When 250 days end up being 175!

Well, this is it! I have made it! I have travelled around the world! And I did it almost 2 months faster than the original plan!

So, how did 250 days just ended up being 175?

Goals accomplished!

I had three main goals in this trip: meeting up with longtime friends, finding a place where I would like to live in the long term and finding what I wanted to do next.

After I arrived in Singapore, my first goal was fulfilled! It was great being able to meet up with friends all the way since I got to Madrid! Exploring places with locals is probably the best way, but exploring them with friends is even better! I cannot forget as well all these new friends I made along the way! Thank you for being there, this trip wouldn't have been that awesome without you guys!

As many of you might know, I have been constantly moving from place to place since my childhood! Therefore, I don't really have a place I can call "home". Finding a place where I can see myself staying on the long term was one of the goals of this trip! And I think I found it! I just fell in love with Seattle and this might become "home" to me in the near future!

I was also kind of uncertain about what I wanted to do next. Which job, where, ... Even though I haven't figured it out clearly, I definitely got a lot of insights on the road talking with awesome people and exchanging points of vue! I now know I want to have a lot of flexibility in my life and I want to matter professionally! I also know that one day I would like to build my own company and make it grow big!

I have also gotten really excited about a couple of things in this trip and I want to focus on making them happen!

An extraordinary adventure!

This trip was an extraordinary adventure! If you are thinking about doing a world tour, stop thinking and go for it! It's a choice you will never regret (even if you end up coming home 2 months earlier than expected!). I have met awesome people and I have seen astonishing sceneries! I will never forget my month in Patagonia, the craziness of Mexican gastronomy, the cold of Montréal, the West Coast, the uniqueness of Japan and the beauty of Taiwan!

Even if some places were not as good as expected, others did surprise me in a great way! I am thinking of Santiago, where I ended up staying 20 days. I am thinking of Mexico City, a truly beautiful city with plenty of things to offer beyond it's violent reputation. I am thinking of Fukuoka, but in general of all these small cities not so touristic where I ended up having the best memories of my trip and of all the travel buddies I had on the way, without who it wouldn't have been the same!

As I use to say a lot: what really makes travelling such an incredible experience is not just the places you go to, the hostel you stay at or the monuments you visit, but mostly the people you meet!

Some statistics ...

And to finish, some statistics!

This trip lasted 175 days (from the 19th of January to the 13th of July) and brought me across 4 continents (Europe, South America, North America and Asia), 10 countries (Spain, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, USA, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore) and 40 cities (I'm not going to list them all, sorry!).

During these 6 months, I have taken more than 1000 pictures (yes I know, I am a very bad tourist!) and I have sent more than 100 postcards! I have lost 6 kilos and my monthly budget was a little less than 2000€ all included (as you can imagine, the postcards were the biggest expenses of this trip!).

What's next?

So, what's next?

I have been back to Brussels for 2 weeks already, and my next move will be to find a job! I am looking into a lot of international positions and into some startups, but for the moment I am still on holiday mood! I am also planning my next trips already, and on my list are places like the US, Singapore, Iran, Norway, Laos, Brazil or Croatia!

Safe travels everyone!

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Pictures of the Week 17 - Taiwan

Couples, plastic surgery and kimchi!

South Korea was one of my biggest culture shocks so far! That is probably due to the fact that I really didn't prepare for my 2 weeks in the peninsula. I went there with just a couple of Korean worlds in my vocabulary (and I left with four!), and I had pretty much no idea about what to expect (except loads of K-Pop and Gangnam Styles ...)!

My first idea was that, since South Korea is really close to Japan (just a 3-hour ferry ride away from Fukuoka), and since both countries have a pretty similar economical system, I assumed they had a pretty similar culture too. But I have probably never been so wrong in my life! Korea has its very own culture and it differs drastically from the Japanese culture.

My first assumption about Korea was true though, it is really hard to escape from the K-Pop tsunami! Everywhere, at anytime, K-Pop stars will pop up to you! But if, like me, your ears are not too used to the sound of K-Pop and your brain cannot take anymore Gangnam Style, it is still possible to get out of here without being traumatized for life! Dramas as well seem to be quite big in the peninsula, but I really didn't get hooked by the Korean version of the Young and the Restless!

Apart from that, I had to change a lot my vision of Korea! The first thing that really stroke me was the number of couples in the streets! It is like you can actually only see people together everywhere! And everything is made for groups of people or couples! It actually gets to a point where it gets scary! It feels like you are a weirdo because you are walking on the streets alone! Couples get also really crazy and inventive about showing that they are together: from simple rings to wearing the same clothes and having the same haircut, I gets quite comic sometimes. The Korean culture is much more social than the Japanese. When in Japan everything is made for individuals, in Korean everything is made for at least couples or a big group of people!

Something that may also strike you in Korea is how much the girls look alike! This is not just the typical stereotype of "all the Asians look the same", they actually look the same! And that is due to a terrible pressure on appearance! The percentage of girls that have had some kind of plastic surgery is huge (and it is becoming trendy for guys too). Besides, the quantity of make-up they use is over-whelming! Actually a big step in a relationship in Korea is when the boyfriend sees his girlfriend without make-up! Even if it may sound funny, I had the feeling that this cult of appearance was really destructive and unhealthy in a way!

Another unhealthy habit in Korea, which is pretty similar to Japan, is the incredible pressure put on people to succeed! From kinder-garden to retirement, the life of Koreans is governed by examinations! The competition is terribly harsh and if you fail you have no place in society (or quite a miserable one!). In a way it is true that there is no miracle, and Korea is where it is now thanks to hard work and sacrifice, but at some point it can be interesting to think about the system and to make people work smarter instead of just working harder!

Despite all that, my stay in Korea was incredibly enjoyable! The people are incredibly nice (I still remember half of that night I spent with a bunch of Koreans in Busan eating live octopus and drinking way too much soju, and my nice stay in Seoul!), History is huge (just have a look at the Pictures of the Week 16) and food is wonderful! I kind of got addicted to kimchi there, but Korean gastronomy is much more diverse than just that and the world-famous Korean BBQ! Korea is probably the only place on Earth where you will get corn in any pizza you order (at least true for Pizza School!), and the side dishes you get with any decent meal are extraordinary! For some reason, chicken and beer are famous all around Seoul and I had way too much patbingsu too!

For sure I will be back sometime soon!

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Tokyo ... 4 years later!

It is a strange feeling to come back to a place almost 4 years later! It feels funny, but it is definitively nice!

Japan will always have a special place in my heart, as it was pretty much my first backpacking trip! It was back in August 2010 and we explored everything between Tokyo and Hiroshima in 20 days! Here is actually a little video we made about this incredible trip!

Going to new places is quite an adventure as you have to learn everything from scratch, and very quickly! The money doesn't look the same, the metro doesn't work the same, and going to supermarkets or restaurants is quite an adventure too! And if you don't speak the language, then you are pretty far from your comfort zone, which is amazingly exciting!

But sometimes, going to a familiar place is also quite interesting! I was really happy to be back in Tokyo, to go back to the places I have already been and to get back some incredible memories from 4 years ago. But things still change, and 4 years later I found a couple of things to be quite different! What I noticed first was the impressive Tokyo SkyTree Town that is now finished ... and it is something you see from pretty much everywhere! The view is pretty breath-taking, even though it is not cheap to go all the way up!

It is always a pleasure to go to Japan, a country like no other, where everything just seems to work as expected, where everyone respects the rule (even though I spotted a couple of Japanese crossing in red!), where everything is clean and safe, where food is delicious and where people are so nice and helpful!

And because I have a nice story to tell, I met again a guy I came across 4 years ago in a bar! He was bartender at the time and now he is going to record his first album in the coming months! That was a crazy coincidence we met again in Tokyo, and that adds to the feeling that this is really such a small world!

So people, be nice to each other, you never know if your paths will cross again!

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Pictures of the Week 16 - Seoul and Suwon

Pictures of the Week 15 - Nagoya and Fukuoka

Pictures of the Week 14 - Tokyo and Kamakura

How I fell in love with Seattle!

There are places you feel irresistibly attracted to when you look at a map for no reason (or maybe it's just me, I do love maps!), and Seattle was one of these places! I never met a person from Seattle before my trip, nor have I heard anything special about it - except its rainy reputation - but I convinced myself it was worth it to make a stop there on my way between Quebec and California!

Nevertheless, I didn't really want to cut too much of my time in both Quebec and California, so I decided to stay in Seattle for only 3 days. To get there I went on an Amtrak Cascades train from Vancouver ... yes, the one that departs at around 6am! And well, it was definitely worth it! The train ride was comfortable, nice and very scenic, and Seattle was just lovely! It was literally love at first sight! It was so intense I actually thought about stopping everything and try finding a job there!

First of all, Seattle doesn't really deserve its bad weather reputation as I had three magnificent days when I was there (end of April). The city is also truly beautiful! Just by turning 180 degrees, you can see the mountains or the sea! Besides, being the capital of the state of Washington, and by far the biggest city in the Northwest, Seattle offers a great range of facilities while still being a pretty small town!

I can also talk wonders about the Pike Place Market, the International District and the EMP Museum among others, but the thing that really made me fall in love with Seattle was the greatness, the kindness and the helpfulness of its people! And it is not just a couple of people, in three days, every single person I have interacted with was just marvelous!

By all means, my three days in Seattle were fantastic! In my search for a potential place to settle down one day, Seattle just climbed to the top 3! Can't wait to be back in this fantastic city!

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Why is the Smoke Shack the best burger I ever had?

Disclaimer: totally NSFV (not safe for vegetarians/vegans)!

Aaah... burgers! Probably the best thing about American cuisine (except maybe pizzas)! Created in 1900 by Louis Lassen in New Haven, Connecticut, burgers are now the icon of fast-food. But burgers are definitely worth more than the typical Big Mac or Whopper! I have eaten burgers on 6 different continents, and experienced some interesting interpretations such as the Nutella Burger from De Brug in Singapore (by the way, check this place out, it's great!) or the Ramen Burger from L&L in the USA.

Even though I have only eaten at fast-food chains and I haven't had the chance to eat at Agadir Burger in Israel, Fergburger in New Zealand, Flippin' Burgers in Sweden, Hamborgarafabrikkan in Iceland or Hamburg in The Netherlands (the top 5 burgers around the world according to Departures), yet, I honestly have to praise the SmokeShack from Shake Shack! It simply is the best (fast-food) burger I ever had so far ... and this is why!

SmokeShack™: Cheeseburger topped with all-natural applewood smoked bacon, chopped cherry pepper and ShackSauce.

If I would have to make a burger, it would be really close to what the SmokeShack offers! Great ingredients, compared to other fast-food chains, such as delicious Niman Ranch applewood-smoked bacon, incredible ShackSauce (basically a mix of ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard) and amazing chopped cherry pepper, make the SmokeShack really tasty and delicately spicy! My mouth is watering so much right now that I may cause a flooding!

Anyway, if you are a burger lover and you have the chance to be in one of the cities where Shake Shack is, be sure to check it out!

PS: Shake Shack also offers a vegetarian mushroom burger!

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