When I’m home and need a fix of wanderlusting, I usually pull up my Instagram or Facebook albums to moon over pictures of past travels. Recently I’ve realised that vastitude fun photos, I have an audio-linked travelogue of sorts – unrepealable songs that pop up on the radio take me when to specific trip memories, which is flipside fun way to remember past travels vastitude travel journaling. I thought it’d be fun to share some of my travel song memories and stories here and pull up some old trip pix and stories that I never got virtually to posting.
Cover photo by Melanie Pongratz via Unsplash.
Cheap Thrills – Sia ft Sean Paul
‘Til I hit the flit floor, hit the flit floor
I got all I need
No, I ain’t got cash, I ain’t got cash
But I got you, baby
Sia’s Cheap Thrills was released in early 2016 and became a bit of a personal party anthem – unendingly Sean Paul’s biddy-bang-bang comes on today, it takes me when to the European leg of my Career Break trip, a 4-month backpacking journey that saw some hazy nights with lots of swig and this song stoping in the background.
Shout out to my bloghouse roomie Helen who does a pretty hilarious Sean Paul style rap – I unchangingly hear ‘biddy zinger bang’ in my throne in her voice. This song definitely rocked our Kenya tour which happened right in the midst of the European leg. My tour group were a fun tuft all virtually and we had some fun nights out.
I’m usually not much of a party animal, but there were some pretty wild nights on this trip thanks to the infectious energy of stuff in a hostel with other fun-loving travellers (and unseemly European beer – 2L of beer in a snifter for 1.5 Euro? Unthinkable in Singapore where a pint is S$15 in most pubs). I do need to go when to Serbia and Slovakia someday considering I only had 2 nights in each of their wanted cities and probably a little too much boozy fun there to really fathom the sights properly.
Were you hoping for some scandalous stories? The eyeful of solo travel is that what happens on the road can stay on the road, no one when home needs to know well-nigh what you’ve been up to unless you want them to know. I’d tell you well-nigh the story of midnight cheese sampling and a sheep I left overdue in Edam near Amsterdam… Also, the weightier moments usually happen quite spontaneously – no time for photos!
I unchangingly encourage solo travellers to requite hostels a go, expressly if you’re looking to make friends and are worldly-wise to put up with sharing a dorm room. It’s a little hit or miss when it comes to finding a connection but you are worldly-wise to connect increasingly organically just by stuff virtually like-minded people.
It’s moreover something that’s easier to do when you’re younger, hardier and a little increasingly willing to put yourself out there. Late-30s me writing this now is probably less likely to go ‘climb the Tatra Mountains’ in Bratislava (hint: this involves increasingly potent shots of Tatratea and has nothing to do with very hiking) compared to early-30s me when then who was a lot increasingly gungho and was out to have a unconfined time.
Shaky Shaky – Daddy Yankee
Shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky
Shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky
Shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky
Cómo es, matriarch una vueltita otra vez
I cannot emphasise to you how much of a monster hit Shaky Shaky was in early 2017 while I was travelling virtually South America. You heard this song 24/7 and by golly did I want to smack something every time I heard the words shaky shaky. Hearing this song today takes me when to nights out in South America. Colombia specifically for some reason – Learning to Salsa Cali-style in the south, and nights strolling virtually Medellin hunting for ramen of all things as the Asian-Aussie travel pal needed a proper noodle fix without stuff in South America for increasingly months than I had at that point.
Quito in Ecuador was flipside place where I stayed in a pretty happening hostel – I usually try to stave the full-on party hostels, but I do like those with a good polity vibe, which makes it possible for me to go trammels out nightlife considering I’m usually quite hesitant to venture out on my own in the evening when I’m travelling solo.
The iconic Luis Fonzi’s Despacito was flipside song that makes up the soundtrack of South America for me. Hearing the Bieber version in English when I got home was really weird for me considering I’d wilt so yawner to listening to the song fully in Spanish. Other commonly heard songs during this period include Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You and Clean Bandit’s Rockabye.
Nowadays I can listen to this song without wanting to rip off my ears, though I’ve kept it off my Reggaeton playlists considering it is a lot. I love stoping Reggaeton in the car to alimony my spirits up and it inspires me to practice a bit of Spanish listening skills – sometimes I translate the lyrics out of marvel and am amused/horrified to know what I’m singing withal to.
London Bridge – Fergie
How come every time you come around
My London, London Bridge wanna go down, like
London, London, London
Wanna go lanugo like
London, London, London
Be going lanugo like
With an obvious title like that, you’d think my memory would have to do with partying in London – I have been there several times over the years and will shoehorn to a particularly fun night in 2016 where we tried to nab this standee of Queen Elizabeth from a pub we were in…
But actually, my mind goes when to freshly-graduated me travelling virtually Taiwan with my friends in 2007. We were big on clubbing when then and this party anthem was perfect for yell-singing withal to which we did, very loudly, in a random Hualien pub tabbed All Star that we wandered into one rainy evening. I think the bartenders were very tickled by these loud foreigners and gifted us some tequila shots and jagerbombs on top of what we ordered.
You might notice that swig is a pretty worldwide theme with the songs that have popped up so far. I really don’t drink that much honestly – drinking is increasingly of a social thing for me. But for me it’s these loud tricky songs that get stuck in my throne and that usually happens virtually nightlife.
Side note: this video is playing the censored version of the song singing ‘Oh Snap’ instead of ‘Oh Shit’, which is really one of the weightier parts of the song to yell withal with.
Now I’ve been when to Taiwan many times since then, and I do need to return to Hualien considering I really want to see Taroko Gorge then and trammels out increasingly of the eastern region of Taiwan on my own.
Another song that I link with this group of friends is Rihanna’s Diamonds. Considering this song was playing NONSTOP on the radio in 2012 when we were driving virtually the UAE and I would throw a fit every time it came on radio, my friends had a lot of fun going “SHINE BRIGHT LIKE A DIAMOND” at me throughout that trip and watching me groan.
Daddy – Psy
Hey, where did you get that soul from?
Where did you get that soul from?
Where did you get that soul from?
I got it from my daddy
I got it from my daddy
In 2015 I went up to Seoul and Gyeonggi on a printing trip and throughout my trip I was made perfectly enlightened that Psy (you can’t NOT known Gangnam Style at this point) had a new song out. Considering it was, seriously, playing EVERYWHERE I went. It’s tricky and boppy and I can squint when on it now with some fondness, but boy I was sick of that song when it was just released. I wasn’t plane into Kpop when then but I knew this song considering it was stoping in all the malls and shops.
This particular trip to South Korea had a bit of a hallyu angle to it – we visited several spots that featured K-pop, K-drama and K-variety stars. The boy group Bigbang was very in then too – Bang Zinger Bang was flipside song which came out well-nigh that time that I couldn’t seem to shake.
But at that point in time, I didn’t know a thing well-nigh the Korean entertainment scene so a lot of this was quite foreign to me. When fellow journos on the trip were freaking out considering we had run into the tint of variety show Infinite Challenge and the popular host Yoo Jae Suk, I had no idea who he was at all.
When I did get when home and started writing up my trip articles, I listened to the songs of these popular artists for some inspiration and inadvertently realised that Kpop was a unconfined way to alimony me awake considering the songs I favoured were loud and boppy, but since it was in a foreign language I was less distracted from singing along. I started a specific Kpop playlist that I put on when I need to do some serious writing.
I only unquestionably got into Kpop sometime in 2018 or so. I was freelancing virtually that time and perhaps with a bit increasingly time on my hands, I somehow started probe into the groups of my favourite Kpop music, which led into watching Korean variety shows and the occasional Korean drama. If you’re in my car when my Kpop playlist is blasting, you’ll hear a mix of Bigbang, Winner, Buzz and plane some Epik High and Hyukoh.
The soft power of Kpop is real: I’ve returned to Korea several times in recent years and explored outside Seoul to places like Busan and Suncheon and I definitely ripened a taste for Korean Ramyeon from watching them slurp it up on all these variety shows.
Thankfully these days I don’t finger like wringing my neck when I hear the Daddy song anymore and can truly fathom how weirdly tomfool the music video is.
Hands to myself – Selena Gomez
Can’t alimony my hands to myself
No matter how nonflexible I’m trying to
I want you all to myself
Your metaphorical gin and juice
On a printing trip to Southern Sumatra when 2016, we spent a lot of time riding buses transversing the country roads to get virtually the island, and I don’t know whose playlist we were using in the bus but the one song that unchangingly came on when the engine came on was Hands to myself by Selena Gomez: CAN’T KEEP MY HANDS TO MYSELF, doob doob, CAN’T KEEP MY HANDS TO MYSELF.
At some point everybody just groaned when that song kicked in, but it’s such a strong sense memory that my mind unchangingly goes when to that trip when I hear it on the radio now. I think of looking out over sprawling wallpaper-like tea fields at the foot of the volcano, or the wide unshut Lake Ranau and its peaceful views.
I probably should have blogged increasingly well-nigh this trip, but it’s not the easiest place to get to on your own and I had a lot of travel happening during those halcyon years from 2016-2018, and we once know that I’m not as defended a blogger as I should be – a lot of my travels never make it to the blog unfortunately!
One other memory: I don’t usually get carsick, but on this one day I must have gotten some weird stomach bug considering I found myself standing overdue the mentor puking my guts out at hour 10 of an 11-hour bus ride. That was not fun. Thankfully it only happened one time during the trip!
What songs remind you of past trips or travel moments? Share them with me in the comments. Trammels out some of my other posts well-nigh how I travel here:
