Kiss&Travel: When the Rain Falls

Kiss
"Don't go to the dark place"
- Jack, Sideways (film, 2004)

We always do this: going to the dark place. When we get upset, when we get angry, when we grieve. We have the right to feel these negative emotions, but don't wallow and go there. It's easier to go to a place than leave it.

When you get upset, take a deep breath, count, and think that it's lonelier as you go deeper into the tunnel.

When it rains, it pours. Stay in the rain instead.

Travel

What to do during the rainy season? Stay home or settle for the shopping malls? Or brave the beach and waste your time in your hotel room, sulking at the weather whilst watching cable television?

It is not easy to come up with destinations during the rainy period because of the risks of traveling in such conditions. However, there is something romantic when it comes to finding yourself some place else as the love pours from the heavens.

An idea. Create an atmosphere of a particular destination in your own home.

Have an Italian weekend. Check out Giada de Laurentiis' Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes and whip up exotic dishes you don't normally find in Italian restaurants such as pasta e fagioli and manicotti. Pop in a copy of Under the Tuscan Sun starring Diane Lane, and fantasize a romantic getaway. For a more classic touch, hunt for a Federico Fellini film, and after watching it, shout in the middle of a drizzle, la dolce vita!

Or you can go Japanese. Have a sushi party while playing an Akira Kurosawa film in the background. Or classic anime films from the critically-acclaimed creator Hayao Miyazaki such as Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. A weekend of miso soup, maki and good cartoons. Hmm.

The rainy season therefore gives you an opportunity to get more creative without the hundrums and resorting to sleeping too much. Explore a book, start and continue a hobby, have a fun weekend at home. Like traveling, being in one place also gives you an opportunity to connect uniquely with your family and yourself.