Monday, July 02, 2012|| On conference and travel

Taipei. One has never seen a city until one has seen it from above.

The only way for me to travel far is through academic conferences. Conference and travel, both make me realize that feeling proud (especially when it's excessive) is useless and pointless.

Seringkali saya merasa puas karena merasa sudah banyak baca dan mengerti. Ketika sampai di konferensi, barulah sadar ternyata banyak sekali yang saya tidak tahu dan masih banyak yang harus dipelajari. Kemudian, merasa bangga atas apa yang saya tahu akan lah menjadi perasaan yang tidak tepat, karena pada kenyataannya apa yang saya tahu tidak banyak-banyak amat.

Bepergian juga sama. Ketika sedang jalan sendiri di kota baru dengan bahasa yang tidak dikenal, membuat sadar bahwa dunia ini besar sekali ya (kemane aje neng). Traveling puts a whole new spin on everything, mainly augmenting the fact that as human beings, we as individuals are pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of everything.

At the end of the day, no matter how far we go, the only important thing is having partner/friends/family to share our day with. To be able to say, "You know what, I have the best/worst day ever..." is a necessary part of a daily life.

This may sound too domestic, but for me travelings and chasing dreams are only fun if at the end of the journey, I have home to go back to.

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Taiwan was wonderful. I expected Taipei to be a lot like Beijing due to their similar root and cultural background (political turmoil aside). But it was different, in a good way. People were nice and helpful. The city was clean and convenient. Saya cuma sempat mengunjungi Taipei dan Tainan. Lain kali kalau ada rezeki lagi, mau sekali ke kota lain di Taiwan.

5:03 AM |