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My travels are about to end. I ended up staying in Manila over two months. That's enough time to get a daily routine going. Home really is wherever you lay your head, long enough. That bunk bed at friendlies guest house sure started to feel like home. It was hard to even recall life before traveling. My routine consisted of lots of reading, pool playing, checking out the shopping malls, movie watching, taking it easy and hanging out with the people I met. It was a good place to get stuck in.
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Manila is probably the ugliest and dirtiest city i have ever been too, but it has its charm. The people there are friendly and layed back. Life seems simple there. People seem happy despite it all. Sure, there is lots of poverty in plain sight. You see naked street kids drinking water from leaking water pipes in the middle of the road. You see families of beggars sleeping on the sidewalks. But they dint seem to be starving or even that unhappy about their situation. And when those hundreds of people died in that sinking ferry, no one seems that bothered. I guess people are just happy to be alive, and don't waste time remembering the past, or thinking about the future.
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In the end I got used to seeing the poverty, and I stopped pitying them. I guess poverty stopped seeming that bad. Its a life like any other. Who needs a house anyway when its never cold, who needs money when food grows from the trees, and who needs a job when strangers give money to you for free. Homelessness and unemployment started to seem more like a choice than bad luck. I guess the worst thing that can happen to a person is accepting a bad situation, and if one can accept a bad situation, then maybe the situation is not that bad after all. I'd like to think there is a way out of poverty for these people. I'd like to think that as long as a person is alive and makes some effort to move forward he will get where he want to be eventually.
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The point i was trying to get to is that Manila is a nice city once you don't let the poverty get you down. The city and streets are bursting with life. It seems like people just grow right out of the ground. Okay, enough of this mumbo jumbo stuff. What am i up to now? Well, after the gritty realism of Manila i went and checked out an Island called Boracay. It had beaches that where just like the ones on postcards. White sand, turquoise water and coconut trees. Kind of touristy but still worth it. And that was it, it was time to head back to good old Europe. I probably would have stayed longer if I've had the time. So, I headed back to my folks in small town Finland again for a month or two. I met some old friends there I had not seen for years, i went to my sisters wedding, had a birthday, but mostly i just took it easy hanging out with my brother.
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Now this easy carefree living is coming to an end, i booked my flight back to London tomorrow. So next week I will be looking for a place to stay, and somewhere to work. Back into that hamster wheel. My journey ended on a high note in that I got the opportunity to go hiking around this arctic village called Kilpisjärvi in Lapland. It was probably the cleanest, most isolated and sparsely populated place i have ever been too. Compared with the pollution and overpopulation of Asia, it made for an interesting contrast, and as good an end to my journey as any.
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So this will be my last travel post. Maybe I'll write some more if i ever go on that South America trip i been daydreaming about.
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Well that's that. Thanks for checking out my travel blog. Traveling Asia really is easy as cake, anyone could do it.
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[Update: I found a decent place to stay and a decent job, but I'm already missing the traveling life. I guess the best part about traveling is the not working part, it does not really matter where you go. The feeling of freedom and independence is pretty sweet aswell. What i dont miss is the other tourists and the party scene. I know it sounds bit jaded, but when the tourists arrive a place changes to the point where it just feels like some fake themepark. I'm still daydreaming about going to South America though. Maybe stay longer in one place and get to learn some Spanish. Now that would be cool.]
Cheers
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