10 Coconuts a day

Move over 30 bananas a day, I have something better! I had 10 coconuts yesterday, liquid and meat and I was quite satiated all day. In fact when I woke up this morning I didn't feel the urge to eat and that's good because today I drank coconut milk, which is leading me into a water fast. 

I never realised how satisfying 10 coconuts could be. The water in my opinion tastes incredible, I would rather drink that than water! The meat, especially when it's slightly thick and very white, is very tasty too and I love eating it. 

I'm in the perfect location for getting coconuts and I am so happy I finally had a coconut day. Recently I've come to realise just how important and amazing coconuts are. I use coconut oil, which is perfect for oil pulling, moisturising, conditioning the hair and eating! So far the only thing I use the liquid for is to drink, but I've read that using the liquid on your face is a great way to moisturise too. 

I plan on doing a 7 day water fast starting tomorrow and this time I'll take it slow. I am hoping my body is able to clean itself and remove some toxins that remain in my fat cells. As long as I remind myself of the reasons and benefits for fasting then I can remain on track and hopefully carry on beyond my set time. 

Living in the moment

I've been trying to live in the moment every day but I get distracted by my thoughts. However, when I am aware of the present moment it feels wonderful. I begin to hear the birds more clearly and I see objects that would normally blend into the distance. 

For example, the other day I was walking and I suddenly thought about being in that moment. I immediately saw a skyscraper with palm trees on the roof! How strange! I've only ever seen plants, vines or small bushes but not palm trees. It was an amazing sight and one I won't forget. 

It's funny to try to describe what it feels like but my eyes seem to get sharper and more in focus. I notice the very small details that most people overlook and most of the time I end up stopping and admiring these things whilst the world continues to go by at a fast pace. 

The beauty of travelling is the ability to do whatever I want whenever I want, so when I become aware I try to cherish each moment. 

I have been lost within myself recently and with my latest "aha" moment I can feel myself awakening again, ready to move onto the next phase. This time I'm going to take it slow and really try to focus on every moment. 

I appreciate life. I am grateful for my journey and I am happy to be able to learn and grow from my experiences. 

Thailand Vlog :: mango mania

Wowowowowow that's how I feel about mangoes right now. 

Last year I was so unfortunate because I couldn't enjoy the mangoes, I would eat one and have diarrhea straight away. So I don't know if that means my body has adapted (which is a bad thing) or last year I had a reaction because of other issues I was having. 

I'm not going to sit and analyse it because I'm too busy enjoying the Nam Doc Mai mangoes that are in abundance here in Bangkok. I've been getting them from 20-25 baht per kilo and I've been eating them for every meal. 

Today I wanted to do an entire day on mangoes only, but after I taught I really got the taste for a salad so I went to gourmet market and got one. 

I missed eating mangoes when I left La Palma and then when I got to Bali it took me a few weeks to acquire a taste for them because they tasted like perfume. Then in Borneo they were so expensive that I never even bothered to buy them. So now I'm in Thailand in the mango season I want to make the most of them. 

However, making the most and binging are different things. But as people stated on Facebook it's not as if I'm stuffing candy bars or McDonald's down my throat! However, I still need to work on my relationship with food. I'm the one with the power, after all it's me who picks it up and puts it in my mouth. 

So tomorrow I will start and end the day with mangoes. Bliss. 

Thailand Vlog :: volunteering

Today I took a one to one private English class with Mint, she came last night and I felt like I did a terrible job but I think that's the perfectionist in me. I believe that I'm really developing my listening skills when I teach and from remembering what Mint likes to do I was able to plan a lesson around her interests. 

So today's lesson was designed around her passion for fashion and the possibility for job applications. Yesterday she told me how much she would love to be a fashion designer, but her mum doesn't allow it so instead she works as cabin crew for a new airline. However, Thailand have received a bad report from Japan, China and a few other countries so they no longer have flights. Mint said that she would like to work for Qatar or a similar airline so I thought it would be good to practice being able to talk about her strengths and weaknesses. 

The lesson started by me showing her some pictures of women and asking her to describe their clothes and appearance. I corrected her mistakes and then I asked her to repeat the same exercise using new images. Each time there were improvements and at the end of the lesson I had her repeat it one more time. I feel confident that she understood, but I will find out tomorrow by repeating the same exercise. 

Regarding the attributes exercise I wasn't entirely confident with it because let's face it job applications are generally hard work anyway, but I guess it was useful to practice speaking in full sentences. 

I find 2 hour lessons are exhausting, especially one on one as there's no one else to break it up. However, today was good because we did something different, the first day we just talked for 2 hours! I'm thinking about taking her to the mall tomorrow so we can people watch and look in the shops so she can practice the descriptive sentences again. 

I'm also thinking that she could describe something to me, perhaps an item of clothing or an ensemble and I will draw it (but my drawing skills aren't exactly perfect Haha!). I hope I get to continue teaching her. 

All in all I'm enjoying this more than when I was at the school. I find that I am better communicating with young adults than with children. They say that life mirrors you so I need to contemplate why I don't like being around young children... Some would say it's because I am a child. Hmm.. 

What I've been eating recently

Well you may be shocked to hear my news. I broke my raw streak and this is how it started. 

For days I had been thinking that I was ready to do a juice cleanse and then try fasting again. So I had the mentality one day that if I'm doing a juice cleanse then I can eat whatever I want. That whatever I want turned into a bag of roasted and salted groundnuts (peanuts in the shell), a carton of soy milk, a warm chocolate cookie and ice cream plus fresh bread from a vegan bakery. 

How I loved every minute of it (apart from when I felt so bloated). The vegan bakery was awesome and their menu is beautiful! The bread tasted so sweet. But the only problem with my decision was the fact that I'd not eaten grains in over 1 year and my body didn't know what hit it. 

I did the juice cleanse for 2 days using store bought pasteurised juice and when I was supposed to shit for Thailand the only thing that came out of me were some hard stools. Surprisingly they didn't smell bad. 

I made the decision to visit Rasayana with my friend and I had a looser bowel movement, but since then I have only been having hard stools again because I have been on cooked juices again for 2 days. I wanted to experiment with using cooked juices and what I noticed was that my skin has gone even softer, but the whites in my eyes have gone yellow. I wasn't sure if that was down to the poor sleep, but then I've been feeling pains below my stomach so I am thinking that the cooked juices are no good at all and my body is telling me so! 

Yesterday I craved avocado so much and salad so I went and bought them. I think my body craved real food with real nutrients because the juices were just not providing the minerals and vitamins my body is used to. 

What I've learnt from this experience is that cooked juices are not ideal for me, I'm still not ready to give up food and I just want to eat the fruit that's in season, which is mangoes! So I actually filled up my basket and bag with mangoes yesterday (8kg in total) and I shall be eating them when they ripen. 

Thailand Blog :: relaxing, new hostel, English club

Well hello there. Hopefully I've not lost my readers because my posting has been inconsistent. I have also abandoned my YouTube channel too.

So I left the alternative school, returned to Bangkok on the train, cancelled my second voluntary position because it was difficult to get to (and I felt like I needed a rest from being with so many children), chilled out for 1 week and now I'm in another hostel in Bangkok helping Thai students improve their English speaking skills. 

First impressions of the hostel were "I want to go back to De Talak!" 

Here's why. The building is residential, once upon a time it may have been a wealthy families 5 storey home, which then may have been developed into flats and it has since been converted into a hostel. The rooms are packed with bunk beds. There are shower curtains hung around the beds to create walls in order to keep privacy when people from other rooms come in to use the bathroom. There is an unusable kitchen that smells terribly damp, the fridge was padlocked (but I think it was cleaned out today) and the lockers are actually really old built in wardrobes and cupboards. 

I feel like I moved from a mid to high range modern hostel to an 80's shabby chic home. The bathroom actually has a bath (which looks like it's older than me) but it smells like those awful lemon toilet balls. The first bed I slept in was just terrible. The mattress is softer than any I've ever slept on (in Thailand the beds are normally rock hard so it was a shock to my body!) and it didn't fit the frame so technically I could have fallen down onto my bunk buddy as well as onto the floor. I tried to keep still and as I was conscious of this I didn't sleep well, plus the noise downstairs was very loud too. 

My second night was a bit better but I have been having to listen to music in order to get to sleep. The first night I listened to smooth jazz, very sexy saxophone music and last night I fell asleep listening to Iggy Azalea! 

Today I moved beds so I am right underneath the air conditioning unit. The previous two nights I was so hot so I made the decision to be blasted with cold air. Let's see how it turns out tonight! 

I was actually dreading the teaching part because of my inexperience but I actually really enjoyed it. The first class I did was not prepared very well. Learning from yesterday's mistakes I put some effort into planning today but I had planned for a group of 9 but in the end they were split up and I only got 3! So my tasks were completed quickly and the last 30 minutes was terrible! 

I feel confident about staying here for 2 weeks now. My initial judgements are turning around and I'm finding things quirky rather than awful. I said to myself not to make judgements and after I accepted that statement I started to see the beauty and not the negativity. 

Tomorrow I may tell you about my recent eating habits... 

Using time effectively

I had the realisation today about how I want to spend my time and I figured I'd let you all know in case it inspires you to think and do a similar thing. 

As it dawned on me how ridiculous my travel goals are/were, basically travelling for food, I came to the conclusion that if I remove food from the equation I'm left with an incredible amount of time. For a raw vegan, food essentially becomes the be all and end all of life. In a nut shell we're conditioned to think we need to have x amount of calories and so we're forever chasing those calories and making sure we have enough supply to keep us going because despite the times when we ate a standard diet and skipped a meal now and then, as a raw vegan we might die of starvation (exaggeration!). 

Not only does it take up time eating food, we must calculate the time spent travelling for food, preparing it and planning our every meal. 

So, when I have all of that time back I'm left wondering what I can do. When you suddenly have an incredible amount of time it can become overwhelming and if you've previously eaten through boredom then it is very tempting to reach for something to eat once again. But this time I've prepared a list of activities I have enjoyed doing throughout my life and always wished for the extra time to perfect them. 

1. Photography. I love photographing flowers, architecture, vintage cars, art and design. I'm sure if I spent more time perfecting this skill I could take better photographs and perhaps sell them in the future. 

2. Playing the ukulele. This is a new skill I'm developing and I bought a book with 127 songs to learn. I'm sure that will take up a lot of time but with having more time to play I will be busking on the streets in no time! 

3. Dancing. A passion of mine since an early age but never fully dedicating my time to it. Now I can learn every style of dance that I want to without worrying about "carbing up". 

4. Yoga. This has been an on and off interest of mine for a few years but time, practice and patience always get in the way. Now I will have no excuse. I'm thinking that a yoga retreat might be a good start. 

5. Meditation. I'm in Thailand and I have been contemplating doing a 10 day silent meditation retreat. I have no excuses. If I don't need to eat then my diet no longer causes an issue. I want to learn from the so called masters and this is my opportunity to do so. 

6. Learn languages. Travelling is amazing, but sometimes I would love to speak the language of the country I'm travelling it. Sure English is widely spoken, but I think it takes great intelligence to master a language. I should at least try to learn 1 other language. 

7. Reading. There's no excuses for this one either. I struggle to read educational texts but there's no reason why I cannot spare 1 hour a day for a book. Plus libraries are open worldwide so my excuse for wanting to hold a physical book is not valid. I can just go to a library! 

8. Singing. I loved being a member of the Redditch Operatic Society a few years ago and learning the songs for Tarantara Tarantara, it would be great to be part of a society like that again and putting on a big show after weeks of hard work. 

9. Running/jogging. I would love to perfect this activity and increase my distance in the right setting. 

10. Creating my own art. I learned how to draw a few years ago (after studying Architecture at university and not knowing how to draw properly!) and I haven't used this knowledge since. I used to fantasise about travelling in Italy with a car and sketching the coastal views and scenery along the way.

11. Sewing. I love fabrics and I love clothes. I sold my sewing machine to come travelling but with a little effort I can buy a better one and continue my passion for (my weird) fashion! 

As you can see I have a lot of ways to fill my time. I just need to be proactive, stop dwelling and making excuses and just do it! There's so much to be discovered that the possibilities really are endless.