Tales of the Road Less Traveled. A Personal Journal — Alexandra Yok

The World is Burning

Like the flowers,

Peaking through the cracks of the sidewalk

I too

Hope I can learn to make space for myself

Alexandra YOKApril 5, 2023Comment

Shao Yang Disorder

To be half in

Half out

With one lung longing to exhale

While the other

Holds its breath

Alexandra YOKMarch 31, 2023 Comment

Grieving

It’s harder than I thought it would be

To look death in the eyes

To see her coming, and yet

To step forward still

Alexandra YOKMarch 31, 2023Comment

India Blossoms in Late Afternoon

You’ve peeled back my layers

I am all but

Raw and tender fear

Exposed

And stinging in the sunlight

Alexandra YOKNovember 15, 2022Comment

Taking Form

I was laying on my back,

Watching the ceiling.

The tune through the headphones,

The speckle of ceiling tiles shaped

In just the right way.

I couldn’t tell you how it started.

Alexandra YOKApril 15, 2020Comment

Breakfast in Japan

It’s always cool in the mornings

Old, thin walls and tatami mats

Only small heaters

For the bedroom

Alexandra YOKApril 7, 2020Comment

Caught Between Two Cultures

In preparation for a trip to Japan, I’ve been reading Canadian writer, Will Ferguson’s novel: “Hitching Rides with Buddha”. It’s been a light and wonderful story of his adventure hitchhiking the entire length of Japan. It was chapter 6, however, that provoked me.

lifestyleAlexandra YOKMarch 5, 2020Comment

The Railway to White Picket Fences

I awoke to blinding lights beaming through my window. The whole floor shook, something like an earthquake. When the train passed through, there was no ignoring it. The howling of the rails and the chatter of voices filled the night. I looked at my watch: 3 am.

lifestyleAlexandra YOKFebruary 23, 2020Mexico Comment

Becoming a Professional Volunteer

Volunteering or finding a work trade, is one of my favourite ways to see the world. It’s the chance to live with local people, diving into local projects and local businesses. It’s an experience of what it means to live somewhere and the people you meet make it even more worth it. Through this exchange, we reinvent the cost of travel, harnessing the currency of skills and labour.

lifestyleAlexandra YOKSeptember 16, 2019Comment

My Mother, Who Cannot Cook

There’s no culture in the small towns.

None in the big cities either.

Not for the girl with light skin and light eyes.

Alexandra YOKSeptember 8, 2019Comment

How to be a Woman Who Doesn't Get Cramps

It’s a dying wisdom, how to care for the womb. I hear women talk about their crippling cramps, about missed periods, about taking pain killers so they can still work out. Periods are not taught to us properly. There’s so much we don’t know.

lifestyleAlexandra YOKAugust 20, 2019Thailand Comment

The Extraordinary Lives of Ordinary People

It’s the small talk at the dentist’s office or perhaps the hair dressers, “Are you a student? Are you visiting? Where do you normally live?” Our lives don’t fit these questions. Our lives are not of the conventional type. There’s no 9-5 job. There are no car payments. There are no student loans later followed by student debt. We don’t ‘live’ anywhere.

lifestyleAlexandra YOKAugust 13, 2019CanadaComment

Leave No Footprints - the waste free backpacker

Often times, the more environmentally friendly choices take more effort. But taking the more convenient options in life because it’s easier than doing the right thing, is what perpetuates the world of waste we’re currently living in.

Alexandra YOKApril 7, 2019Comment

“ Treat one strand of straw as important and never take a useless step.” M.F.

Alexandra YOKMarch 18, 2019Comment

Food as Medicine

My teacher Homprang takes us around her garden. Excited students follow her, smelling each flower, tasting the leaves. The herbs spread out across the property, are used for healing different illnesses. Turmeric grows beside the classroom, and tamarind trees by the road.

Alexandra YOKMarch 18, 2019ThailandComment