Fifteen Factlets You Probably Didn’t Know About Me

Me in LangkawiAs a way to celebrate the new look of this blog, I wanted to share a few things you might not know about me. I try not to make the habit of talking about myself often, but every once in a while, I guess it couldn’t hurt: 

I prefer to travel by ferry more than any other form of transportation. I am sure part of it is that I feel safer. I always make sure to know where the life vests are in case of an emergency, and although the food is overpriced, I can’t help myself but buy a snack or two. This should be surprising given…

I studied aerospace engineering, which might be common knowledge by now. What you might not know though, is that I also studied world, revolutionary, and religious history as a minor, which is why I was obsessed with China in particular. Which reminds me…

Korea was not my first choice for teaching English abroad. It wasn’t even my second choice either. I really wanted to live in China and Japan would have been a close second. It came down to my economic situation and I simply had too much student debt which Korea could pay off.

Even though some of my favorite UNESCO sites in the world (like Angkor) are religious, and I studied the rise of Christianity, I am actually atheist. However, I am not really the militant type of atheist (anymore) and have great respect and admiration for those who dedicate themselves truthfully to follow the teachings of their deity.

I am not a huge fan of live music. Well, that’s not 100% true. I simply do not think the cost of watching someone perform live is worth it. But if I were ever to pay a fair price for a concert, it would have to be…


Katy Perry. Yeah… I make no excuses on this one. I like Katy Perry, and have no issue admitting it. Teenage Dream is one of the best albums of all time!

My weight has fluctuated drastically over short periods. The secret is… the Jared diet. I don’t know who remembers anymore, but Jared became a spokesman of Subway after using their sandwiches as part of his diet. I am not a dietitian nor do I know how actually healthy this is for me, but I do vouch for how quickly it can give results if you stick to it without feeling hungry all the time.

Prideful technological ignorance is one of my pet peeves. If you tell me you love the Macbook Air because it is a solid machine with an amazing battery life and (at time of research) the cheapest upgrade to 512 ssd, that’s totally cool. If you argue that the Macbook Air is amazing because ‘it just works’ I may roll my eyes. I get it that everyone is not technologically savvy, but don’t argue if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

The least interesting continent to me is Europe (specifically, Western Europe). Pretty much everyone I know is obsessed with going to Paris, London, and Madrid. Historically, I had a big desire to visit Italy and I did in 2012. While my three weeks from Sicily to Venice were pretty awesome, it confirmed a few of my fears. Culturally, it is just not different enough to the US to justify paying twice or three times as much as I would for Asia. While I do eventually want to visit Versailles and feel the Rosetta Stone in London deserves to be a UNESCO site, it is definitely under most of Africa, South America, Asia, and the Middle East in terms of priority.

Akusa TokyoI’m in love with Japan. It is as fascinating in its modern history as its ancient one, which is why I have been there four times now. My favorite city in the world is Kyoto and Tokyo blew me away for the things it wasn’t. If you have never been, you owe it to yourself to go, like…right now.

 

Don JulioMy dream job would be to work for the Korean Tourism department. Korea does not get enough love internationally, and I would love to promote it so that it is seen as more than that layover in Asia before getting to Thailand.  That is one I made a travel guide about the RoK. My second dream job would be a travel themed café.

My favorite sport to watch is college level American football. There is something about the school pride that I love so much. My favorite sport to actually participate in is skiing. If I could go skiing every weekend, I definitely would. It’s sad that I have such weak knees though.

My favorite animal is the pygmy hippo. If you read that and thought, “ewww, hippos are disgusting,” you should watch this baby hippo video and prepare to awwww the whole time.

I absolutely love scuba diving. It is one of those expensive activities I don’t mind doing abroad because it is totally worth it. I’ve never really posted anything scuba related because I am a weak swimmer, so don’t dare mess around with a camera while I am trying to not die down there.

Finally, I hate raisins. If I accidentally eat one, I might gag and throw up. I will eat almost anything, but draw the line here. Raisins are nasty yo!

 

I hope you enjoyed! If you want to know more about me or the blog, check out the recently revamped About me page.

Julio Moreno
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