In this episode of Big Crystal Energy, Ashleigh opens the month of May with a deeply personal reflection on travel as a liminal space — those in-between places where we are away from home, outside of routine, and often more open to transformation, magic, discomfort, and wonder.
Fresh from a hotel room in Portland while attending Spirit Northwest, Ashleigh shares the story of her family’s month-long trip through the Philippines and Japan. What began as a long-awaited pilgrimage for her husband to return to the Philippines and share his culture with their children became a powerful lesson in family, gratitude, culture shock, sensory overload, beauty, exhaustion, and the strange magic that happens when you are completely outside your normal life.
Ashleigh reflects on traveling through Manila, Cebu, Boracay, Palawan, and Tokyo, including visiting family, seeing whale sharks in Oslob, discovering Filipino folklore, experiencing the stunning beaches of the Philippines, surprising her son with a trip to Japan, exploring Tokyo, visiting Sanrio stores, seeing cherry blossoms, eating ramen, and navigating Tokyo Disneyland with two very tired kids.
This episode is less of a polished travel guide and more of an honest, magical, messy reflection on what travel can awaken in us — especially when we are moving through airports, hotels, unfamiliar cities, ancestral places, and the emotional threshold between leaving and coming home.
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