Foodscapes

National Geographic “Your Shot” community is such a visual discovery through the lens of everyday photographers, travelers, and spontaneous adventurers. They posted a “foodscape” assignment and we immediately thought about my uncle Jong whom we recently visited during our stay in the Philippines. He’s quite a man of the wild, knows how to fix anything, build anything, catch anything, and cook everything. We have a little family compound by the ocean off of the island Mindoro. Below is his photo captured by Aaron as he cooks what he’s caught for us over an open fire. Below this photo are the top photos from the NCS foodscape assignment. Aren’t they incredible?! So many stories these photos have captured. They open our eyes to wonder, and evoke a sense of adventure.

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Early morning markets, Hoi An, Vietnam

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This was taken in a small village in southeast of china called Lishui.People are busy gathering and picking the pumpkin to the market.

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These are two sea gypsies that are cooking the catch of the day.

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Iranian villager woman carries the tray of fruits and traditional nuts at the yard of her house during Chaharshanbe Souri.

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Click on images for photographer profiles and while you’re at it, check out their amazing shots!

Artist Spaces

Give an artist space and let it become their canvas. This past weekend we explored the curious world  of Jakawan Baandin settled on the mountainsides of Chiang Mai Thailand. My mind was blown, creatively stimulated, and curiously peaked. Everything inside and outside of these colorful  concrete mounds were envisioned by the artist and translated into a playful journey down the rabbit hole. Every corner evoked wonder, and every detail was magic. Each home on the compound are themed differently such as the Moroccan room or elephant room and filled with his work of carvings, weldings, paintings, and installations. Completely spontaneous and full of discovery, we will be back for a stay of mind expansion and inspiration. After leaving his compound I can feel my views on living evolving to a change. How beautiful it is to completely express yourself down to every inch of your living. On the drive back, me and Aaron found ourselves sitting in silence daydreaming about our earth mound compound in the middle of the desert one day. <3

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Artist commune

Tribal Textiles

Tribal Textiles

Tribal Textiles

We stacking high with lots of tribal textiles for you indigenous hearts, teepee makers, festival fairies, and gypsy crafters! Some shiny, new and fresh off the hands of the Hmong tribe artisans, while others have been passed down for generations and have now made it into our vintage series of textiles. Whichever tickles your fancy, we’re sure these tribal beauties will keep you warm, or have you winning the raddest picnic blanket award. Each one of a kind, so call dibs on your favorite before it gets picked up! Check out our textile collection HERE.

Our Humble Abode in Chiang Mai, Thailand

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Once was a traditional rice barn is now converted into beautiful and cozy teak-wood home.

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Our sunny living room under our bedrooom is outdoors.

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I can just sit here all day and sip hot tea.

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Looking out from our living room into the garden

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Entrance to our Thai style kitchen.

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I make Aaron eat fruit every now and then 😉

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Upstairs balcony to our bedroom has been one of my favorite reading spots.

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Big windows on every side of the wall makes for a sunny sanctuary.

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Wooden beams and Aaron’s office haha!

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Garden spot covered in exotic blooms.

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Ample space and fresh air.

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Looking into the fish pond

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This tree has been bearing the sweetest berries!

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Yesterday, me and Aaron signed on to a new apartment in downtown Chiang Mai a bit closer to all the action and completely opposite of our zen oasis we currently call home. Change is inevitable and over time I’ve come to embrace it and often times, crave it. Before we pack our bags and bid our current home away from home farewell, I wanted to do a proper home gratitude post. It has showered us with fruits from the garden, woke us up to bird songs, led us to ample spaces for reflection, and even came with a stylish landlord and her super chubby golden retriever.

My landlord has put in lots of TLC to turn an acre lot to run it into this sunny sanctuary full of plant life and koi ponds. If you haven’t already guessed she is a yogi and an artist with a keen sense on traditional Thai homes. She converted old rice barns into cozy cottages that rose like tree-houses and sewed many of the intricate bedding herself. Interiors are all teak wood and packed with character, each home on the compound is as photogenic as the next.

What we love about it, it’s nestled by the mountains of Chiang Mai, surrounded by rice fields and handicraft villages. We found ourselves never wanting to leave the compound! So, as our lease comes to an end we decided to seek for the exact opposite. We’re trading in the long motorbike rides through the country for quick walks to town surrounded by pedestrians, and the handicraft villages for the buzzing night markets.

We will miss our humble abode, and will spend every minute we can soaking it all in!  We’re excited for our next spot and a new chapter here in Thailand.

If you’re interested in staying here check out her website: Ricebarn Thailand and tell Pranchlee we said hello!

Posted in Thailand, Travel | Tagged , , | 1 Reply

Shop is Live!

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Hey friends! So happy to announce that the shop is live! After lots of coffee, hard work and quite a bit of fun, we finally hit the go button. Still many more miles on to go, more treasures to hunt, more photos to shoot and edit, so keep checking in. Starting small with items we would love to sell equally as much as we would love to keep. We’re focusing on tribal, handmade items that bring an indigenous story to your home or wardrobe. Check out the shop <3

Floating Down the Mekong River

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Misty mornings by the boat dock

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Small villages amongst breathtaking mountain landscapes of Laos

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Incredible layers of mountainsides made for a scenic ride

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A temple within a cave

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Through film: Temples along the river

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Through film: At the boat dock

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Through film: Monks accompanied our long boat ride. It was interesting to see them meditating while on the boat!

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Through film: Temp rooftops over the Mekong

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Sundown on the Mekong

One of the biggest realizations we’ve had on the road is the reality of being rich with time. All of a sudden I am happily hand washing our clothes, when it used to be such a chore sticking them in the washing machine and pressing a button. It’s an incredible feeling to get up early, to listen to bird songs, watch the sunrise and write in my journal. Quite a contrast to the days where I’m frantically running out the door and listening to beating horns of early morning traffic. Now I slowly sip my coffee throughout the day for the aroma and bold flavors, not to “have to get through the day”. The more I see different walks of life, the more I realize that the unmarked paths are there for you to create your own. Knowing that has been such a freeing feeling, and I don’t think it’s anything I would have understood without seeing it for myself.

We decided to take a “slow’ trip to Laos. We had nowhere we had to be at any time and creating an itinerary just seemed unnecessary. The slow boat took two days slowly riding the current of the Mekong river. There’s something so therapeutic about sitting still for hours as the wind blows your hair, and views of the majestic mountain regions of Laos pass by. We live in such an “instant’ society where you’re expected to do more with less time. We can answer 10 emails in one hour, but it’s hard to establish any true connections that way. It’s getting harder and harder to sit still, because it’s seen as lazy or unproductive but reflection is imperative in clearing your mind and centering your priorities.

As the sun started set, the boat came to stop at a small riverside village for you to sleep and find some local food. We came with no expectations therefore everything became a discovery.  Some good, some so-so. I’ll have to save our story of when we played pin the tail on the map of Laos and ended up in a village where we felt stranded. Or that guesthouse where all you could smell was cat pee. We laugh about it every time, and can honestly say these moments color our travels.

 

 

Samsara – Birth, Death, and Re-Birth

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“Neither a traditional documentary nor a travelogue, SAMSARA takes the form of a nonverbal, guided meditation on the cycle on birth, death and re-birth. Through powerful images, the film illuminates the links between humanity and the rest of nature, showing how our life cycle mirrors the rhythm of the planet.”

It’s hard to put into words how powerful this movie is. The entire thing is presented without dialogue, encouraging your own inner interpretations through an hour-and-a-half of breathtaking imagery combined with mesmerizing music. For me it was yet another reminder of just how little I know or understand about the world. I keep thinking about birth in the sense of location, and how it dictates the entirety of a person’s life. Their beliefs, religion, perception will depend entirely upon which hemisphere, continent, country, or tribe a person is born into. Of course they could change their location at any given time, but the origins will always be there. And for many people, what they’re handed at birth will be all they ever know. It’s a humbling thought to realize that ultimately we have no control.

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Bangkok’s Chinatown

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On our way back to Chiang Mai from Cambodia, we made a pit stop in Bangkok. I’ve read somewhere that you never appreciate Bangkok on your first visit, but if you come back around a second time, you’ll welcome it with open arms. I feel like that statement was pretty spot on for us. Maybe it’s because we found ourselves caught in the tourist trap area of Khaosan Road on our first visit, but second time around we explored deep through the veins of Bangkok’s Chinatown. We must have got lost in it’s alleyways for hours that day. A labyrinth of never ending markets where anything can be found. Vintage records, colorful wigs, antique arcade machines, and even ancient Chinese potions in mysterious bottles. As we got deeper and deeper into the trenches of street food, gold shops, and rows of silks and fabrics, we realized that to describe Bangkok, words fail. We could come everyday and walk down the same road just to come back to write a different story. It’s wild, it’s almost tangible, it’s Bangkok.

Posted in Thailand, Travel | 2 Replies

A Quarterlife Peptalk

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A quick snapshot from my phone looking out the window of a bus swerving down the mountainside of Laos may not make for a great photo per se, but I couldn’t think of a better image that can translate my thoughts. A bit out of it from a long 10 hour bus ride through the mountainsides of northern Laos, I woke up to a beautiful sunrise. We were so high up that the mountains rose above the clouds and laid like snow. We passed by small villages and I couldn’t help but smile at the children waving as the bus drove by. What a radical change this Friday morning is compared to my Friday mornings prior to leaving. I used to wake up to a screeching alarm clock, sit in morning traffic with other anxiety ridden, overworked, road raged people and I was no different.  As each day of higher sales quotas, and tighter deadlines drained every bit of me I kept asking myself, so this is it? This is what the “real world” that I prepared so diligently for throughout college is like? This illusion was sort of depressing. I found myself at a crossroad and I wanted to run the exact opposite direction. So I did.

You always hear people say “follow your bliss” ‘live like there’s no tomorrow” like a broken record of cliches. I settled for a one way flight and trusted the unknowingness of tomorrow. I admit, it gave me goosebumps, but in the best way possible. The journey of creating yourself didn’t go off like a lightbulb, but it was a mashup of moments such this sunrise on the bus where you feel a slow yet permanent change. It humbled my perspective, and shook my understanding. I finally understood the feeling of being rich with time, knocking out a to-do list that’s all yours, and getting up in the morning excited of what might come about today. Working with dream clients and collaborating with friends,  and past colleagues to produce work that we’re passionate about and proud of is truly rewarding.

Someone once told me the difference between fear and danger is that danger is very real, and fear is something we have made up. Made up of a misuse of our imagination to create anxiety of what might happen. Live in the present and trust yourself enough to know that you’re on the right path and that you’ll know when you need to veer off. Trust that you are not in control and if you let the current of life take you, things will unfold as it should. Don’t just work hard, work passionately. If you’re decent at performing at a job you don’t like, imagine the meaningful work you can produce doing something you’re truly passionate about.

I had to write this to express my perpetual gratitude and hope that this energy manifests into whoever is reading this. If missed most of my ramblings, just remember this: Whatever it may be, follow your bliss.

Tribal Textiles

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As I’m stocking up for the shop, I have been receiving pre-orders for traditional ethnic textiles hand stitched and hand-dyed by surrounding tribes as a source of sustaining their culture. I have fallen in love with these magical forms of art translated into vibrant fabrics. These textiles connect us with disappearing cultures in the developing world as fast as old-growth forests. Fabrics of the Indigenous people are silent storytellers of traditions, and art. I’m attached to each piece I send off boundaries away, and happy to know they are to be appreciated for their aesthetic significance. If you are interested in pre-ordering tribal textiles please email me at info@newcropshop.com.