Story of my life

HELLO! :)

This will be my first ever travel blog. So please bear the simple layout and stories that I am gonna be sharing. And I apologize if my grammars/vocabulary sucks... 

I guess the best way to start is to introduce myself and my background. 

So here it goes ... 

People call me Clara or Lala. I was born in Jakarta, Indonesia 1991 to parents who loveeee traveling. I have three other wonderful siblings, me being the third child. Despite being an Indonesian, I spent most of my life outside. Back when I was 7 years old, there was a riot in Jakarta attacking the Chinese Indonesians. Our parents flew us to Singapore and that's where I spent the next 10 years. Went through puberty, elementary and high schools in the small country. I was a TOTAL nerd back then. Trust me, you WILL NOT recognize me with my chubby cheeks, geeky glasses and braces. Growing up in a competitive country like Singapore taught me discipline & self-motivation to achieve better results in everything. Even though I was only living with my siblings and 2 domestic helpers, I was very surprised that I did not turn out to be a wild kid (Imagine being 12 yr old kid without having any curfews/restrictions, things could have turned out otherwise for some people). Parents would visit once or twice a month. Our family bonded through traveling together. Ever since I dont know when, we would always go on a family vacation once a year. This is where we try to catch things up. 

Once high school was completed, I moved to San Francisco to pursue my bachelor's degree. Why SF? That's because two of my older siblings were already there. Spent 3.5 years going through college and achieved my degree in Accounting from San Francisco State University. I was 20 and I was definitely not ready to dive into the working world. Mum agreed and so I continued to get my MBA in Finance & Management in the city of Angels in Loyola Marymount University. Moving to Los Angeles was one of the best choice I've ever made in my life. All these while, I was either living with my elder siblings or domestic helpers. When I moved to LA, I became the elder sibling to my brother and I had total control and a whole lot of responsibilities. At the beginning, it was quite stressful because I had to figure everything & also take care of my brother. But nevertheless, this is the period where I learn that you only live once (YOLO) and a whole new perspective of the world opened up. I was blessed to live under one roof with my best friend and that was the start of our adventures. We both LOVE doing everything together and that opened up our eyes. To cut things short, we had the best time ever and I graduated with MBA at the age of 21. Yes, I am extremely proud of my achievements because not many people could say that. There wasn't any more excuses for me to not get a job, unless I get a PHD, so I started finding job.

Found my first job and it turned out wonderful. My time in the States finally came to an end when the H-1 didn't go as planned. So in March 2014, I moved back to Jakarta. It's been close to 7 months since I've moved back but I have yet to feel home here. 

This is where my travel blog starts. Traveling runs in the family and in the 7 months that I've been back, I have only been "staying/working" in Jakarta for 3 months. Went to about 14 trips (which I will be sharing about it in the later posts) in the past 7 months and I've never been happier. Traveling is my sweet escape. Since I've been traveling so much, why not document these adventures? I will be sharing all of my adventures and I hope you will enjoy reading as much I do!

With lots of love,

Claraaaa <3