Currently Reading

So I just finished the book "Eat Pray Love" while I was in Japan a few months ago and I would have to say it really tied up my traveling with self discovery.  In this book the author talks about her failed marriage and her path to self discovery while traveling around the world.  Even though at the time I was only in Japan for three months and working at an internship I felt the book related to me on a different level.  Some of the things in the book she talked about really hit the spot and made me want to drop every thing and just travel. Before I left on this internship I though that I was in a sense running away from my responsibilities and relationship with the people around me.  And I was running away temporarily and it made me realize a lot of things and I learned about things that I liked and dislike about traveling.  I also realized I'm not really good adjusting to new environment and make new friends.  I felt as if those three months were too fast and when I just started venturing out of my comfort zone it was already time to come home.  Going to Japan those three months was not my first time leaving the country I had left the country several times before, but somehow this trip was the first time I was very homesick.  Anyhow, now that I'm back home and have soaked up as much family as I need I feel the bug to jump on a plane and travel again!  Anyhow, I'm getting off subject again...back to the book review.  The book was I would say an easy read.  Once you start reading you get really into the book and it gets to the point where you can't put it down.  I would say when she starts talking about India I got kind of bored, but I think that part of the book was the most important.  When I was reading the beginning and she talks about her fail marriage it makes me realize what my duties are really and what will my life be like.  I don't want to be married and be obligated to act life a good wife and all.  I hope that I do marry for the right reason and the right time.  But this books just shows that things in life may not be what you hope it to be.  And if my life does twist and turn like her...I'll be glad and it did and and that I'm happy!  I also remember the part of the book where she talks about her adventures in Italy and the funny thing is I just went to see a movie filmed in Italy at the moment and it sure made me want to go to Italy.  But the best part was the stories in Bali and the imagery portrayed in the book.  I really would love to visit or even live there like she did.  I met a girl while I was in Korea and she told me that the air line Air Aisa is super cheap to fly into Bali from SE Asia...that's one of my plans!  I know that they already made this book in to a movie staring Julia Roberts, but you have to read the book.  Let your mind ponder and create such imagery that Hollywood could never created!

Read it and enjoy it as I did and I will most likely re-read it again...on one of those rainy days!

My favorite quote from the book and basically the reason I started this blog:

"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it."
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)