All of our gadgets and tech unpacked when we got home!

I know what you’re thinking… didn’t you venture out into the world to get away from it all? Didn’t you successfully cut the electronic cord, shedding all the distractions to engage in daily debates, conversation and non-electrified noble pursuits? The short answer is, no! The behind-the-scenes reality of our journey, and the ability to leave home for a year, given educational priorities, career aspirations, visions of blogging grandeur and an obsession with photography demanded tools of the trade… times seven!

No one has ever accused us of traveling light, and the Trip Around the World kept our reputation intact. There was probably over 300 pounds of equipment that we carried and divided between our seven suitcases – all referred to as Troop Gear. Each time we moved locations, troop gear was assembled and divided up between each of us. This gear represented at least 50% of the weight carried across the world by us, including all of the technology, gadgets and the 35 pounds of text books the three older kids required to stay in educationally good graces. Most of it turned out to be useful; some not as necessary. Did we really need an electronic scale? No, Wescott, we probably did not. Did each member of our team need a personal iPad Mini? A resounding absolutely from all of us. Can you rely just on iPads, and leave your laptop behind? No, not if school work, travel booking, blogging and business planning are part of your agenda. Did everyone need their own camera? Maybe not, but the 80K + images will be with us forever!

For those of you contemplating a similar journey, here are a few tips from us:

Only have one cell phone with a US contract. We figured out half way through the trip that it was a lot more economical to buy a cell phone that you could swap out the SIM card in each country for a local phone number and plan. Skype was going to be our main go-to communication system to talk to people back home. However we realized that in many places, the WIFI just isn’t strong enough to support consistent connections. Lisa and I were fairly regularly on conference calls to places across the globe, and eventually we realized that having people call us on our local cell number was a much more reliable communications technology than relying on the Internet. In those first few months of travel, when we still relied on our AT&T iPhones for reliable connections, we had some horrendous cell bills!

Tech Check is Your Friend. While there were many things we probably didn’t get right on the trip, we did a great job at Tech Check, which we credit to coming home with all of the devices we left with. Almost every day that we would venture out into the village, city or countryside of the resident country, Lisa or I would yell the familiar “Tech Check!” call. That meant all iPads, computers, cameras, lenses, hard drives and phones needed to be collected and deposited into a designated suitcase, which was locked up. After a couple of countries, we realized that since all of our suitcases were cloth, it would be pretty easy to cut into our technology booty. So we ditched one of the bags and bought a hard suit case with built in locks, upgrading our security. Really tech check was more about keeping track of items and not leaving them scattered about for an easy poach than a highly secure vault; and the results kept us theft free for the entire year.

Be wary of Cellular Internet Service. When we arrived in Seville, Spain, we settled into our awesome apartment and reveled in the speed and power of the most awesome Internet service. With 7 iPads humming, YouTube videos, Skype calls and iTunes downloads abounded in the first 24 hours. And then, the pipe ran dry! Like a cripple trying to climb Everest, downloading an email took 10 minutes. The video player and Skype laughed at the mere click of intention. It was like cement was poured into the digital river of ones and zeroes keeping us connected. It tuned out that the house had a cellular modem, which only had 3 GB of data allocated a month. And, there was pretty much no way to get more bandwidth allocated! So much for productivity at the apartment. Wescott needed connectivity for online high school, and I was trying to speak to YouTube Creators around the globe. We spent a lot of time at a cafe in our neighborhood that offered unlimited WIFI. Actually, that turned out to work in our favor, as we met a wonderful friend named Julian, who took us under his wing for the 2 weeks we spent in Seville. We also ended up renting a room at local hostel in order to do Skype calls from midnight to 3 am, since the cafe was closed!

Sleeper Device that was Awesome: LED projector. On a whim, I purchased a tiny LED projector that measured 6″ x 5″ x 2.5″ so we could watch movies as a family. This turned out to be such a fun addition to the trip. We watched Khan Academy videos about art history, movies from iTunes and documentaries about a given location on whatever wall  that worked in our current home. We didn’t use it every week, but it turned out to be a fun event we all enjoyed, and I would definitely take it again.

Bring a Couple of External Hard Drives. We live in a data-intensive world. Our phones shoot HD video. Our cameras create large files for each image. When you’re traveling, pictures and videos eat gigabytes like a legion of ants defoliating a jungle. That GoPro camera you think would be fun to use? It is fun, but just that one device required 300GB of storage per country! Luckily, external hard drives are tiny, light and packed with storage. We used 3 individual terabyte drives to support the 3 computer hard drives on our laptops. Luckily, we had no major crashes; but we needed almost every ounce of storage space.

Online High School is a Really Deceiving Name. The University of Nebraska offered a great solution for Wescott to complete his sophomore year of high school while traveling around the globe through their online course offering. While assignments, projects and tests were submitted online, all of the course materials took the form of workbooks… 35 pounds of workbooks! Given our spotty Internet connections, good old print and paper remained a relevant technology that allowed for theoretically consistent studying… if only there was a solution for procrastination…then we may have been able to shed pounds sooner in the trip as Wescott completed each class!

For you shoppers out there, here is a list of the technology and devices we took across the globe:

• (7) Apple iPad Minis
• (4) MacBooks – we started with one 11-inch MacAir thinking we could all share, which lasted about a month before we realized that wouldn’t work; then added a 13-inch MacBook Air that Mouni brought to Vietnam for Wescott as he needed a dedicated machine for school; then added a MacBook Pro for Cliff when he traveled back to North America for work; then added our other MacBook from home when we got to Carmel for Otto to code!
• (6) cameras including a Leica film camera, a Cannon 5D SLR, (3) waterproof Lumix point and shoots, and a GoPro Hero 3
• (1) mini tripod (never used it!)
• (5) SLR lenses
• (5) iPods
• (2) iPhones
• (2) Samsung phone with local SIM cards
• (2) wireless keyboards for the iPads
• (1) electronic weigh scale
• (15) Apple charging cords
• (7) Binoculars for safari
• (3) Headphone splitters
• (14) sets of headphones, thinking we’d lose some, which amazingly, we didn’t!
• (1) Jambox speaker for dance parties and movie watching
• (1) Optoma LED mini projector
• (7) headlamps / flashlights
• (1) solar charger (never used it!)
• (3) USB Memory sticks
• (3) 1 Terabyte external hard drives
• (2) sets of International electrical adaptors
• (300) Kodak T-Max 100 B&W film
• (14) Workbooks for University of Nebraska
• (4) Math textbooks
• (1) Literature textbook

Creativity and Entrepreneurship also abound and seem to sit at the center of this energy, often combining themselves in the most interesting ways. Whether it is an artist merchandising his craft along an idealic path meandering through an even more idealic rice paddy; a Balinese woman thoughtfully preparing the morning’s offerings that festoon every threshold, alter and offering ledge; or a restaurant concept that encapsulates an entire way of life with health, nutrition and wellbeing;  ingenuity and artistry are shared by locals and transients alike. Indeed, the Balinese are renowned for their art and craft, drawing people from all over the world to it’s cultural heart. Which is why, I think, that even though there has been so much change, development and growth since our first visit almost 20 years ago, the Island, and specifically Ubud, continues to be such an energetic, magical place that pulls us in every time.

The beauty of offerings are a daily show in Bali

An unlikely establishment made almost entirely of bamboo, called Hubud, is a great example of how this energy comes together to form something new and unique. Hubud is a co-working space; on the face of it, not much more… Surely, you may ask, there must be a cooler place to highlight in this world-renowned jungle town? Which may be the case if it was just a co-working space, but like everything in Bali, it’s so much more.

Yve and I in front of Hubud

After ascending the stairs for the first time, kicking off my flip-flops outside the front door, and walking into the small lobby, I felt immediately like I was at home, with my kind of people. The energy of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship buzz and hum as you walk around the main floor, set up with shared worktables arranged in clusters. A glassed in conference room beyond the main work area has a group intently looking at a PowerPoint presentation. Laptops and large monitors set up for the day litter the tables as people work individually and in small groups. Past the galley kitchen, offering free coffee and tea, a swinging door leads out to a garden patio that features a large laptop bar overlooking serene rice paddies, a Living Food Labs raw food bar, where eclectics eat lunch and sip healing tonics, and a grassed courtyard replete with huge beanbag lounges for the more casual thinker and collaborator.

The Living Food Lab, where you can grab a raw lunch to keep you creative and productive

We joined immediately! After all, we fit their mission perfectly. Work-life balance is a hallmark of the entrepreneurial lifestyle in Bali, which is one of the core principals of Project Equator, where Lisa and I connect our family with cultures around the world while starting a new digital media venture. Hubud celebrates this value as a means to success, where so many incubator / shared work environments promote  the opposite, where an atmosphere of a more unbalanced, work-til-you-drop mentality persists.

For the past year, Lisa and I have embodied the concept of Digital Nomad, of which there is a whole tribe that makes up the Hubud family. At a welcome lunch where we sat down with the co-founder of Hubud, Steve Munroe, and a band of global, digital nomads from around the world, we were immediately struck with the diversity of talent, yet singularity of attraction, to this magnetic temple of sustainability. We’ve met several entrepreneurs in and around the Bali community, and the sense of connection and collaboration mirrors the karmic roots of the Balinese people.

Zen courtyard to hang out in, drink a healthy juice combo, or grab a beer with friends.

Me hanging out in the skype booth after midnight!

We all frequented Hubud over the course of our 2+month stay in Ubud. Wescott, Yve and Otto joined, using it as their school library and cool hangout often. Our buddy Ben, a 21-year old entrepreneur who is staying with friends Wendy and Walker, could always be found working on one of three businesses he had conceived and launched in a matter of weeks. Lisa and I had a few late night calls in Hubud’s Skype booths, reveling in the 5G Internet connections we craved for so much of the trip. We joined in on a mixer, where nutritious juices were replaced with beer, wine and pizza, offering a chance to meet many creative, entrepreneurs, designers, bloggers and personalities. It all just felt perfect, set in a perfect place.

Our buddy Ben, getting a cucumber eye treatment with Otto at Tuck and Jones birthday party

Communal atmosphere, open 24 hours per day

Gazing out across the mature rice plants bending gracefully with their almost-ripe grain heads, my laptop keys untouched for the past several minutes, I am struck with a sense of the energy that is, in fact, a collective generation of an unseen vortex, spiritual crystals, positive karma, centuries-cultivated creativity and an undeniable entrepreneurial spirit. It is a collaborative evolution, started and cultivated by the Balinese, and amplified by a fascinating, eclectic, imaginative, grounded, seeking set of visitors. I am powered up, renewed, refreshed and ready to take on the next chapter thanks to a nice pit stop here in Hubud. To all my digitally-nomadically inclined friends out there, here’s a piece of advice: come to Bali, join Hubud and let the creative process begin!

There is an endless supply of inspiration to work by in Ubud… Here’s another nice place to work quietly by serene rice paddies at Pomegranate Cafe…

Man carrying grass bundle was the only traffic on my early morning run

Taking a break from Project Equator has been a whirlwind, leaving me with many great experiences, lots of travel and refreshed perspective on our family gap year. The creative energy of entrepreneurship, the collective experiences of world travel, the nourishment of true and rich time with my family, and the self-awareness of starting “the second half” as the half-century milestone passes for me all combine into a stream of possibility and joy that is represented perfectly here in Ubud, Bali.

Rice paddies next to the Camphuan Ridge Trail

When I arrived at the foot of Penestanan, where over 100 steps looked down on me as I exited Ketut’s car (our host and village Chief), I was beyond excited. Like a flood of brain cells unlocked from 18 years earlier, I had the warm bath of familiarity, returning to the small village within Ubud where Lisa and I honeymooned in 1995. Like one of those dream sequences in a movie, Ketut pointed up the seemingly ancient stone steps and said “head on up and you will find your family.”

The entrance gate to Rumah Cinta

After weeks of separation, I couldn’t believe I was coming home… and what a magical, mystical purely awesome home it is! At the top of the steps, guarded by stone gods at each terrace, Ketut’s wife Made pointed me down a narrow stone path bordered by an ancient irrigation channel gurgling water to now extinct rice paddies. A series of wooden signs and pinned posters hinted at a myriad of yoga studios, organic restaurants, raw cooking schools, progressive art studios and ads for various assortments of accommodations. With the directions “follow the path and take a left at Intuitive Flow, you’ll be home,” I continued on.

Made, part of the family that is taking care of us, loaded with the morning’s offerings on the path outside our villa.

Upon taking the left, a narrow path adorned with a Hindu alter, fresh offerings and a bright yellow ceremonial umbrella led to a wonderfully elaborate stone and carved wooden gate, with the doors open to embrace me as I entered the compound. A seemingly unreal and exotic tropical garden greeted me, with rich, rubbery greenery, brightly colored flowers, serene statues, a quintessential negative edged pool and a stone villa all hit my senses as I dreamily floated in. That evening, we enjoyed a magical reunion and 50th birthday festivities, serving as my first of many scrumptious organic meals from our neighboring Yellow Flower Cafe delivered to our outdoor teak dining table by the restaurant staff. Like we’d been calling this oasis home for years, I finally reconnected with my family and was swiftly absorbed back into our familiar bubble developed over the months of International travel.

I am dripping with sweat in the swiftly rising temperature, harkened by the rising sun streaming over the surrounding hilltops, as I run past Balinese women cutting rice stalks in the fields on either side of me. The quiet of dawn is slowly transitioning to another peaceful day in the hills above the bustling town of Ubud. I know I should turn around, not wanting to over-work my slowly recovering body from a previous year of stress and work, but I can’t seem to get off the carousel of quixotic, pastoral scenery sliding by. But inevitably, my knees remind me that it is time, just as I come up on a small path that leads to a small temple and offering alter, fresh with the herbal scent of still-burning incense. As I take a breadth and prepare for the reverse run back, I couldn’t feel more at home anywhere else in the world.

Tuck and Jones hiking the Ridge Trail

The next morning brought us another encounter. It took a few seconds for me to remember and realize that this was the same person who starred in last nights’ escapade. When I did put two and two together, I was ready to acknowledge the fact that same events were inevitably about to take place. Then, suddenly she turned to Sam and his two good friends, who had joined us on this trip, to talk to them instead. Sitting just opposite, I began to feel a bit self-conscious as their conversation started heating up and indiscreet, widening eyes kept meeting mine. By now, everyone other than me, was standing up and voices took on a very rushed and excited manner. Then the words were all but flung my way:

“She says she recognizes you”
“She worked at your orphanage”
“She took care of you as a baby”
“She remembers you”

“She knows you”

Suddenly I was having a deer in the headlights moment. Was this a joke? Maybe. But they kept repeating it over and over.

In a matter of seconds this “visit to the town where I was born”, this “trip milestone” had completely turned into a dream. Far, far away from reality. This wasn’t supposed to be some whole reunion, emotional, yay-yve’s-back-home crazy rollercoaster. We had no ties to my birth mom / family, we had no luck in contacting the orphanage, we knew nothing about Guiping.  We weren’t really sure what we wanted to get out of this visit other than to sightsee. To just walk around the city was perfectly fine with me. “Maybe hike a mountain nearby,” suggested Sam. Finally, Mom came over and saved me from the headlights with her sweet words and incredulous facials.

From there, things seemed to pass in a blur. How could this not be a dream? How did I get here, in this perfect moment in time? I’ll tell you something though; I’m not a lucid dreamer, and I certainly felt like I wasn’t thinking straight. A million thoughts consumed me and the only thing I could properly comprehend was… a smile. I glanced at her again, and this time I didn’t see the lines stretched across her forehead oozing with vexation or the battling way her lips kept twitching, trying to find the right words, however useless, that might penetrate through to us like the night beforehand. Instead, I saw what she had really been trying to say to us in that sluggish means of a dining room. I understood with total clarity.

Completeness in a single smile.

She took the rest of the day off and toured us down (subconscious) memory lane. We visited the ― now revamped ― post office where I was left on its steps, with locals getting a kick out of us taking pictures at a seemingly unimportant local government building. We were then introduced to the lady who found me, freed me of that cardboard box I was left in, and brought me to the orphanage. She was very surprised to see me there in front of her store yet without hesitation, in a made-for-movies moment, she enveloped me in a hug that could quite possibly induce tears to a sob-story fanatic. After our farewell, we were taken to my old orphanage that is no longer in business. And in case you were having doubts that she might have been faking the whole thing and did not actually remember me or have worked in the orphanage (which at some point after everything, did indeed cross my mind) she showed us pictures on her phone of her when she worked in the orphanage and with other girls like me visiting Guiping. To end this dream, we were graciously invited to her house where we swapped emails so we could stay in touch and keep the connection going wherever the world may lead us.

I was adopted at ten months old, which would leave me with no recollection of anything or anyone she showed me. Though, despite the fact that we may be strangers and the difficulty of the language barrier, we communicated in a way that I have never been exposed to and that’s what really touched me. Not the realization that I’m seeing where I came from, but the way we held hands like she was my best friend, sister, caretaker; and the way she looked at me and smiled like I was truly a miracle. Or maybe she looked at me thinking what slackers we were that it took us thirteen years to come and visit ― which she in fact did say, but in a nicer way. Though I am pretty certain she was just glad to see me.
Here is a text that she sent to Sam after we said our goodbyes…thank you Sam for the translation:

“Hello Sam. Thank you very much for bringing me my daughter to Guiping. Even though she is not my real daughter, I tended her when she was little and I took and treated her like my real daughter. Today I couldn’t be more satisfied than just to be able to see her even only for like a second. Thank god we met again after this long time. Hope you can tell her mom (Lisa) that she is a great mom and thank her for raising Yve. Thank you Sam and everyone for giving me this opportunity to meet my daughter again.”

In the end this is what I learned: There is a language within smiles. Within crinkled eyes and softened faces. It’s a language that is deeply rooted in genuine palpability. And hidden behind the vast complexes and double meanings is the simple truth. The truth that when there are no words to be spoken, a smile says it all.

Chen Bin Ying (the lady from the restaurant the night before) explaining to Sam’s friends in the hotel lobby that she knows me

 Chen Bin Ying and me in the lobby

Sam and me standing across the street from the post office where I was found as a baby

In front of her shop, meeting the woman who found me at the post office and brought me to the orphanage

Our movie-esque hug !

Sam having some quality “twin time” as we walked around town

Chen Bin Ying and I hand-in-hand as she tours me around Guipnig

This is everyone who came with us to Guiping: Sam, his friend from his basketball team, and his friend’s girlfriend who was also born in Guiping

Our last stop, at Chen Bin Ying’s house where we met her foster daughter (who was from the same orphanage as me)

I don’t know how often you come across a place as extraordinary and awesome as Mood Food, but I’m just happy we did. Mom, Yve, Otto, Tuck, Jones and I ate here every single day for one month straight (sometimes for both lunch and dinner.) During our stay in Yangshou, we got to know the owners, Daniel and Yanzi, a couple of the coolest people we have ever met! Daniel teaches meditation; Yanzi teaches Yoga: together they are the ultimate health, mind, body, spirit power couple, and not to mention the life force behind the magical Mood Food!

All of us in a meditation class at Mood Food. We were lucky enough to be able to take meditation for a month with Daniel, a Qi Gong Master!

While Yanzi sets an incredibly fun tone with her constant jokes and carefree personality, Daniel is the innovation engine behind Mood Food’s legendary, rawsome recipes. “I woke up in the middle of the night and the recipe for this juice hit me: the Emerald Reviver.” That’s the level of raw passion we are dealing with here: dreaming about recipes for detox juices. Not only did Daniel teach me a great deal about meditation and healthy living, but he also taught me a great deal about zeal and the importance of finding your passion.

Power brownie! This was one of our favorites… a raw power bar! On our last day we ordered 12 to take to Beijing with us

Mushroom Medley! An amazing veggie dish!

Watermelon plate. The presentation of everything was almost as awesome as the taste!

Raw sun burger….another favorite!

Mood Food’s kombucha is the best in the world! …at this point, we have tried a lot of kumbucha around the world

When I say, “I am addicted to Mood Food,” this statement may sound a bit like a blithe hyperbole, but I am straight up serious! Now that we have finished our stupendous, life-changing stay in Yangshuo and moved on from Mood Food, we are all having withdrawals. When it is raining out, I long for Mood Food, the coziest place to cuddle up with pillows and sip on some healthy, warm, and delicious cashew milk. When I see a vegetable, my mind wonders back to magnificent memories of Mood Food, and my mouth yearns for a bite of their delicious aromatic broccoli dish! Day after day, night after night, Mood Food was always a highlight!

I mean, the fact that Jones, who insists on eating at McDonalds every day, and who’s favorite snack is potato chips, still asks, “Can we go to Mood Food and eat their garlic bread?” Justifies its excellence! I love Mood Food, it is one of my all-time favorite restaurants, and I would recommend visiting Yangshuo just to eat at this restaurant, chill out, study meditation, practice yoga, and make memories that will put a smile on your face twenty years later!

Jones with his daily order of garlic bread

All of us hanging out with Daniel on our last day at Mood Food!

For months prior to arrival, the anticipation of what Fun Sam’s would really be like was a topic of much discussion. It was to be one of the longest stay of our journey and we had very few details other than the reviews on TripAdvisor. Would they have good WiFi for homework? Would it be close to town? How would we get around not knowing any Chinese? Was Sam really that fun? Was his name really Sam?

Well, we lucked out! We could not have picked a better place to stay. Sam and his family made our stay in Yangshuo something we will never forget! Sam put us on the 5th floor where we had 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and a private common room. Tuck pointed out that this was more bathrooms than we have on Mercer Island  We had several electric tea kettles and full access to Sam’s mom’s kitchen if we ever wanted to cook. There was not an elevator so we got some good conditioning for hiking the Great Wall

Sam runs the B&B with his parents and speaks impeccable English (as well as a few other languages!) He helped us book anything and everything, rent bikes and even helped us arrange a trip to Guiping! Sam’s mom is an amazing cook and made breakfast for us every morning and Sam’s dad was always there to make sure we arrived home safely every evening from our death defying bike rides

I could spend more time describing Fun Sam’s but I am sure you would rather see Tuck in another video

By the end of a month, we felt like part of the family!  Our trip to Yangshuo would have not been the same had it not been for Sam and his Family!  Sam taught us many things about China and one thing he taught us was that good friends don’t say thank you as much as we do. “If you know somebody well, you don’t say thank you…it is understood…you only say thank you to those folks you don’t know well.” Therefore, we won’t say thank you to Sam in this post, we will just say “you made our time in Yangshuo unforgettable and we will be back”

P.S.  For the record, Fun Sam’s had the best WiFi in China and Sam’s name is not really Sam

View from our room!

View from the roof deck!

We even convinced Sam to go with us to Mood Food

Every time we made our way to the central medina of Marrakech, we would pass a small woodcarving shop. This isn’t your ordinary wood carving shop, rather an out of the ordinary foot carving emporium. What do I mean when I say foot carving, well it’s kind of hard to put into words…

The artist was there everyday, making various trinkets with his unique foot carving technique.

As you can see your foot is operating a carving tool, while your right arm is manually rotating  the wood with some sort of bow, offering the possible shapes you can achieve while throwing a pot.

You are probably wondering where is the action or where is the humor, well here it is….the Sharples kids took this whole foot carving thing into their own hands…I mean feet!

I was up first. I sat on the small operating stool for the advanced contraption, and as Cari would say, my “nervous face” kicked into gear. The owner of the shop practically squeezed me into the necessary position and I tried to hold it for as long as possible, until he readjusted my mistake. He handed me the bow and the carving tool. He showed me the position and I started cranking.

Getting ready.

Getting the hang of it.

Right away, the piece of wood I was presumed to be carving fell off the wood spinner – I most likely had my left foot off a millimeter or two. After many minuets of struggling, the shop owner noticed after a career of doing this, that carving with your feet is tedious, and took pity on me. He helped me place the carving tool while I repeatedly pumped the bow back and fourth. After my arm was ready to burn into a pile of ashes, my amazing piece of art work was finished.

This is the piece I completed!

I compared the one that he gave me as a gift and the one I made – the moral of the story is: Woh, It’ll take way more than one lesson to not make your wood carving not look like it was a stick chewed by your dog, with a crooked pattern.

After my turn, Yve was up!

Then Wescott…

Then Tuck….Jones bailed on us and went back to the Riad

The artist took all of our wood pieces and finished them into chess pieces for a complete chess game. PopPop loves wood carving so he stuck around in awe of the artist’s precision and speed. PopPop, are you going to try some foot carving in Mattapoisett?

It’s a surreal experience re-entering America after nearly 7 months. I stepped on American territory first in Toronto, entering through a gate at the airport terminal declaring my official entry into the country, opposite the gleaming green and white mermaid sign pointing towards home.  In a wash of patriotism, my first reentry point was Washington DC, kicking off my first of many meetings to get our new venture, Teneology, off of the ground.

After visiting so many amazing, chaotic, bustling international cities, Washington’s luxuriously spacious neighborhoods, broad avenues and organized traffic felt decadent. Just a couple of days ago, I was peddling my 2-seater bicycle, Otto in tow, through the continuous pulse of motorbikes, electric trucks, noisy cars and every manner of pedaled vehicles surrounded by a cacophony of neon Chinese characters, propaganda billboards and vendors squatting on all available sidewalks hawking their wares. Now, as I jogged up the National Mall, the pristine organization and sheer massiveness of the multitude of marble facades seemed completely unreal. The sidewalks and convenient walking paths lined with every conceivable shop, restaurant and convenience, all neatly tucked behind clean sheets of glass and well-kept facades made me feel slightly disoriented as I ran past.

Pausing my run for a breadth (OK, a lot of breadths) in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I gazed at Michelle Obama’s celebrated kitchen garden and was struck by the contrast to the markets with piles of fresh produce, meat and fish carted into the city by donkeys and motorbikes each morning, laid out on muddy cobblestones through the twisted, smoky alleys of Marrakech and felt a sense of disconnection. It left me longing for a fried worm cake and a glass of Hanoi street beer as hordes of baby joggers, Lulu Lemon spandex and machine-cut army joggers breezed past me.

Now, as I sit at our kitchen table, with our three dogs lounging at my feet, the disorientation has begun to fade. Between stops in Austin, Denver, Vancouver and now Seattle, my familiar life has fallen into place almost too quickly. It’s as if in a blink of an eye, 7 months of travelling across the globe has evaporated with a pop, Besides a new bulk food center at the South End QFC and the loss of one of our ornamental trees in the garden, it appears as if little has changed in our old bubble. Except, as I look out over the rich green trees and the snow capped Olympics beyond the lake, everything feels enhanced, kind of like seeing a high definition television screen for the first time.

It’s a cliché, but the reality is that we have it pretty good. It is a wonderful bubble we operate in, and the excitement of building a new company again washes over me like a welcome soak in the hot tub after a long day. Seeing friends and family after so many months, meeting creative entrepreneurs building exciting ventures and piecing together a new future with Lisa for life when we inevitably all pierce the travel bubble is its own adventure. But I am realizing that our nomadic family unit living in the ever-present bubble of wanderlust, exploration and connection has shifted my perspective, knocking out a complacency I had been previously unaware of.

While on one hand piercing the bubble and stepping into the control room for a few weeks is kind of a bummer, I think it will help focus and crystalize the last 4 months of the trip for all of us. When you’re in the moment, experiencing everything the world has to offer, time can stand still. Stepping out for a brief interlude shows me just how fast our world adventure is speeding by, and offers a glimpse at how the completion of this journey will alter all our bubbles to come in a very cool way. I am counting the days until I fly back home, on the other side of the world, safely back in the bubble of Project Equator where I can continue to connect, explore and learn!

Everyone’s got someone that they can truly be themselves around.  For some people it is their dog, for others, their mom. For me, I have Ryan Delis Jones.

Ever since first-grade, Ryan and I have known each other because we were on the same soccer team.  Apart we’re both okay guys, me more than him, but together we’re simply idiots! The perfect kind of weirdos.  Anyone can act stupid, but when you have another person supporting your stupidity no matter what you do, then it becomes a movement!

Discard every last bit of conventional wisdom and preconceived ideas you may have about us….we are absolutely off the deep end! Now, whether that’s good or bad, we simply don’t care because we don’t turn around to check who’s watching. We don’t let peoples judgment even phase us. If anything, we laugh right back at them until the situation is so awkward and they feel so uncomfortable that they begin to question our mental stability.

When I say “weirdo,” I know that everyone interprets that word differently.  It might sound a bit off-putting, but let me remind you that many people would have considered Steve Jobs a weirdo when he was in high school.  Now, I am not saying that either of us are likely to be the next Steve Jobs, but let’s just say we cover all ends of the weirdo spectrum. We have done everything from starting a company (not really in the slightest) to jumping off cliffs. Ryan always preaches “Friends don’t let friends do stupid things alone!” and believe me, I take advantage of that 100%.  His motto is our excuse for doing something that our parents wouldn’t approve of.

While Ryan is usually the test dummy for our biggest moments of crazy, I happily take the credit afterward. On the flipside, he has a passion for stealing my ideas, or as he likes to call them “his ideas.”  Case in point, my family decides to go on a trip around the world and somehow Ryan ends up spending a semester in Chiang Mai, Thailand the exact same year. This is actually perfect, because we all know that no Sharples trip would be complete without Ryan for part of it.  My parents fondly refer to Ryan as “their sixth child” and he often accompanies us on family vacations.  In addition, we also have an odd affinity to people with the last name Jones, and have met the majority of them on this trip already… (Steff, where are you? Just because you changed your last name to “Craig” doesn’t mean your getting out of this!)

Once it was confirmed that Ryan was going to be in Chiang Mai at PREM for half of this year, my parents changed our entire itinerary around the world to meet him. This resulted in us cutting Myanmar short by a week…thanks a lot Ryan!

Some highlights from Chiang Mai and with Ryan include:

1) Sneaking out of PREM and going on a run through the rice patty fields and mountains

2) Sharing a hotel room and watching The Silver Linings Playbook more times than I would like to say in this blog post

3) Watching a guy almost get beaten to death during a graphic Muay Thai fight.

4) Getting upstaged by a seventy year-old lady who had way more muscle than we did for crushing herbs into curry sauce

5) Losing a water fight to five elephants

It was a bummer to say good-bye in Chiang Mai, but we will see each other once again in the land of Bali.

(PS: I can’t really take credit for this whole blog post, it was a collaboration between the two of us. Ryan contributed the majority of the poorly written sentences and bad jokes, I added the rest.)

If there’s one thing that I get enough of on this trip, I can assure you that it’s not water. When you have to buy bottled water way down at the supermarket, you find yourself constantly in a state of procrastination and dehydration. Nevertheless, my thirst is quenched by something else: inspiration. Yeah it’s cheesy, but incredibly true! I looked it up, there is such a thing as overhydrating and I feel like I’ve been “over inspired.” Every day it seems we meet another person living a completely alternative lifestyle and my dad will say, “Just another thing to do with your life,” in this sly tone he uses when he is hinting at something and trying to get us to think. “Just another thing to do with your life: become a world class chef and live in Florence!” “Just another thing to do with your life: become a mahout (elephant trainer) and live in Chiang Mai!” “Just another thing to do with your life: sell Buckets o’ Mojito and live in Koh Tao!”

Growing up on Mercer Island, it sometimes can feel like my future is one of the homework assignments that I used to get in Ms. Sayers’ 9^th grade English class: stringent, well-thought-out, and the same one my parents got. You know the drill: attend college, land a solid, respectable job, start a family, make a little bit of money, retire, and play some good old-fashioned golf. Now don’t get me wrong, that sounds like a pretty good life if you ask me, but it’s just one lifestyle out of an infinite amount of others. It might be a good idea to stop and consider the options every once in a while, and ask myself what I would want to do with my life if I could do anything?  If the answer happens to be scuba diving with whale sharks in the exotic Thai islands, then I’ll just book a flight to Koh Tao and apply for a job at Good Times.  Steve Jobs put it best as he neared his final years: “I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘no’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

Our second to last day in Bagan was the day I met Christophe, a man who risked everything and left his comforting home in Belgium, to move to Bagan, Myanmar. He was simply perusing an idea…a dream of becoming a balloonist for a living. Ever since eight years old, Christophe had been obsessed with hot air balloons, and there he was, soaring high over Myanmar, one of the most stunning places I have ever been to, simply living his dream. Meeting Christophe, someone who turned their dream into a reality, made me realize I too could become a hot air balloonist if I wanted to  Not something I would of ever considered back on Mercer, but in Bagan, starting every morning by peacefully flying over ancient Burmese temples lit up by a beautiful sunrise, and getting paid, sounded like a pretty sweet gig! “It’s just another thing to do with your life” as my dad would say.

Whenever I am suddenly inspired by some great purposefulness, some extraordinary idea that has so much potential it makes me smile by just imagining it.  My mind forgets the bounds that have restricted free, radical thoughts like “Why not?” My cognizance surpasses its deep-seated confines and ventures off into an entirely different, delightfully extraordinary world. One can never know what this kind of thinking can unearth, until they try. For example, I imagined a future as a balloonist in Bagan, and instantly dormant enthusiasm that I never knew existed in association to an occupation as quirky and awesome as ballooning erupted. Okay, so maybe I won’t become a balloonist, but it’s fun to expand my horizons by considering and envisioning the idea! What if we all asked ourselves “What if…” every now and then, and maybe by luck we would uncover what truly inspired us? Maybe we would discover the Bagan balloonist in us all, and maybe, just maybe, we too could muster up the courage to make a wild imagination’s fantasy a reality.

I greatly admire people who pursue their passion, and despite all the criticism they may receive, keep on striving. Those are the people I want to model my life after.  Not to copy what they did exactly, but to somehow figure out what it is that really inspires me and to chase it down as they do.

And on the topic of ballooning we are going to finish it out with yet another classic quote:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

-Mark Twain

PS: Sorry to keep writing such serious, meaning-of-life-mumbo-jumbo blog posts. Maybe I’ll just post a video of me eating some exotic asian food next time.

The obligatory champagne toast at the end of the balloon ride, as if it couldn’t get any better!