Author: Liau Yun Qing

Yun Qing is a writer, improviser and curious person. She loves finding little adventures in life. In 2013, she went on a 130-day round-the-world trip. She wrote a book "Your Big Break" to help those who also want to go on a career break.

Accidental, musical Nantes

Before my trip to Paris, I was looking on the Web to see if Mozart l’Opera Rock was on while I was there. Unfortunately, the Paris shows were far from the dates I would visit the City of Lights.

A bit of background about the musical: I accidentally discovered the musical while on Youtube. The music video for L’Assasymphonie had all the mysteries of the sexy French. “Why does the bearded man look so tortured?!” I became obsessed about finding out more about the play.

Turns out, it’s a about Mozart’s life. I watched all the videos I could online and tried to memorize the lyrics.

Imagine my disappointment when I found out that the show would not be in Paris!

I looked through the list again and found that the nearest location that the show would play was in Nantes.

Before that, I never heard of the town. I googled and found out that it was about 2 hours on TGV from the capital. After thinking about it for somedays, I decided to spend two days of my already short week in France in Nantes, just for the musical.

I did not regret it.

 

The break away from the capital allowed me to see more of beautiful France, not just piss-scented Paris. On the TGV, I sped past field with rolls of hay and grazing fluffy sheeps. It made my heart swell with happiness.

The musical itself was lovely. My very first musical. (I’ve always wanted to see a musical live, a especially after I found out about Le Roi Soleil.)

 

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Unlike Paris, Nantes was laid back. I was quite surprised to see people not dressing very fashionable (ie T-shirt and shorts) to a musical. (I thought everyone wore mink to such a show).

In Nantes, I also visited the beautiful Castle of the Dukes of Brittany, previous home to Anne de Bretagne.

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During my last few hours, I even illegally rode on the tramway as no one seemed to be checking tickets. ;)

This post is part of bootsnall.com’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project. Day 3: Music

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The rest of my posts for the project can be found here.

 

Change and travelling

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It’s amazing how one person can change your world view.

I used to have the impression that travelling would only happen at the year end, during the long Christmas and New Year break. I even gave in to the thought that the only travel I would be doing is going home to Sabah during Chinese New Year. 

That was until my (now-ex) colleague joined the company. His frequent weekend trips and mid-week flights to exotic locations (thanks to the budget airlines) were a culture shock to me.

I decided to be as carefree as he was. I booked my flights half a year in advance, sometimes with, sometimes without the permission of my boss. I rationalized that if the budget tickets were cheap enough, it doesn’t really matter if I don’t go on the trip anyway.

But, I’ve managed to go on every trip I booked. My dream to visit Paris and to see the Jidai Matsuri were fulfilled this year.

Not satisfied with one long trip every 3 months, I even came up with mini trips each month, trying to see all of Malaysia within a year.

Looking at my TripIt account, I have three trips lined up next year. I’ll be in Hanoi in February, Jogjakarta in April and Da Nang in July.

Now I am also planning for a RTW trip. I don’t know when it’ll happen, but I’ll definitely make it happen.

How have you changed?

This post is part of BootsnAll’s 30 Days of Indie Travel Project: Day 2: Change.

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The rest of my posts for the project can be found here.

 

 

 

9 more to go!

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//A photo of my hometown airport–Kota Kinabalu International Airport.

After setting the goal to visit each of the Malaysian states this year, I have managed to cross off Melaka, Penang and Kelantan my list.

This year and next, I will work my way through the other 9 states. My next destination is Sarawak’s Kuching.

Apart from travelling in Malaysia, I’ll start exploring the tiny island of Singapore in depth.

This tiny post is part of bootsnall.com’s 30 Days of Indie Travel project. Day 1: Goals

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The rest of my posts for the project can be found here.

Tokyo, the milky way

Time to catch up on my travel blog.

Writing this post on the plane back to Kuala Lumpur. It is now 12.17am, October 26. I can’t sleep because the pilot has left the lights on.

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I’ve always loved the night view of cities. Tall buildings with lights on look like the night sky.

On the way to Tokyo, I had the window seat and I had the chance to see the goegeous night view of Tokyo.

The first thought that came into my head when I saw the lights sparkling below the dark land was “The Milky Way”. It looked exactly like the stuff we see on TV, where a swirl of white and yellow and red dots decorate the pitch black vacuum.

Unfortunately, my camera skills and my camera didn’t do justice to what I saw.

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I’ll still always love cities, especially the night.

 

Attacks of the deers

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I was sitting under my umbrella in front of Todaiji Temple when a deer (one of the hundreds there) decided to come around and see if I had food.
With its large doe eyes, it looked at me and poked its nose into my bag.
Of course, being the Gen Y that I am, my first reaction was to take a photo of it with my phone.
Unfortunately, by the time I dug out my Lady Madonna, the deer was attacking my magazine. I had to wrestle to pull the book back.
I changed my seat and the deer left me alone.
But this is not the end of the story! There’s part 2.
My mom bought me a postcard of Todaiji and I wrote the card I promised M. The mail described the deer attack. After writing, mom and I sat around eating persimmons.
The deers (another 2) probably smelled the juicy plump fruit and wanted some of them too. One even chomped onto my postcard and refused to let it go and I did a tug-of-war with it.
A guy standing near us gave the postcard-eating deer a pat on the behind and it let the card go.
But it went around for a bite of the magazine as well. :(