Jacqkie | Travel and Lifestyle

I see myself as an energetic and vibrant person. A blanket word for all things the two words may carry. To be able to do many things at one time, always keeping a positive attitude for the most part and being able to find resolutions on difficult issues. This year, I found myself having shifting energies within me and I'm writing it down. I wasn’t sure it was even possible without me acknowledging them, what it entails?? or where it came from but it IS happening. I am no longer hasty. I find this as the biggest shift in me. These days I see opportunities as wrapped candies in a chocolate box. I had to pick the ones I really wanted, instead of wanting the entire box. I no longer find myself taking every single opportunity I see. It was really the case for me in my mid 20s. Now some people might see this as “lost opportunities”, but there are far more important things I value right now – which I will tell you more. Earlier this year contrary to probably everyo...

99% of the time, when I enter my house I walk straight up ahead to my bulky 15 inch television, turn it on, and untangle one by one of my clothes so that by the time I reach the bathroom, I am stark nekkid and ready to bathe. 99% of the time, I am not bothered of what's on it. I just needed that buzzing sound, that's battling with the beetles' sound outside, so I don't feel completely alone. Living alone is the most exciting, and most dangerous thing in the world. Especially for someone like me, who forgets almost everything and - by everything I mean the iron, the stove and the heater all together at one time. Not only is it expensive to live as me, it's also hazardous. I know many friends, and families and online apps have been trying to get me to go out there (which I occasionally do in between 6 months), but orchestrating something in this department is not really my thing. And I mean, by NOT. Whenever Jazz is around, I would hang out with her and hear al...

Awkward, tomboy, too intellectual, private, tough.  When I was a little girl, I remember having to state my case to my mum on wanting to let my hair grow long. It has always been a short bob, mum thought it was more tidy that way. But by 11 years old I grew absolutely bored of it, and simply thought I could do more things with longer hair. Braids, buns, ponytail, style, plenty!  Dad said yes without second thoughts, mum swore by how difficult and uncomfortable it would be for me; having the need to do hair my up every single morning, or brushing it neat every day. And she was right, there were many days when school asked me to tie my hair up in braids, only to find no one to help me at 5am in the morning! Luckily, my aunt nally was an angel in the form of a braids' specialist lol 😋 But that would mean, I needed to walk to her house in the dark and waited to be braid by her very early in the morning. And then, I look in the mirror, twirl my braids and absolutely loved...

Had to get a lot off my chest lately. The couple of weeks have been very painful for me, mainly because of stress.  None of that ex-boyfriend BS, nor loneliness (possibly – but right now I’m certain that it’s mainly due to stress). It’s a broken record I know and that every other week is a story of “how much I have to do” blab bla bla that I try to NOT say those words when I’m with my friends or family. Even I get sick and tired of myself. But alas, complaining is too easy. (So I do it again so casually like drinking water). FML. So the past few weeks have been one of the worst. And I’m writing it down, and telling everyone especially myself. I am building a house from scratch This was the main bane of this episode in my life. I would love to share with you the happy pictures of before and after like the Astro home channels do, but that wasn’t the complete truth. I struggled. Not renovation, nor extension. I am BUILDING an actual house  from...

A couple of years ago, if you would say I’d be out there trying to understand the other half of the population and whatever their… (to say the least) intentions are but in general what “THEY ARE”, girl I’d be rolling on the floor laughing at you while eating my bread in my sweatshirt with my cats eating off of me. Because truth is. I would never see it coming. And truly, genuinely, I NEVER CARED 💤💤💤 Today, I am laughing at all the things I’m learning in this department of my life, EVERY SINGLE THING. A couple of years ago when I found myself back to square one after a relatively long one, with its twirls and forth, among the first thing I did was, bought a cat cage. YES, A CAT CAGE. This post is about one “modern” woman’s topsy turvy and hilarious outlook in this part of her life, okay – (going back to first person’s point of view), about MY I don’t even want to say it… but yes DATING life. I went straight into a serious one after high school so my entire young adul...

12 years later on blogger, finally I've got emojis to play with! 😂😂 I've been a loyal user of this platform, not because there are no other better platforms to use... but rather because I'm too lazy to change the entire thing. It has gone through numerous breakups,  facelifts, templates, enhancement .. from a fun thing, to "I have now gone to not being able to live without" this space thing. See, I talk a lot. I think a lot too. Sometimes I need to contain myself from talking so much about what I think. So I learn to describe things better in words, I write, throughout the years, throughout the lives. And when everything changes, this space hasn't. I still bear a lot of honesty, a lot of truth, a lot of me in this space. *hugs my blog* And I work a lot. Monday - Sunday, sometimes even up to 18 hours a day 😔 Writing is my past time, that no one can PAY me. I mean yes, you can pay me for brand write ups and content marketing *hint*, but my li...

Like punks, blogs are not dead too. I love my instagram, but nothing satisfies the craving to write, like a blog does. Now that I'm overwhelmed with my recent Bangkok and especially my Pattaya adventures, I feel like penning down some insights gained during this trip (before I forget them). 1)  No one cares how you get there  No one really vividly describes how they end up in a picture perfect place, and no one seemed to ask either. The mass usually does not care, or bother to find out how you'd end up at your destination. Which is distorted really, because one NEEDS to know how to get there. The best lessons learned are the ones within the journey itself. The dangerously close timeline of traveling from one city to another, the kind uncle Boon that helped navigate and bargain our way to a depressing floating market, strangers in a 3 persons bike ride, to walking 45 minutes under scorching hot sun because some guy duped you with directions, to taxi scams, and any of t...

My upcoming leisure trip to Singapore is going to be a short one. It's going to be SO short, that my money might just not be all spent after all. HEE. The trip was meant for Laneway Festival  but after calculating all the costs involved, I decided not to go to the festival and save for... the bigger trip next month. And because I'm a sucker for traveling - I decided to just go ahead with the flights bought and stay with Auds instead. Because I travel quite often, both for work and leisure, I was wondering what made me so quick on my toes and my bags whenever I am asked to go somewhere or when I'm heading out somewhere. Because most of the time, these travel must have are prepacked in my bag! I took the liberty (as also by request) to share with you what are my must haves when I'm on the road; 1) Travel Kit: Toothbrush and Toothpaste  If there is one thing I particularly spend most of my shower time is, it's on brushing my teeth! Seriously! I would usually...

I booked a car just before the new years, and submitted my dear old Jose to a trusted car dealer to find himself a new owner. Since then, I have to rely on my brother or my mum to drive me around, even to my social outings *awkward* (still am probably till Feb). On a separate occasion, I was even more busy finding my apartment a new tenant, someone who is willing to stay in the entire place on a long term basis. This whole new tenant thing came about because of the car. I had wanted to get myself a new car but the combination of both the commitment plus my ASB (nothing to hide here) will leave me nothing for my leisure expenses (yes, me and my average life). So after finally nailing down and confirming that I am going to rent out my apartment, I had then, decided to get a new car. More like, I had to choose. I had to choose between my hard-earned humble apartment or car to commit to. I don't know how super rich people understand a thing about value because I'm not in the...

This year I volunteered myself to sing for carols and do my rounds of charity in a local hospital. While I expected lots of fun, and some kind of sadness because we're seeing kids who will be "stuck" more like in the hospital this festive season - I wasn't expected to be completely touched by the visit the way that I was. The rounds in the hospital was already tough on me, and after the carols - each of us connected the kids the way we wanted to. Some spoke to them and their families, some played games, while others continued the rhymes. I didn't speak to any because I was already depressingly affected by the whole visit of the wards and seeing these heroes through the hands and eyes of Doctors, Nurses and Medical assistants were the creme de la creme. During my last round of the ward visit, I decided to speak to a boy (presumably around 7 - 9) who stood by the corner of his ward looking out for the group dressed adoringly in red and glitters. His mum came ...

Ever since I moved back to KK a few years ago, my life has changed in many little ways that I personally felt... have saved me. The ideal life of a fresh communications Bachelors' graduate from Australia is to work with the fanciest, biggest in the industry with quirky perks like meeting celebrities, making big friends from the industry, with money-cant-buy social experiences. In fact, I had them. Fast forward 2.5 years later, the reality was, I had a 50% paycut, demoted one level, thrown into an industry I know nothing about, zero friends to hangout with (my high school friends were all over the world too and had now developed their own cliques) and to top it all - I had to stay with my mum. The reality was incomprehensible at that time, but I was busy adapting to the new life that I forgot time had helped me a lot more than I had credit it for. And at that point in my life, I saw what people meant by - "give it some time". I worked diligently in that new indus...

" Dear Jacqkie, You are probably going to regret reading this on your birthday. You are probably going to hate me for doing this world's most cliche thing, but for what it's worth, you have thought how this will (really) NOT hurt you, instead it could remind you of what your aspirations were for the year. I have decided to not send this email to you on the 31st December , because I figured it will be too late to change the course of how you will remember your 2014. You are writing this at your work desktop at the furthest corner of the office, and as you look around, you are reminded of how different things were a couple of years back when you were still in Kuala Lumpur. It's 6.38pm,  and you have done most of the things for the day since 5PM.  You have become a more organized person, a more reserved person when it comes to your judgement but most importantly you are slowly opening up to your colleagues. You have the biggest restraint when it comes to relationsh...

It's been five days since I've loaded newsfeed of any kind. Facebook/ Twitter/ Instagram. 6 Days ago we were shocked with yet another airplane tragedy. And in all honesty, the recurrence and the violence of it all made it a far more heartbreaking news to digest, yet alone understand - after the news, I had an indescribable magnitude of disappointment on weapons and war between nations buzzing me like a circle around me following me all day and haunting me in all of my daily tasks. I was overwhelmed. I was greatly disappointed in a lot of bigger things in the world. So great that it took all the words from my being that I just, didn't know how to express anything about it.. Nothing could come out from me.   Added on by people's own rendition, interpretation, theories, stories, sensationalism, comments  about the event - I didn't want to continue to be drowned by it. 6 days ago, I decided I'm going to take my time to recover from the shock, to withhold th...

I miss writing terribly. This morning, I randomly browsed through my favourite blogs (travel ones, rightfully) and figured I should pen down some beautiful moments tonight, because, I just feel like it. After much thinking, I've decided to describe to you the different simple people I've met in my life while seeing the world. Something tells me, that people who speak the same language as me are obliged to be better enough or kind enough to me (because I'm their people), so those who do not know how to speak the same language, or look like me - and yet, extended their kindness, must truly be something else. That kind man that saw my mum carrying her own bags and decided to drive us to our destination Yes, we trusted that man. I asked this middle aged Turkish man in his full brown suit and small glasses drooping from his nose white hair on the sides, but barely, after 10 minutes of tossing and searching our hostel, failing miserably getting lost in the intersection...

Hi everyone,  How are you?  I've been crazy busy. I was away in Penang for work a couple of weeks back, and when I came back the whole fiasco of MH 370 took place, and when I was jet setting back to KL for the Future Music Festival, we found out a few youngsters have actually lost their lives due to drug abuse during the festival.  I don't know about the hard reality of drug abuses here in Malaysia, but this shit scares me.  I've decided to take a bit of my rest time at night to write a small note in hope that you don't abuse yourself with a self inflict pain like taking drugs because these substances are short term and they will not be there for you through thick and thin. If you have gone in, you can always turn back. Living  high on life is a million times better than living high on something you have no control of. Especially on something you don't understand.  Please don't kill yourself. You have yet travel the world. You have yet to experience other a...