone). I've been homesick and physically sick. I could go on, but why dwell on the negatives when there have been so many positives? I have been truly blessed with this opportunity to travel and I think it's important to focus on that. So in honor of my 150th day of travel I have drawn up a list of 150 blessings. Sure, some of these items may not have felt like blessings at the time (monsoons), but whether I loved them or hated them at the time, these things have made my trip. And now, without further ado...

5:00AM prayer calls

Airports

All-nighters at beach side bars

Art

Asian public transport  

   

Asian queues (or lack thereof)

Bamboo everything

(Bamboo is often used at construction sites)

Banana pancakes

BBQs on the beach

Even if a tropical storm pushed everyone under cover and it took 3 hours to get our food, those BBQs were great

Beautiful, laughing, happy children

Being invited to the restaurant’s kitchen to make a pizza because I said my family has a pizza shop in the US

(Yeah, that happened...)

Being offered drugs of every variety

Blind ordering

Bollywood

Breathing fresh mountain air

Brightly colored everything

Colored chalk for sale in Gorkha, Nepal

Beautiful women in beautiful sarees in the mountains of Gorkha, Nepal

Bullet trains

"Bum Guns"

Totally eliminate the need for toilet paper

Bus vendors

Car horns—they’re so excessive it’s silly

Cat cafes

Caves

"Chai guys"

Cheap beer

Cheap healthcare

Chicken bicycles

Chickens literally crossing the road
(and their motives not questioned)

Chinese roller coasters

Coffee made from cat shit

I drank the coffee made from this guy's feces

Collectivistic seating and eating at restaurants

Crazy driving

Notice how the parked cars are facing the opposite direction from the moving traffic

Crystal clear waters

Curbside barbers

Dark, scary storm clouds

Daya Dan dance parties

Daya Dan kids

Decked out disco tuk-tuks

Zipping through the streets of Kolkata is always more fun with good music

Drinking local alcohols

Dump trucks full of children

Eating with Chopsticks

Families of six on a motorbike

Fancy Japanese toilets

Filipino hospitality

Fire dancers

Check out the video

Fishermen and farmers

Fresh fruit for sale on every corner

Friendly waiters who know my name

Fruit that I’ve never even heard of

Fun photo ops

Funny signs

Genuine fake everything

Getting caught in monsoons

Getting hopelessly lost

Getting my ass handed to me in Rummy by an old Thai man

Giant Buddha

Giant lizards

Giant mosques

Giant piles of rubbish

This wasn't even a medium pile of rubbish

Goats on (crowded) buses

Oh hello

Green tea flavored everything

Happening upon weddings and beautiful brides

Hiking the Great Wall of China in pouring rain

Impromptu trips across the border

Incense burning everywhere

Islam schools

Japanese 7/11

They have everything!

Japanese baseball

Karaoke

Kit-Kats in every flavor

Language barriers

Learning how to cook local dishes

Yummy momos in Kathmandu, Nepal!

Learning how to scuba dive

Learning local language

Livestock in the street

Local artists

Local custom

Lush, green vegetation

Making children laugh

Making friends

Markets

Massive holes in the pavement

Medicine men

Meeting up with old friends 

Monkeys!

Mosquito nets that make me feel like a princess

Motorbike adventures and mishaps

Mountain goat farmers

Mountain vistas

Noodle man and BBQ man

Nuns

Onsens and hot springs

Palaces and castles

Osaka Castle, Osaka, Japan

Palm trees

Peaceful parks

People not so sneakily snapping photos of me

Caught you!

People stopping their conversations just to say hi to me as I pass by

People watching

These boys in Kathmandu, Nepal reminded me of my brothers

Pickup football games

Pickup football games with child monks

Pool parties

Pretty buildings

Proper dips in the ocean

Proper faffing about

Psychics

Rainbows

Rice paddy farmers

Rice terraces

Rickety bridges

Rickshaw men

Riding the rails

View from train in Thailand

Risking my life to cross the street

Rusty old bicycles chained to the pavement

Seashell trees

Serene beaches

Shamans

Shanghai night scene

Sipping smoothies with a view

Smiling old men

Stan Shunpikes of every Asian bus

The driver's assistant that hangs out the door reminds me so much of Stan Shunpike!

Stares and smiles from strangers

Strangers who ask to take a photo with me

Strangers who share their lunch

Stray cats

Street food

Street vendors using their toes to pick up
rubbish to keep their hands clean

Sugar artists

Sunsets

Surprise parades

Tasting pizza from every country

Well, there was pizza

Tasting scorpions

Tea plantations

Teenage boys who rescue me from the likes of this guy

(Business card to show relative size of spider)

Temples, temples, and more temples

Thai massages

The “squatty potty”

It's good for your colon!

The fact that a man walking down the street with a goat head is commonplace

The fact that my name is a well-known noodle in Asia

The Indian head bob

This guy

...and this guy

Tourists

Traditional dance

Traditional food

Traditional music

Unabashed, innocent nudity

Visiting the world’s largest fish market

Best sushi in the world can be found at Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, Japan

Volcanoes that smell like farts

Waterfalls

Weird Japanese obsessions

What people can carry on their heads