Happy Christmas everyone!

Christmas has always been a special time of the year for me. When I was younger, my family always travelled close to Christmas time since that was the time we could escape from the tropical heat and went somewhere cold. As I got older, I had the habit of travelling on Christmas Day since that was when flight tickets are cheapest. In 2012, I had one of my best Christmases ever when I decided to take on a solo trip to Copenhagen and London after being deprived from my beloved Europe for two years.

As of last year, Christmas Day has just gotten a little bit more special, with the birth of this blog. Not only has this been my travel diary for this year, but it has also become one of my main sources of comfort and helped to get me through tough days – from days when I get a little stressed out over travel preparation, or when crappy things happened during travels to when, like these days, my travel plans look bleak and I feel miserable…

If you are thinking whether my life revolves around travels and my happiness depends on having exciting travel plans coming up, you are not wrong.

This blog is also a platform for me to hone my writing skills and organise my sometimes weird and messy thoughts about things. It has also made me love travelling even more since I am compelled to take more pictures, speak to strangers on the road and be more observant over things that are happening around me, even those seemingly ordinary things, just so I can write them down here. It’s also made me more appreciative of my surroundings at home because you can travel and discover new things even by walking around your own neighbourhood.

And one year passed by just like that. I have had several blogs in the past – none of them seemed to have a purpose. Soon I ran out of things to say and they simply became a ranting space. But I can talk about travelling all the time, it is my passion and I will go to all ends of the world (literally) to pursue this passion. And I love this beautiful planet we live in: the more I travel, the more I am awed by the grandness of nature’s creations and human inventions and the diversity of cultures in different parts of the world.

Because of all these reasons, I have decided to buy this blog (or myself, really) a gift! From now on, you can read my frequent writings simply by typing missruslee.com! I have never paid for any online services, but if I were to ever do any, this would be one as a reward for myself for constantly doing something for a year and actually becoming more motivated by it over time. 🙂

So here is to a very Happy Christmas to all of you, especially those who have been diligently following this space even as I’m still finding my voice around my own posts. Here is to many more years of travel blogging to come!