Phi Phi, Koh Lipe, Langkawi – heaven is a place on earth

After years of dreaming of Asia I will finally get to experience some of it myself. In December I will spend two weeks in Thailand and Malaysia with a good friend. Bring on the beaches, palm trees, azure ocean, beach bungalows, fruity cocktails, thai food, snorkeling and everything else Thailand has to offer. I literally can’t wait!

After doing some research and talking to a few friends who have been to Thailand several times, we decided on our travel route. We will start with the first night in Ao Nang, and then take a longtail boat out to Ko Phi Phi. Then we’ll take a boat over to Koh Lipe and spend a few days there before we go to Langkawi (Malaysia) and spend christmas there. Finally we’ll spend the last day and night in Koh Lanta before we start our journey home.

Ko Phi Phi is where the movie The Beach was shot, and for good reason it seems. We will stay in Phi Phi for four days, and probably spend our days on the beautiful beaches, seeing the different islands, eating and drinking some cocktails in the sunset. Phi Phi is probably the island with the best nightlife of all the places we’re visiting. I especially looking forward to checking out some of the reggae beach bars

Koh Phi Phi - the Beach

Party Phi Phi - http://trotamunds.blogspot.com

After Koh Phi Phi we will head on to Koh Lipe. A friend of mine has been there several times and claims it is the most beautiful place in Thailand. I must admit that I had never heard of it until she mentioned it, but after a quick Google search I was sold. What an amazing place! We’ll stay in Koh Lipe for 4 days. Koh Lipe is said to have the most beautiful  beaches in Thailand, and snorkeling is very popular here. Koh Lipe is a small island with a relaxed atmosphere – I cannot wait to chill out in a hammock and maybe do some yoga on the beach!

Sunrise Beach - Koh Lipe. We'll be living here!

Then we’ll move on to Malaysia  and Langkawi. Langkawi is an archipelago of 99 islands located east of Koh Lipe, and is just a 1,5 hour ferry ride away. Langkawi is made up of white powdery sand beaches with coconut trees and bright turquoise sea. There is lots to do in Langkawi – there is supposed to be great food, diving opportunities, shopping, cable cars, rainforest, waterfalls and many beautiful small islands. I think we’ll have a great time our 3 days here – and we will actually spend christmas eve here

Langkawi - Shreyans Bhansali - http://www.flickr.com/photos/thebigdurian/

Malaysian food - http://www.cuti.com.my

The  last day will be spent in Koh Lanta. Since it is our last day I am sure we’ll try to get our last bit of relaxation done here and have made sure to book a bungalow on the beach. Koh Lanta is an island just outside of Krabi and from here we can easily get to the airport by ferry and minibus in only 75 minutes.

Koh Lanta - www.thailandtravelpro.com

We leave in a little over a month and we are both so excited! It is the farthest away I have ever travelled, and I find myself daydreaming about it all the time. Just knowing that I am going there in such a short time makes the cold and dark November days a lot easier to deal with.

If you have any travel tips for me in the Krabi area in Thailand, please send it over!

Ferie = Lofoten + Palmesus

Imorgen er det endelig tid for ferie – det skal bli fantastisk deilig!

For første gang på veldig mange år skal jeg altså ikke på ferie til utlandet, men holde meg i Norge. Imorgen kl. 12 begynner ferden mot Lofoten, eller rettere sagt Steigen og en bitteliten plass som heter Grøtøy. Jeg og en kompis skal på en aldri så liten road trip oppover og det blir altså roughly 18 timer i bil før vi er fremme. Men vi skal (heldigvis) ta en overnattingsstopp på veien – nærmere bestemt i Trondheim.

Jeg gleder meg skikkelig kjenner jeg. Dette blir en ferie ganske ulikt noen andre ferier jeg har vært på. For en gangs skyld blir det bare avslapning og ro. Vi skal fiske, gå turer, spille kort, kanskje bade (får nå se på temperaturen da…) og bare nyte den fantastiske naturen. Det skal bli deilig! Jeg har sett bilder derfra og det er virkelig noe av det vakreste jeg har sett!

Så nå er det pakking på programmet – blir alt fra bikini til fullt regntøy. Finnes ikke dårlig vær…osv… Dessuten har jeg hørt at fisken biter bedre i regnet!

Etter noen dager med dyrking av friluftsliv passer det jo fint med noe på andre enden av skalaen – nemlig litt festivalliv! Neste fredag reiser nemlig jeg og en venninne på Palmesus festivalen i Kristiansand. Det blir nok veldig moro, og det er mye bra artister. Kelis, Fedde Le Grand, Veronica Maggio, Lars Vaular +++ Det er på bystranda i Kristiansand og er visst som et gedigent beachparty – og det beste av alt er at det er meldt soool alle dagene. Perfekt! Blir ikke verre av at jeg simpelthen elsker Kristiansands dialekten – finnes det noe bedre enn bløde konsonanderr (konsonanter)?

Ønsker alle en herlig sommer!

Lykke Li Love (and music in general)

Hands down
I’m too proud, for love
But with eyes shut
It’s you I’m thinking of
But how we move from A to B it can’t be up to me
Cause I don’t know
Eye to eye
Thigh to thigh
I let go

I think I’m a little bit
Little bit

A little bit in love with you
But only if you’re a little bit
Little bit
Little bit
In lalalala love with me
Oh ah

And for you I keep my legs apart
And forget about my tainted heart
And I will never ever be the first to say it
But still I, yes you know, I.. I… I…
I would do it
Push the button
Pull the trigger
Climb a mountain
Jump off a cliff
Cause you know baby I love you love you
A little bit

If you would do it
If you would say it
If you would mean it
That we could do it
If it was you and I, not only I
Ha hm

I think I’m a little bit
Little bit
A little bit in love with you
But only if you’re a little bit
Little bit
Little bit
In lalalala love with me

I think I’m a little bit
Little bit
A little bit in love with you
But only if you’re a little bit
Little bit
Little bit
In lalalala love with me
Ah oh

Come here, stay with me
Stroke me by the hair
Cause I would give anything
Anything
To have you as my man

Come here, stay with me
Stroke me by the hair
Cause I would give anything
Anything
To have you as my man

Little bit
Little bit
A little bit in love with you
But only if you’re a little bit
Little bit
Little bit
In lalalala love with me

Can’t wait to see her at Øyafestivalen in August. Her way with lyrics is truly amazing – the way she is able to express feelings so precisely makes her songs go straight to my heart. I have always been a lyrics junkie and can’t listen to music without starting to analyze them. I feel like songs without good lyrics lack something important, and that great music comes from the combination of good lyrics and a good melody. That’s not to say that I can’t enjoy music without great lyrics, but they’ll never be more than music for dancing or for playing in the background.

I LOVE music and seriously would not be able to live without it. But when someone asks me what my favourites are, I find it really hard to answer. I have so many! What I listen to depends on my mood and what is happening in my life at the time. I have periods with different genres. Right now I am coming out of a long period where I have listened to a lot of hip hop and am moving into more electronica but also soul. (Weird mix of genres – I know. Story of my life.)

Some of my current favourites:

Skrillex

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

Ann Peebles

Dada Life

Robot Koch

Påsken 2011 – kort oppsummert

Etter en uke med påskeferie er jeg nå klar for å begynne på hverdagen igjen. Men jeg er like overrasket over hvor lite av det jeg “burde gjort” jeg har fått til på denne tiden. Jeg hadde nemlig store planer om å få gjort litt i leiligheten og i alle fall fått tatt en slags vårrengjøring. Status etter ferien er at jeg har mengder med klesvask på vent, rot “overalt”, fortsatt en del uferdige prosjekter i leiligheten, ikke fått ryddet bort vinterklær og en en svært redusert saldo på konto… MEN; jeg smiler fra øre til øre – og konkluderer dermed med at ferien har vært svært vellykket!

Jeg har gjort mye moro i ferien. First up var Sensation White – et fantastisk house party der alle var kledd i hvitt og hele 22 000 dansende mennesker på Telenor Arena. Utrolig moro! Det har jo vært utrolig fint vær hele påskeuka, og med 18 grader og sol har det ikke blitt få utepils! Noe av det beste med å ha flytta til Grünerløkka er kanskje at det er så kort vei til alt, og med Olaf Ryes plass og Sofienbergparken rett utenfor døra. Herlig! Har blitt noen turer i parken i påsken og det har vært fantastisk å kjenne solen på kroppen igjen! Det er lite som slår å ligge og slappe av på et pledd i sola med god musikk og godt selskap.

Ellers var jeg også på Inferno festivalen en av dagene med en venninne. Kontrasten mellom Sensation og Inferno er rimelig drøy, men jeg likte begge deler på forskjellige måter. Jeg har jo en særdeles bred musikksmak og liker derfor både house og metal (og nesten alt som ligger i mellom)! Det har ikke blitt fullt så mye trening i ferien som jeg hadde satset på, men jeg fikk i alle fall med meg en yoga workshop i helga. For alle som er interessert i yoga anbefaler jeg å sjekke ut EightTreasuresYoga og deres side her som holder til i Vika. De tilbyr yogatrening per donasjon, dvs. man gir det man ønsker etter trening eller ingenting i det hele tatt. Fantastisk konsept, og med fantastiske yogalærere!

Ellers har jeg fått vært mye sammen med familie og venner, og det setter jeg alltid pris på. Har sagt det før, men jeg er heldig som har så flotte folk i livet mitt!

Imorgen begynner hverdagen igjen, men det gjør ingenting! Er mye morsomme ting som ligger i vente, og jeg gleder meg til alt sammen. Livet er rimelig fantastisk om dagen og da kan man ikke annet enn å nyte det, uansett om det er ferie eller jobb som gjelder.

The big stuff

All that we have is a result of what we have thought

- Buddha

I’m gonna spare you for all the self-help mumbo jumbo, but I will say that I am reading a couple of very interesting books these days (opinions on these books differ from the people who feel it is all bulls**t to the ones who feel like they have found the answer to all life’s questions). What I love about these books is that they make me think about life from a different angle, and (sometimes) I learn something new that gives me a new insight about myself and others.

I have always been very interested in philosophy and religion and the bigger questions in life. When I was younger I was a sworn atheist and so sure that there was nothing else to this world than what you see. I used to think that religion was just a comfort to the people who were too weak to face the realities in life, mostly because that’s what my parents told me. I used to think that when you die there is just a big black hole of nothingness, and that’s pretty much the scariest thought I can imagine. During the years since then I have become more open to the possibility that there might be more to this world than what the eye can see, and though I doubt that I will ever feel like I have figured out how this life works I love to discuss and read about these things.

There is of course a big difference between religion and the self help books; where many religions center around some kind of God or higher power that we need to praise, the self help books tell us that all we need in order to find meaning in life and peace lies within us. But there are similarities as well. Both religion and the self help books seek to show us the road to a better life and seek to give us the answers to how we need to act in order to change our lives for the better – I guess that is partly what fascinates me.

Reading books about Yoga, Buddhism and even the famous “The Secret” lets me take a time out during the day to “get my head out of my ass” (so to speak) and think about the bigger things in life and the big questions. Sometimes it feels good to lose oneself in thoughts such as; Is there such a thing as a soul? Do we have life after death? Do the thoughts we think shape our lives in more ways than we think? Are all living things in the world somehow connected? Although I would like to find an answer to these I don’t necessarily feel like that is the goal, I just love pondering and considering the implications of the different possible answers.

/Line

The Optimist Creed

Found this today and absolutely loved it.

Promise Yourself-

To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.

To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

The Optimist Creed was developed by Christian D. Larson

2011 – the year of good decisions

Happy New Year!

After a long break from blogging I thought it was about time to start back up. I’ve had a wonderful christmas break and am now back in business and feeling better than ever.

I have always been a sucker for New Years and the feeling it gives of a new beginning. The start of a new year has a fresh feeling about it, and the possibilities seem endless. I always have a lot of new years resolutions of course, being the optimist that I am, and I also always believe that THIS year I will be able to keep them. However, like most people it doesn’t always end up that way and I end up feeling a tiny bit disappointed in myself for not being able to step up and do what I had decided.

This year I have decided to have only one resolution, and this one I think I will be able to keep. My resolution is to take better care of myself, by making decisions that are good for me by prioritizing the things and the people that really matter in my life. Taking care of myself covers the obvious such as working out and eating healthily; but also the less obvious and more under the surface stuff like making sure I relax enough, take time to meditate and do yoga and generally focus on finding the balance between the physical and the mental.

I am making the promise to try to ask myself this simple question before going ahead with something: What is the best decision for me – what will actually do me good? Being a very outgoing person with seemingly endless energy, I often don’t take the time to just stay home and relax and instead end up always doing something else. I often just say yes to everything that comes a long and end up with a calendar so packed with appointments that I never have the time to just breathe. The result is often that I get extremely stressed and end up feeling like although I am always doing stuff I never have time to prioritize the really important things. Therefore need to get better at taking it slow and not always feeling the need to do something. This does not mean that I am going to spend 2011 on the couch however, it just means being more aware of how I spend my time and also who I spend it with.

Now, all this focus on what is best for me may sound extremely selfish – and in many ways I guess it is. But it is also true that until you feel good and balanced it is hard to have any energy to give to others. Because needless to say, it is important for me that the people around me are happy and I want to use the energy I get to do more of that in 2011

A few of the things I look forward to this year:
- starting my new job at Markedshøyskolen
- buying my own apartment
- taking my brother on a weekend trip to a secret destination
- being maid of honour in (one of) my best friends’ weddings
- Øya festivalen (music festival in Oslo)
- going to Marocco with my one of my best friends

Going with the flow

“Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change – this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.”

– Bruce Barton

Have you ever had periods in life when everything just seems to go your way? People seem friendlier, the sun seems brighter, you get what you wish for and problems just fade into the distance? Now, I know what you’re thinking…. “That’s being in love” But this time there is no boy in the picture. This time it’s all just life showing itself from its best side and things generally going my way.

As could be easily understood from some of my last blog posts it has been a rough couple of months. Losing loved ones is probably the hardest thing people go through and it hit me hard. Also, there have been other stuff. “Small” stuff if you will, but stuff nonetheless. Work issues, friendship issues, failed romance(s) etc. etc. Now, I am usually a very positive person (or so I’ve been told) but I have felt unusually down the last few months. It can be argued that the way I am when I’m down is how other people normally feel, but that’s a whole other story. The important thing is that I got through it, and as cheesy as these quotes can be I really feel like I have reached “the light at the end of the tunnel”, found “the clouds silver lining” and discovered that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. And it feels good. Very good.

Last week I quit my job. It is a job I’ve had for 2 years, and a company I’ve worked for for almost 4. It was a major decision and a huge milestone, but it was also the start of something new. I have gotten a new job that I am truly excited about with a company (or school rather) that I feel I can identify with and that has so many great things to offer. I feel excited about the new year in a way that I haven’t felt for many years (and being me that really says a lot)! I feel like this new job brings so many opportunities to learn, grow and develop professionally and I really couldn’t be happier.

Another thing that I have really come to appreciate is the importance of good friends. Friends that understand and support you, friends who are there for you no questions asked and without judgement. Friends who can make you laugh when things are at their darkest, and friends who can cry with you when laughing is just too hard to do. I have many of these kinds of friends, and I am deeply thankful for them. I do not know how I would cope without them, and I hope I never have to find out. Some of these friends are also family, some by blood and some by heart, both equally important. I don’t know what I have done to deserve all of these wonderful people in my life, but I cherish my good fortune. (I also thank them all for I just told two of my best friends yesterday that I consider myself a very lucky person. Things seem to go my way most of the time and I have definately come out of some tricky situations in the best way that I could have ever hoped for. If it’s luck or something else I don’t know, but nonetheless I thank my lucky stars and smile to the world.

When I think of the new year ahead I see a healthier, happier version of myself with an exciting job, my own apartment, happy times and lots of opportunities for growth. I predict that 2011 will be the best year ever -  Yay!

In closing I’ll post a poem I wrote earlier this fall – before reaching the end of the tunnel so to speak…

Hope for change

Something I read the other day made me hopeful
A quote sparked something inside
Like a sign telling me that things will be getting better
”It is before dawn the night is at its darkest”
The light is approaching

I am a child of the light
That is what I know and where I can relax
Darkness is another world unfamiliar to me
I feel like it is slowly engulfing me and I lose myself in it

So please let the light back in
I am ready for the dawn to come and yet again illuminate my life
It’s been a very long and dark night
I’ve always believed in the light at the end of the tunnel
It’s just that this tunnel is the longest I’ve had to travel this far…

Stikkord: career, family, friends, gratitude, happiness

If Only

If only I had been better at hiding
What my heart so incessantly wanted
If only I had been better at keeping
My thoughts of you to myself

If only I could have hid my true feelings
Kept them locked away

If only I was better at playing the stupid game
Like everyone else seems to
If only I didn’t feel the need to say
All that was on my mind

If only I could have pretended
Not to shiver every time you touched me
If only I didn’t feel so much
When you looked in my eyes

Then maybe things would have turned out different
If only…

Line Fauske, 2010

Long time – no blogging…

It’s been a long time since my last blog entry, the reason being that my mind has been busy dealing with the grief of losing people close to me.

Grief is weird in many ways. At first there’s the shock when it feels like you’ve been hit by a truck, followed by vast emptiness. Feelings of hopelessness and questions why dominate. After a while you move into a place in between where you start living «normally» again, and once again worry about the regular stuff. But then little things can trigger memories, like a song or an image in your mind, and you go straight back into the sadness again. When it feels like you’ve started to grasp what has happened, you are suddenly reminded that you have not come to terms with it, it is as unfathomable as it was when you first heard.

Losing people close to you is incredibly hard – but the worst way of losing someone is when you don’t get to say goodbye. There are always so many things you wish you could have said, and mainly of course how much you love them. There are always things you wish you had done different, that you had called more often, seen them more often etc. The thing is that you can never change those things, they are in the past. The only thing you can do is hope that they knew how you felt about them, and that they knew how much they meant to you.

During this time I have felt the love and caring of family and friends. There have been so many to support me and show me that they care, and I cannot say how much I appreciate it. Even though there is nothing anyone can do, it means so much that people are just there for support.

Losing people close to you also makes you think about the important things in life. It has made me think about how I live my life and how I take care of the people who mean the most to me. It is easy to get caught up in life’s trivialities and not have time for people as much as you would like to. But I will definitely make a bigger effort to show them that I care, and that even though I cannot always meet them as much as I would like, I think about them all the time. When you lose someone it works as a giant wake up call. A wake up call to live your life the way you really want to with no fear, and remember the things that the loved and lost ones taught you. Take chances, make changes and make sure you show the people you love that you love them.

It has also made me think about how precious life is, and to wonder about what happens when people die. Where do they go? Is there such a thing as a soul? These beautiful people who were here just a short time ago are not here anymore, and I actually find myself hoping that there is a heaven…

Stikkord: Death, feelings, Grief, Life, Sadness