What?
Yoko meshi in Japanese literally translates to a ‘meal eaten sideways’ but is often used to describe the peculiar feeling when speaking a foreign language. I immediately connected to it as I have experienced this stress when attempting to speak pigeon english/local language while travelling, and thought it was a nice phrase to sum up a lot of my travel experiences!
Why?
I love travelling, taking photos and sharing tips so starting a blog was a no brainer for me. I don’t know everything about places, but hopefully some of my posts gives other travellers an idea of where to eat, what to see and what to do. It also serves to distract me from online shopping.
Me
I’m an Aussie girl from Sydney currently calling Doha, Qatar home. In my not so distant past life in the corporate world, I worked in the product team of an airline. Although I’m no longer fully immersed in the airline industry, you’ll still find me geeking out over articles on airport lounges and aircraft refurbishments. I love fried chicken, rap music and Game of Thrones. I like being challenged and feeling slightly out of my comfort zone – although I do like staying in 5 star hotels on occasion. One of my favourite things about travelling is trying out the local food and am inspired by Mr Bourdains attitude and penchant for trying new things. Except squeezel.
My husband and awesome travel buddy is an aerospace engineer. He likes hummus, Dave Grohl and the NY Knicks. He’ll appear time to time in my photos and as you’ll find, is a serial outfit repeater who still uses the same backpack and jeans from his first travel adventures. He’s also my IT guy.
The blog
Okay, so I don’t have that cool story where I quit my job to pursue a life of travel nor do I live a digital nomad lifestyle. I work full time as a contractor and on weekends my husband and I travel. You’ll find most of my content are based on short weekend trips as we don’t have the luxury of going on extended travel episodes for months at a time (we have houses to pay for and Chanel bags to save for). Since moving to Qatar, you’ll find our domestic/transcon weekend trips in Australia have been replaced by trips to Europe and the Middle East. Hopefully my fellow expats and Gulf readers will find some of my short weekend stay posts helpful.
My blog also doesn’t quite fit in with luxury travel or budget backpacker realm – I don’t have a Tumi set or lug around a backpack. I tend to cater my budget based on the location, the solo or group situation, what I want to do and prioritise. Depending on all those factors I’ll stay in a hostel, 5 star hotel or an air bnb. You’ll find a mixed bag of experiences in my blog which will hopefully be a helpful resource for planning your own holidays 🙂
Favourite travel memories
1. Getting lost by taking the wrong way down Mount Fuji and panicking that I only had 1 banana to eat. The word hangry comes to mind, but I don’t think it was invented yet.
2. Discovering how cool Budapest, Hungary was
3. Randomly sharing a meal with some butchers who invited us into their shop in Amman, Jordan.
4. Riding a boat at dawn Inle Lake with some monks feeding the flock of birds trailing us.
5. Swimming with turtles in the Low Isles, Great Barrier Reef
6. Visiting Petra, Jordan
7. Fangirling in LAX Airport when we saw Jess from Gilmore Girls sitting.right.next.to.us.
8. My boyfriend surprising me with a diamond at Victoria Peak, Hong Kong 🙂
9. Coconut in hand and watching the sun set in Boracay, Philippines
Say Hi
If you have any questions, want to work with me or simply want to say hello, email me on hello@yokomeshii.com
To see what we are up to, follow us on Instagram – https://instagram.com/yokomeshii/
