{"id":11193,"date":"2017-12-31T19:01:57","date_gmt":"2017-12-31T11:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/?p=11193"},"modified":"2017-12-31T19:03:35","modified_gmt":"2017-12-31T11:03:35","slug":"looking-back-at-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/looking-back-at-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking back at 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another year is coming in. And of course another is passing by. I\u2019m not sure if 2017 was even an eventful year. I think it was quite slow compared to the previous years. I didn\u2019t even do much traveling. Perhaps the only travel trip that is worth highlighting is my 2-week road trip all over New Zealand. New Zealand was great, but I was expecting more<\/a>. The country is quite monotonous with the exception of the far South. It was beautiful \u2013 no doubt \u2013 but again I was expecting more. But of course the road trip was something that I had to do at least once in my life.<\/p>\n

Then my solo trip to Chiang Mai<\/a>. It was more like to tick something off my bucketlist. Again, I was expecting more from the Rose of the North. I was only there for 6 days but it felt too long. I decided that 3 days is enough for a place like Chiang Mai. I\u2019ve been to Bangkok several times and still I couldn\u2019t get enough of it and that was not quite the case when I was in Chiang Mai. It also made me realize that my bucketlist probably needs some revision.<\/p>\n

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Chiang Mai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then I did something that I had long wanted to do \u2013 to conquer the highest mountain in Peninsular Malaysia<\/a>. Mount Tahan really surprised me. It was tough but it really was worth it in the end. I had never been to a climb where I had to bring everything on my own \u2013 from tent to food stuff \u2013 everything. It really felt like such a fulfilling accomplishment. It felt like such a real mountaineering. And it felt so good to be standing at the highest peak of Semenanjung \u2013 the part of Malaysia that I had spent half of my life settling in.<\/p>\n

Then my trip to Manila. It was my 3rd<\/sup> time to Manila but this time I landed at the capital city of the Philippines probably at the worse of time. I had to wander the streets of Manila in knee-deep water through incessant and howling rain. In my effort to avoid floods, I ended up walking in the dark streets and back alleys, across squatters and packed neighborhoods that I had never expected existed in what appeared to be a posh area in Manila. All the towering 5-star hotels are only a front facade that covers the reality of what lies behind.<\/p>\n

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The looming images of people drinking and smoking and chattering on the front verandas of their rickety houses while I was walking hurriedly past with my backpack in the rain are still vivid in my head. There were times when I felt like I had taken a wrong turn and was lost and I had to contemplate whether to turn back or keep going. What appeared to be quite a short distance from EDSA LRT Station, it took me 3 hours to reach my hotel in Guerrero Street. It really was quite an experience.<\/p>\n

Perhaps my biggest accomplishment this year was the acquirement of a Master\u2019s Degree \u2013 something that I had never thought of doing since I really thought I had had enough of studying when I did my Bachelor\u2019s.\u00a0 I\u2019m not even sure how the idea came about and before I knew I found myself burying my face in countless journals, research papers, books, and whatnots.<\/p>\n

Doing Master\u2019s really involved a lot of thinking – and lots and lots and lots of writing. Thanks to all the blogging that I did over the years, I could finally put all the skills to a good use. I found writing was much easier than how it would have been if I did not blog at all. Then I think of all the driving that I had to do going back and forth between KL and JB. It really felt lonely at times, especially when I had to be on the road for 4-5 hours on my own. It really involved a lot of sacrifices, be it time, energy or even money.<\/p>\n

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When it was finally over, it felt like I had whole world all to myself. The relief and sense of accomplishment were massive. For me doing a Master\u2019s is not really about the certificate itself, but more for the journey that I had to go through while acquiring it. It taught me to be patient (very very), meticulous (very very), pro-active, independent and perhaps a dozen more of other things. But above all it taught me to really really think and make full use of my brains. LOL.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not really sure about what lies ahead for me in 2018 but somehow I can sense that it is going to be a very very interesting year. I have my fingers crossed to that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another year is coming in. And of course another is passing by. I\u2019m not sure if 2017 was even an eventful year. I think it was quite slow compared to the previous years. I didn\u2019t even do much traveling. Perhaps the only travel trip that is worth highlighting is my 2-week road trip all over New Zealand. New Zealand was great, but I was expecting more. The country is quite monotonous with the exception of the far South. It was…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-traveling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11193"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11204,"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11193\/revisions\/11204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}