First Step

Traveling––it makes you lonely, then gives you a friend.
Traveling––it offers you a hundred roads to adventure, and gives your heart wings.
Traveling––it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.
Traveling––it offers you a hundred roads. How does a holy man know the one you’ll take?
Traveling––it had captured my heart, and now my heart was calling me home.
Traveling––it gives you a home in a thousand strange places, then leaves you a stranger in your own land.
Traveling––all you do is take the first step.

(Ibn Battuta)

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Di tanah air, setepatnya di rumah Tanjong Karang yang saya cintai itu, ada terletak elok sebuah buku terjemahan Bahasa Melayu catatan kembara Ibnu Battutah terbitan Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

Tebal. Saya teruja membaca. Namun hanya sepuluh minit pertama. Bahasanya agak layu. Benar katamu tuan. Industri penterjemahan kita masih ketingggalan. 

Nonetheless, we are catching up. Tuan pernah mendengar ITNM bukan, Institut Terjemahan Negara Malaysia. Besar harapan saya kita akan berjaya.

First Step.

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'Traveling––it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.'

Indeed.

But we do choose which story to tell. And which side of it. Cause I believe, as you said, that there are things;

'somehow you should just let it remains..

as it is..'

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I'm already planning for your trip, dear Nis.