After my hellish experience last week, you’d think i’d learn my lesson about taking the bus system in Europe. And I did - that’s precisely why I booked another trip to Frankfurt, Germany this time - because every time I thought about traveling, I got scared and anxious that something bad would happen. And I didn’t wanna let this fear consume me and prevent me from doing something that I love to do. Despite everything I’ve had to endure, the universe really continues to test me. I got to Paris on time at 3:00pm, and explored other parts of the city, returning back to the bus stop 40 minutes before my bus was supposed to depart at 10:15pm. As the time approached 10:10, I called the emergency service (see, I called them BEFORE the departure time this time) in which the guy on the phone casually told me that it’s been cancelled, and that all passengers should have received a notification about this (which I didn't, apparently). And then you know the drill - my body became cold, my mind started to race, my breathing became shorter, but somehow I managed to keep my cool, even when he told me that there were no other busses tonight and he would not rebook my ticket, and that I had to do it manually. I hung up the phone, called my mom, and broke. down. into. tears. sobs. I can’t even think of a word that could describe how I felt at that point. I actually felt myself hitting rock bottom. The last time this happened last week, I told myself “well, at least it’s still daytime, and I’m only stuck here for four hours, not for the entire night.” and welp in a not-so-funny turn of events, that’s exactly what happened this time. I made my way to the same hotel I went to last week when I used their wifi and charging station, and as I entered the bathroom to freshen up after 20 minutes of crying, a sweet, startled girl saw me, asked what’s wrong, and when I told her everything, she helped me talk to the concierges to see what they could do. Short story short, they told me there was another bus departing in 15 minutes, so I ran my ass back to that station, just to find out that THAT bus got cancelled too. Luckily, I talked to a station worker and had her rebook me for a bus the following morning at 9am. So one problem was solved, but now came the most crucial - where do I stay, in this foreign country, for the next 10 hours? I went BACK to that hotel, hid in a corner, and cried to my sisters and mom for an hour and a half on the phone. I could feel my body slowly falling asleep but knew I’d be caught if I slept in that spot, so I figured i’d find a better place. I walked two steps, and a worker that was eyeing me out the entire time i was there, asked me what was wrong. I’d been caught. Luckily, he was there when the sweet French girl explained my situation for me, so after I told him my bus wouldn’t be departing until 9am and that I had no place to sleep AND no money (this hotel costs minimum $200 a night), he told me he couldn’t allow me to sleep in the lobby. but. There was a private meeting room in that lobby in which he directed me to, and allowed me to sleep strictly until 6am. Bless his heart, I now had a place to sleep. It was rough - cold room, lights on, music playing, people’s footsteps approaching every ten minutes, but it got the job done. And I was so mentally exhausted that I was able to fit in a few good hours of rest. Being the diligent worker he was, he promptly knocked on my door at 6:03am and told me it was time to leave. I freshened up in the bathroom and asked for one more favor - to charge my phone before I left for good. He agreed, and told me I could grab some coffee or tea, along with muffins, that were meant for the guests. There really were no words I could find to describe the appreciation and gratitude that I felt for those people that helped me throughout the toughest hours of my life. I have never encountered people and workers that had so much goodwill and honest concern for people, and although there’s nothing I can do to repay them, I hope the universe repays them on my behalf, with luck, good health, prosperity, and happiness. And like everything in my life, this turned out to be a good life lesson, and I had a huge realization after talking to a really good friend who always helps me through my roughest patches. I realized that these bad things keep happening to me because I’m trying to escape my current reality of all problems with my uncomfortable housing, never-ending visa process, and incomplete class situations, instead of buckling down and trying to make the best of it back in Rennes. It’s the universe telling me that the time for fun is after I start to enjoy my life in my own city on my own terms, and that I can’t travel to escape, I have to travel to explore. i figured this quote I saw in Amsterdam fit my situation perfectly
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When you're having as rough a time as I am, you kinda just wanna escape reality for a little bit - and that's exactly what I did. There's a company called Ouibus that goes to different cities throughout Europe, and these prices are dirt cheap (my round trip was around 50 euros). I decided to go to Amsterdam for the weekend, so I left Rennes on Thursday morning, got to Paris, spent a few hours there, and caught a night bus to Amsterdam. I stayed at Wow Hostel, which was conveniently located 15 minutes by foot from the train station.
Amsterdam was a GORGEOUS city. If I could sum it up into three words, it would be canals, flowers, and bicycles, because that's literally all you see anywhere. The food was absolutely amazing - I ate street food basically throughout the two days I was there, and everything was superb. It wasn't all fun and games though: For one, the bus station in Paris is the dirtiest I've ever seen, and the bathrooms are so disgusting. I've experienced a hole-in-the-wall-no-toilet-seat-broken-door-no-toilet-paper kine bathroom in Vietnam during my AFS trip, but this was worse than that - peeing was almost an impossible feat. My bus to Amsterdam arrived an hour early, and because the sun hadn't risen yet (it was 6am lol) I was stuck at the bus station for an hour. Luckily, I met a few students from the US, and they were nice enough to let everyone use the restrooms by paying the 1 euro fee first. (Yeah. I guess Europeans don't think peeing is a human right because 93% of the bathrooms I've seen have some type of entrance fee - even in malls! it's ridiculous.) THE WORST PART. So. You know how I've been having the worst luck ever. Well. It gets worse. My bus back to Rennes from Paris, for some odd reason, didn't show up at the stop it was supposed to. Now, I am one to make sure that every single detail is correct, and because my bus got to this station an hour early as well, I had a LOT of time to make sure I was at the correct place. So, my bus wasn't at the location it was supposed to be at, but I figured it was just late (like the bus from Amsterdam to Paris). But after almost an hour at the same stop, I started majorly freaking out. I called the bus company and they told me it had already left, and by that point I was crying and on the verge of having a panic attack. The man on the phone was kind enough to re-book me for a different bus, so I now had 4 extra hours to spend in Paris. But hey, on the bright side I got to see a beautiful sunrise? ^ I made that seem a lot less terrible than it actually was, but I don't think anyone, except for my boyfriend and family, in which I called to cry to, knows how terrified I was. I was pacing back and forth, asking anyone around me if they were catching the same bus as me, my hands were cold, my heart almost dropped to my stomach, and I could feel my breathing getting shorter. While I'm going through these terrible situations, I can't help but think I'm just filled with bad luck, and that the universe is hating on me in every way that it can. But after I get over it and find a way out, I realize that the universe isn't hating on me - it's trying to make me stronger. As I look back at the many bad experiences I've encountered in the past three weeks, I'm amazed that I was actually able to power through them. There were times that I wanted to just quit everything (when I got stuck in Paris, I honestly thought about staying there and having my parents fly from Hawaii to pick me up - that's how hopeless I was) but the fact that I'm still here amazes me, because I know the Corina in 2018 would have broken down during the first housing/visa flop. The greatest realization I've made from these misfortunes, however, is that I have the strongest, best, most loving support team back home. My parents and sisters have expressed to me so many times how proud they are that I've been able to overcome these situations, and always reassure me that it's okay to quit if it means staying sane and mentally healthy. My boyfriend is always supporting me in everything, and constantly gives me the affirmation I need - and if he didn't answer the phone during my situation in Paris, I probably would have broken down. And my friends - even the ones that I never thought would reach out - are always checking up on me and encouraging me to stay positive. Since I entered the Shidler College of Business three years ago, I had three main goals. Study abroad as much as I can, become a Shidler Global Leader, and participate in the Asian Field Study (AFS) program. As I’m in the last summer of my college career, I can proudly say that I’ve accomplished all three of my goals.
The AFS program is a Graduate-level, 6-credit summer course that extends for both sessions, teaching students about business ventures in Asia through lectures and hands-on experiences in different Asian countries, by visiting companies and analyzing their position in the industry. Although it’s a graduate-level program, a handful of undergraduates get accepted every summer to participate, and this year, Sam, one of my DSP bros, and I got the chance to be part of this cohort. The class meets once a week on Tuesdays via an online platform where we talk about trends in Asia, different companies, the financial position of the governments, current events about the countries, etc. along with two unbelievably long Saturday classes, where we meet from 9am to 4pm. Yesterday was the last class before heading off to our tour of Asia, and – like all the trips I go on – I started questioning why I signed up for this program, where I would be away from my comfortable and loving home for three weeks and thrown into the unknown and dangers of countries I’ve never visited before. But as I sit here on the plane with another three hours before our first destination, I couldn’t be more excited to make new memories and gain once-in-a-lifetime experiences. I am a huge sustainability and environmental freak who constantly gets teased by my sisters about the drastic measures I go to in order to cut my plastic consumption. Besides bringing my own utensils and tote bag everywhere I go, I also throw my small food scraps into our backyard and find every little way to reuse single-use packages as trash bags to cut down my trash bag consumption. If I crave milk tea but don’t have a straw or a reusable cup, guess who’s not gonna be drinking milk tea that day.
Because of my crazy OCD-like save-the-environment kine nature, I was beyond stoked when Ryan (from Hawaii Happy Hours) invited me to the super-secret-not-so-super-secret movie premiere that he was helping host at Secret Island, in partnership with Karmagawa and film producer Amir Zakeri, entitled “Save the Reef.” I invited my sisters to attend with me, and it was such a beautiful venue and amazing production. String lights everywhere, a huge grass patch, the open ocean with a dock, a few incredible vendors that advocate for sustainability, a photobooth, and a movie screening that reminded me of those drive-in theaters in the 1900’s. While we were taking photos, we met an amazing photographer and her two adorable daughters, @anelaleeofficial that went above and beyond to take our photos. The film was eye-opening, showcasing the devastating outcomes of our negligence on the reefs, oceans, and overall environment. Save the Reef opens with an animation of what life could be like in a few decades, with warnings not to step outside due to toxic levels of pollution, and continues on to show the different reefs and oceans that the team visited and how much they’ve deteriorated within the past few years. The film furthered my opinion of humans being selfish creatures with no regard to other life besides their own. We constantly take without giving back, and we always choose the easy way rather than the correct way. I’m always trying to be conscious about the waste I create and the carbon footprint that I leave, but I know I’m not perfect. I use a plastic cup every now and then, and I trash things when I’m too lazy to drive to a second-hand shop. It’s human nature to value convenience, but it’s time we start turning things around and giving more than we take. Hi. I'm here talking about more food that I ate and more things that I'm appreciative about.
MW Restaurant, aka one of my new favorite restaurants on the island, had us back for the second time in a year to take some pics! Well, I guess I can't really say "us" because I didn't go for Spoon Hawaii this time, but went for Hawaii Happy Hours instead. Brandon, the Sous Chef & Social Media guy is pretty cool and we've been chatting here & there on IG until we finally decided that we should do a photoshoot for Hawaii Happy Hours, because their HH is bomb but not many people know about it (well, at least not me and my friend groups). Butttt. Ryan is in California right now so Steph and Rowena came in his place and it ended up being just a foodie photoshoot with the Three Musketeers LOL. Brandon brought out pretty much everything on the HH menu, along with some desserts for us to take picture of and enjoy, and everything was (as always), SO amazing. My favorites among all the super amazingly delicious foods were the: Unagi & Butterfish Arancini (Not on the HH, unfortunately) Kalua Pig Potato Gratin Pizzadilla & of course all of the three desserts: Mango Shave Ice Candy Bar Tropical Fruit Creamsicle Brûlée And here's where the words of appreciation come in: I am SO thankful to have such amazing friends and connections, and to see how many opportunities I've been given the past few months. Brandon is SUCH an influential person, and like all the other influential people i've met recently, he always astounds me with his skills and kindness. The one day (or more accurately, the six hours) that I worked at MW Restaurant as a hostess, I kept telling myself that one day I would come back to eat at this restaurant. Never did I think that both times I dined here, I would get everything comped and be invited back again. Life works in funny ways.
The picture on the left was taken at Nana's Green Tea in Waikiki Yokocho on the rare occasion that my parents and I were in Waikiki last November. My parents don't get along well, and because my dad owns his own company, we barely get to spend time with him. He's also very particular when it comes to food - only few foods satisfy him at the right times. I remember bonding over the Matcha Parfait in the car with my parents, and seeing how this simple cup of ice cream brought us together - my parents were actually talking to each other and enjoying each others company! I remember wishing I could go back again with them, countless times after that. But of course the combination of me being extremely frugal and my family being so distant from each other, resulted in us never going back. Fast-forward to a few months later, here I am with my dream (unpaid) job, being able to take photos of the food I was never able to pay for. The picture on the right was taken just a few days ago, after the manager wanted to thank me for taking photos for them and creating their promotional flyer for their #nanasmuffins contest. Free ice cream, free muffins, and free bonding time with my sister whom I barely get to see, now that both of them have moved out. I am constantly appalled at how lucky I've been the last few months with all the amazing opportunities I've gotten, and all the wonderful people I've met. I realized that if you really want something, and are constantly working towards that goal (no matter what shape or form this may be in), the world will align in your favor and help you in any way possible to help you reach it. |