South America - Argentina Buenos Aires, best out of life!

Sorry, I don't quite get Soho in New York. I love Valpo around Santiago.  But La Boca is honest.  La Boca is where you meet real life. The real life is never perfect.  There is no perfect look, no smartest one, not a happy ending all the times because there is always some aspects we could be better while other aspects one could be worse off.

La Boca Frontage - Buenos Aires, Apr 2010.

La Boca - Buenos Aires, Apr 2010.

But those who live a good live, are those who know the secret.  The secret is how the making, making the best out of what life given us, instead of chasing for the endless demands.  Those better one, not just making the best out of what life given us, they give back!

La Boca - Buenos Aires, Apr 2010.

La Boca is the 1st place I visited, a bit nut of me, is also the place I love most in Buenos Aires.  Life is not a fairy tale.  There I say it! :-), always wanted to say one of this powerful sentence. Thus, life is not closed to fairy tale in La Boca.  So what's wrong with it?  There is nothing wrong about it and residents in La Boca use their most creative mind to send that message, directly!

Art Painting on the wall of Boca Junior's stadium - Buenos Aire, Apr 2010.

 

South America - Journey to Buenos Aires, being fearless!

Being talking about it for years, the preparation started 6 months earlier when I bought the ticket.  I started to get questions like - Don't you afraid?  You are going alone? Is it safe? Are you sure, South America? Isn't it under military government?  Well, I can go on.  The truth is I never really think that much or that far.  I just know I want to go there, so I bought a huge insurance and prepare my will.  There is no turning back! 

Fearless, not really.  But there seems to be a calling within, like the un-controllable demon and it will surface after life is too peaceful for a while. Well, it forces me to learn everytime I go on a journey. 

On Feb 27 2010, Chile experienced one of the worse earthquake. Many friends asked me, are you still going?  I said -Yes. It is a trip that will not be cancelled.  On Mar 28, 2010, I boarded the mid night flight heading to Buenos Aires.  The flight was suppossed to take ~26hours and transiting in Johannesburg and Cape Town before arriving Buenos Aires, but it hits a turbulence on Myanmar airspace.  When we arrived at Johannesburg, we were told that the turbulence had dented the tail and we will be grounded till further notice.

MH201 747 - Johannesburg, Apr 2010.

That shows life is never as planned.  We ended up spending 8 long hours delay in Johannesburg and by the time we arrived in Buenos Aires Ezeiza International Airport at 11pm, this had became the longest flight journey in my life, ~36hours!

It was middle of the night, I felt the breeze in the ride from the airport to the city as it smell very much autumn, the season I like best.  I was so tired but Mar 28 ended with a sense of hopes.

The dream, a 28 years long waited journey!

Many have heard me said this very same thing before, but I don't get tired for saying it again!

Whenever I was asked - what is my dream?  Without even thinking, I will say - I want to go to Ushuaia!  Then, people will give me this blank look, like - Uh?.  Ya, I know, they don't know where is Ushuaia back then. I am talking about 10 or 20 years ago.  Then, I would start telling  them the story.

When I was 8 year old, I read an article about a place called Tierra del Fuego (火地岛) at the southern most tip of our planet. Over there, there is this little town called Ushuaia (烏斯懷亞), where people called it, End of the World.  Then, a picture of Ushuaia showed up.

Ushuaia - Argentina, Apr 2010.

Since then, I always, and will always want to come here.

Well, it is really not that easy.  First, I need to earn enough money.  Second, I need to have the time.  And third, I need to build a lot of guts.  It took 13 years of working, a huge gaining of forex ratio, and last of all, I make a friend from Citi Argentina, Diego.  I met Deigo in 2005 at New York when we were selected to represent our country in the Citi GTA program.  

With a lot of his help over the next 5 years, and research, I finally decided to put my career  on hold and to chase for a dream of 28 years.

There I come, Ushuaia! 

Silk Road, the after thought.

Silk Road is one of those journeys, I believe you are thinking of taking, but always afraid to take!

Like others who had taken it, I said, you should have taken it because it is nothing like it!

I remembered when I was thinking about it, there was no doubt!  I guess that is those moments in life you know you have hit your passion and no stopping.  I wanted more, but I was given maximum 3 weeks away from work.  I have always wanted to go back and finish the journey to Cairo with stops at Hotan, Tashkorgan, Samarkand, Mary, Tehran, Damascus, then Cairo.  Well, that will be another journey.

Silk Road, somehow, has all these elements that a "traveling nut" like me got all centimental, but excited.  The history, the historical sites, the religion, the desert, the oasis, the food, the culture, and of course the people.  For all the journeys I had taken, only Egypt would have those same elements, minus off that I can speak mandarin, but can't spaek Arabic.
 

There was a famous story. A renounced chinese cultural folk song composer WangLuoBin王洛宾 came to Xinjiang as an army and stay there ever since.  When he was asked the reason, he said, my songs sing it all. For those who know him, most of his songs described the beauty of the Uyghur ladies such as 在那遥远的地方, 达坂城的姑娘, 掀起你的盖头来, 
康定情歌, etc. I can see why.

I have heard about the violence and riot before and after my trip.  But whenever people ask me, is it dangerous?  I will tell them that Uyghur I met are honest, friendly and helpful.  I can only tell from my experience.  I had not been conned, I had not been bullied, I had not been dis-regarded, which these are the norm when we travel. In fact, Uyghur was so humble that I felt shameful to bargain with them.

 

If you notice through my journey, the photos of Uyghur always holding each other shoulders when we ask them to post for us.
Most time, we got all these news in the media.  I really question whether any media really know what had happened there?  Who are we to judge a completely different culture?  Who are we to put them on our standard? Who are we to believe that someone else should live a life the way we live, not the way they want to live?