Asia Tour

Now that the whirlwind of seminars has died down a bit, I’m now planning my “tour of Asia” this coming winter.   The tour will be play-work,.. in the Alan Watts sense of that term.

The backbone of the tour will be 4 Seminars we’ll be doing (we= Tomoe, my friend Joe, and my best friend Kristin).   Each seminar will be 2 days long.  We’ll be doing one in Bangkok, one in Singapore, one in Seoul, and one in Osaka.

In addition, I (or we) will be doing Workshops… mostly in SE Asia.   The workshops are 5 hour long introductions to our teaching method… and are lots of fun.

We’ll charge money for the Seminars, but for the Workshops we ask only that our travel expenses are paid…  (we organize and pay for the Seminars,… the Workshops are sponsored and hosted by groups or companies).

During this trip, I’ll also be be forming (officially) a Thai company.

All of this may have longterm business benefits, but to be honest, what I’m really excited about is making connections with people in each of these countries.

I got a taste of this last year… when I met one of my “All-Star” members… a wonderful woman.  She and her husband showed me around Bangkok, helped promote my workshop, and were generally fabulous.  She and her husband are now friends.

Now that I have traveled quite a bit, I find that I’m not very interested in just backpacking around any more.  Tourism feels shallow.

I find it much more rewarding to go to a country and DO something… and more importantly, CONTRIBUTE something.   In my case, my business is an ideal vehicle for this.   Volunteering or living or working abroad are other possibilities.

Just by having to organize and pull off this tour, I’ll be pushed to make countless connections. My goal is to create a true community in SE Asia and Japan especially…  as I plan to spend up to 50% of my time in Asia in the near future.

In other words, its all about the people and the connections and the friendships.   Looking at buildings (temples, etc…) and going on novel adventure trips (rafting, climbing, elephant riding…) gets old for me after a while.

So this year’s trip is about Connection and Contribution.

Ko Phayam Bungalows Adventure

My very good friend, and Hobopoet compadre Todd, is moving to Thailand.  He will build a business there called Ko Phayam Bungalows. He flies out tonight from San Francisco.

Todd is one of the original “3 Amigos” Hobopoets (Kristin, Todd, and I).  We met in South Carolina, moved to Georgia, all moved to Thailand together and lived there 2 years, all (one by one) moved to San Francisco.

And now Todd is moving back to Thailand for a new adventure.

He and his wife (who is Thai) have bought land on a tropical island in southern Thailand.  The island’s name is Ko Phayam. Todd dreams of building a health and cleansing retreat on the beach… a simple, back to nature place.

He also dreams of a simpler life in Thailand.  Living in San Francisco can be tough– expenses are high and life is generally more complex.

So, of course, I’m very sad to see Todd go.  We’re taking him to the airport tonight.  But I’m also happy for him.  He’s been stressed out here in San Francisco.. and already seems so much more relaxed now that he has decided to return to Thailand.

Here’s the fun part–  I helped him create a blog/website…. and he’s going to do a video diary of his experiences with this project:   arriving in Thailand, living in a small town in rural Southern Thailand with his wife,  moving to the town of Ranong, building the bungalows on Koh Payam, etc..

Being the webeneur that I am, I have also discussed a couple of web business projects with him…  which we plan to work on when I go to Thailand this Winter.

You can follow along with Todd’s excellent Hobopoet project at his blog.  Watch the first video (with me) on his Ko Payam Bungalows blog:  http://payamthailandbungalows.com/

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