Life

Twenty-six

Following on from my previous posts for my twenty-third [https://daniellockyer.com/twenty-three/], twenty-fourth [https://daniellockyer.com/twenty-four/] and twenty-fifth [https://daniellockyer.com/twenty-five/] birthdays, here is my recap of my twenty-sixth year on Earth. In the last year, I have: * lived in York, UK for 1 year * ran a

Twenty-five

I've previously written my year-in-review for my twenty-third [https://daniellockyer.com/twenty-three] and twenty-fourth [https://daniellockyer.com/twenty-four/] birthdays. And now for another! As well all know, this year has been a weird one. Things didn't go as expected for many but I've tried to make the most of it

Twenty-four

Last year I wrote a year-in-review for my twenty-third [https://daniellockyer.com/twenty-three] birthday. And now it's time for another! In the last year, I have: * visited Chiang Mai - Here for my birthday last year, until just after NYD. Came back here during summer to regain fitness after 3

Buying a new laptop

My old laptop was a Lenovo G505s, which I bought in 2014 before starting university. It served me well and got me through a Master's degree & 6 months of work/travelling. However, there were a few things that started to grind on me. The original battery life was horrendous so

First impressions of Bose QC35 II

I have been considering a pair of Bose QC35 II [https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/headphones/over_ear_headphones/quietcomfort-35-wireless-ii.html] for quite some time and decided to start looking for some when I was in Chiang Mai. I often work from cafés and they can get overwhelmingly

Day one in Kuala Lumpur

After arriving in KL [https://daniellockyer.com/flying-to-kuala-lumpur/], I spent the rest of the day wandering around trying to get some bearings. I had randomly booked a hotel 5 minutes away from KL Sentral, the train station you arrive at when you come from the airport. The Fajr prayer call

New Year's Eve 2018

NYE is normally a quiet time for me. This year I went for dinner with a friend in Chiang Mai and then proceeded to head home. A couple of hours later, another friend said they were all heading out to Tha Phae on the east side of Old City to

Flying to Kuala Lumpur

After 2 months in Thailand, my visa was up so I had to move on to another country. I was originally looking at going to Bali, Indonesia but the recent tsunami on a neighbouring island, and their general lack of a tsunami warning system made me a little hesitant to

Back in Chiang Mai

After running my 5km race in Phuket [https://daniellockyer.com/laguna-phuket-5k/] and flying to Bangkok to meet Jet [https://jetholt.com/exploring-bangkok/], I took the train to Chiang Mai for the second time. I tried to fix some of the issues with the journey I experienced last time but I

Exercise cured my asthma

I lived with asthma for most of my life but when I started exercising, I was cured. Note: I am not a medical professional. Don't do anything stupid. I was diagnosed with asthma at 18 months old. I'm not quite sure of the details but apparently I was wheezing a

Hiking into 2562

Happy New Year from Thailand! To kick off the New Year, the Chiang Mai WIP gang hiked up to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. I suggested going up Pilgrim's Trail -- having only completed around half of it on my last trip here. We started around 0900. There isn't much

A pet peeve

I've spent the last month and a half in Chiang Mai and something has really started to irritate me. Since deleting Instagram [https://daniellockyer.com/deleting-instagram/], it feels even more prevalent that everywhere I look I notice people are creating these fake versions of their life to post online. It's

Visa extension in Chiang Mai

I recently had to extend my 30 day visa exemption by another 30 days. Last time I was here, I went to Promenada mall on the south east side of Chiang Mai. As of September 2018, Promenada mall immigration office closed down and replaced with one by the airport. It's

Lessons from David Goggins

I was recently listening to the latest David Goggins episode [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvWB7B8tXK8] on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. He was promoting his new book, Can't Hurt Me [https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Hurt-Me-Master-Your-ebook/dp/B07H453KGH/], but also appeared on JRE 10 months ago [https://www.youtube.

Twenty-three

Today is my 23rd birthday. It's a good time to reflect on the things that have happened in the last year. Anyone who knows me well knows I don't like to celebrate my birthday. I tend to just go out and eat a meal with friends, but I'd rather just

Overnight in DMK

In order to get from Da Nang to Phuket, I had two options: arrive late at night or sleep in the airport. The first option would have gotten me to Phuket Airport at 22:30, which wasn't ideal and made getting to a hotel at a reasonable time unlikely. The

Narrowly avoiding theft

This is a little story about an experience I had in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam nearly 2 months ago. It's not meant to provoke fear about travelling but I think there are some important lessons to be taken away. I was staying in a hostel in the backpacker-rich District

On owning little

> "Is that all you own?" I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked that question. My parents, family, friends, people in hostels, receptionists in hotels and airport attendants have all asked me that question. They are amazed at the size of my bag is, and surprised when

Apps for travelling

I use a number of apps when travelling. Agoda [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.agoda.mobile.consumer] - This has been my go-to method of finding accommodation in the places I travel to. You can filter by price and rating, and they offer a broad range

A good experience with Saucony

My first running shoes were a pair of Saucony Ride 10. They had treated me well, getting me through Paris marathon [https://daniellockyer.com/paris-marathon/] and my 52km ultramarathon [https://daniellockyer.com/team-chapter-ultra-52/]. In June, I noticed that the mesh-like outer fabric was starting to split. Over the next few

Technology I carry on the road

I like to keep things simple and don't own a lot [https://daniellockyer.com/onebag/], so I only carry 3 pieces of technology with me. Laptop: Lenovo G505s with SSD I've had this laptop since I started university in 2014. I replaced with hard drive with an SSD within the

Flying to Da Nang

It probably seems I'm moving around too quickly. I only spent 5 days in Ho Chi Minh City and then I left again. However, I think it's important I find out what kind of place I like before slowing down and dedicating myself to living in each place for a

Day Two in Ho Chi Minh City

(Technically it's my third day but I arrived late on the first night so I'm not counting it.) I woke up early because I was meant to check out of my hostel but wanted to extend it for another few days. Whilst researching for places to run, I found the

Walking around Ho Chi Minh City

I figured for my first day in Ho Chi Minh City I should go for a walk around and see some of the touristy places. I had a map from my hostel so I came up with my own tour. From District 1, I head east towards the river and

Flying to Ho Chi Minh City

After two months in Thailand, my visa was up so I semi-randomly chose to go to Ho Chi Minh City. HCMC is highly rated [https://nomadlist.com/ho-chi-minh-city] on Nomad List and only a 2 hour flight from Chiang Mai so it seemed like a good choice. My last day

Garmin Fenix 3 review

This review is based upon my personal experiences with the watch. Like It's tough as hell. You can hit it and bash it and the worst thing that happens is you graze the fascia. I once hit it on the side of the swimming pool and I just got a

Analyzing my university marks

I recently finished 4 years at the University of Southampton, studying MEng Computer Science. I kept a spreadsheet recording all my university marks and this post briefly looks into some of my numbers. The weighting for my degree was 20% for 2nd year and 40% for 3rd and 4th year.

Deleting my Instagram account

I just finished watching the live stream episode of Joe Rogan and Elon Musk. Elon briefly discussed his thoughts on social media and how he deleted his Instagram account. I have also been evaluating my use of social media and how it affects my thinking. A couple of weeks ago,

Getting the train to Chiang Mai

A couple of weeks after going to Bangkok, I decided to move on towards Chiang Mai. I had seen YouTube videos and blogs describing the experience and I thought it looked great. My friend also decided to come along so it was nice to share the experience with someone. The

Arriving in Bangkok for the first time

My flight from Heathrow to Cologne was over before I even had a chance to get my headphones out. I've never taken such a short flight before so it was quite weird to be landing within an hour. Maybe I should have done more research but my plan was to

Dispatched

Yesterday I left my hometown of Nuneaton, UK to begin my journey to South-East Asia. I had breakfast with my family and said goodbye to my grandparents. I collected my bag and my dad took me to the train station. It was quite emotional leaving everyone -- not knowing when

Going up Teide

Whilst on holiday in Tenerife, my brother and I took an organised trip up the volcano Teide. We stopped at a café in Villaflor to get food and so people could buy cable car tickets. Despite the fact that most of the sea-level landscape on Tenerife is barren and desert-like,

Travelling lessons from Tenerife

I wanted to write about some of the travelling lessons I'm taking away from my week in Tenerife. Travel Definitely carry-on is the way to go. It avoids queuing up to check in luggage and you can just walk out the airport on the other side. I think it's a

Graduation

On July 19th 2018 I graduated from the University of Southampton with First Class Honours in MEng Computer Science.

Using RSS to kick my addiction

I used to spend hours refreshing my YouTube subscription feed, browsing through recommended videos and generally wasting time. I realised I would check it dozens of times a day, even though I only subscribed to around 30 people and a handful uploaded daily. It was getting out of control so

The next two months

I am writing this post with just over a week left living in my house in Southampton, UK. I finished my university exams at the end of May and I've been living in this city for 4 years. It's been a crazy time but it seems to have flown by.

Automating gym bookings

My gym uses an online system to take gym class bookings. People often book way in advance and then cancel on the day. There's no waiting list so if you want to grab a last minute spot, you have to be lucky enough to try and book in when it's

Paris trip

In April 2018 I travelled to Paris to take part in the marathon. I went with my uncle and 2 family friends who are in my triathlon group. Three of us were running, with the fourth recovering from knee surgery. I will write a specific post on the marathon soon.

Scuba diving

In 2014 I went on holiday to Fuerteventura with my then girlfriend. The start of the holiday wasn't great as we were put in a different hotel to that which we had paid for. The food was unbelievably bad, and we had noisy neighbours arguing until the early hours of

How I started programming

I learned to program in June 2011, at the age of 15, during my summer holidays. I had just finished my penultimate year of high school and wanted to learn something to do with my interest of computers. I think that was also when I decided I wanted to study

Experimenting with no duvet

Over the last 2 months I have been experimenting with getting rid of my duvet for sleeping. I'd been thinking about it for a while and decided to trial sleeping with a blanket. A few days ago I deemed the experiment a success and got rid of my duvet completely.

Tips for waking up early

I’d like to make it clear that this isn’t a guide on how to sleep 2 hours a day. Sleep is important so make sure your body gets the hours it needs. Your brain is going to try and justify going back to sleep for a few more