My Egg Noodles

Nicky, Andrew, Myself and Trevor – The 4 of us hanged out together everyday, for 10 years.

For us lot that travel and live abroad, I got the call all off us fear of receiving. My buddy, who has been battling cancer for the last 5 years (since he was 24), was taken into hospital and was in a bad shape.

Hours later I had arrived in London and made my way over to see him at the hospital. He promised me he’d be my angel and that I had to stay strong for everyone else. We joked about the good old times we would get into trouble together while growing up, the state of the food the hospital were serving up and even began talking about our wild trip to Bangkok 5 or 6 years ago.

Sadly, Nicky Avery, my best buddy, passed away the next day on 19th July 2010, due to brain cancer.

Nick was a hero to many, as he was always upbeat about battling cancer and still made it he’s priority to make people laugh and feel good about them selves. He was the least selfish person I knew and also the strongest by far. He’s big smile and deep laughter will be remembered by hundreds that were lucky to know him. It was a privilege to know Nicky. I will miss him deeply.

RIP Nicky Avery.

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There’s a lesson to be learned here for those that live and work away from home; and that’s to make sure you have enough money to get home in case of an emergency. Although not important in the grand scheme of things, the cost for me to get home was just shy of $1,500 (one way) – a figure a few friends who work online in South East Asia do not have saved up.

As you probably already know, the World Cup starts today!

The World Cup is my favorite major sporting event, and I’m really excited to watch the games unfold over the next few weeks, which are hosted in South Africa.

I’ll be watching the first few games from North East Thailand, where I’m sure I’ll be the only English guy at the bar (or non Thai for that matter). That isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the spirit in Mukdahan is high today with everyone asking each other where they are watching the games, and who they hope to win. A tuk-tuk driver even had some African music blaring out of his motor vehicle this afternoon, which I presumed was the World Cup tune. All good fun.

If England get through to the final, me and a buddy have promised each other we’ll head over to South Africa to watch the game. We can only hope :)

Let me ask…. who are you supporting and who do you think will win the World Cup 2010

I’ve received a few comments recently about my poor spelling and grammar issues. This has prompted family and friends to ask what I think about the criticism I have received on this blog and why I approved such comments.

Here is an email I received from my Dad this morning:

A couple of times, I’ve read in your comments, people mentioning your use of English, punctuation and comments like “are you dyslexic?”.

Love the way you deal with them.  We share the same limitations when it comes to writing, but you deal with them better than I ever have.  It’s something Ive always been quite self conscious of, and been limited by.

Anyway, you should make more of your slightly ‘different’ upbringing.  Not much school, it sometimes shows, but fuck you are DOING IT and LIVING THE DREAM.

Thinking about ya mate

Here is what I think;

You can’t be good at everything

Although I would like to improve my spelling and grammar, I sort of just accept that this is something I’ll never be that good at. We can’t be good at everything, so we might as well concentrate on improving the areas that will make a difference to our short/long term goals, or improve in the areas that interest us most. After all, life is to short.

Who’s the criticism coming from?

I learned at a very young age that there are more losers in this world than there are winners, so I have always tried to pay attention to the winners, while brushing the losers to the side. This is especially true when it comes to criticism and advice.

Would a winner waste their time picking at others on the internet? Probably not. This explains why I don’t take these types of comments, or the people who leave them, seriously. Constructive criticism however, is a different ball game. I thrive on constructive criticism – and think more people should embrace it.

Have a bit of confidence

I left school with next to no education and was brought up with no money, but here I am traveling the world while building financial freedom for myself. I consider myself one of the luckiest guys in the world. I have an amazing family, the best set of friends anyone could wish for, a missus I’ve been with for 4 years who supports what ever I want to do and above all; I HAVE TIME. I have the time and resources to DO WHAT EVER I WANT. If I wanted to fly to New York for lunch tomorrow, I could. If I wanted to take a year out and learn to write English properly, I could. That’s powerful stuff.

Would I have all this if I listened to everyone that has given me advice over the years?

No.

Conclusion

1. Accept that you will not be good at everything

2. Be very careful who you take advice and criticism from

3. Have a bit of self confidence.

If people can’t accept that my spelling isn’t that good, then that’s cool with me – they can just move on to the next blog where the spelling and grammar will no doubt be a lot better than what they would find here.

Question of the day

How do you deal with criticism?

Just a quick update as I haven’t updated the blog this week. I’m now in Mukdahan (North East Thailand) catching up with work while trying to lose my love handles after eating far to much in Japan. I’ve been living a really healthy lifestyle over the last couple of weeks and I feel so much better for it! I’ve been getting up early, swimming/running on a daily basis and I’m sticking to a strict diet of fish, nuts and fruit.

While in Japan, I was focused on renting a house here in the North East which I could use as a base for the year, so last weekend I went over to Khon Kaen to check a few places out. Most pads were requesting 7 months deposit, which meant it would be a real commitment if I was to go ahead. After some thinking, I decided it’s not the right time to stop traveling and therefore will continue staying homeless for the foreseeable future.

So since I’m going to continue on this adventure without a base or home, I did the only sensible thing; booked up more travel plans :)

Balangan Beach in Bali

Most of my friends back home are either poor or have families/commitments now, so it came as great news that some friends from London and Denmark are coming over to see me next month. The plan is to head down to an island in Southern Thailand to catch up and get up to mischief for a few weeks. Anyone got suggestions on where to go?

Seafood dinner at Jimbaran Bay, Bali

After some fun in the sun I may go over to Vietnam with a buddy, depending on my work load. Then it’s onto Bali and the Gilli Islands for 2 months with the missus – We keep on reminiscing about how much we miss the beaches and the Balinese food (as seen in the pictures above), so I’m really excited about going back. I really like Bali as it’s cheap, the locals are friendly, Bali has some of the best food in South East Asia and the beaches are stunning. Good times ahead.

Finally, I’ll fly up to China and check out more of the vast country and will make a stop in Shanghai for the World Expo.

That’s the next few months planned, so who knows where I’ll end up after that! If anyone is going to be around in the places above, please do get in touch. It would be great to meet more readers!

Posting will be light for the next few weeks, however I promise to make up for this when I’m back on the road :)

Have a great weekend all.