Paradicing

Please have your boarding pass ready and report to gate PD1 for your on time departure with non-stop service to Travel, Food, and Wellness:

Aloha,

As you may have read in the about me section of the site, my name is Ashley. The most important, cherished, and rewarding role I play in this life is “Mommy,” to my beautiful 23-month-old son, Noah. I received my Bachelor’s degree in English at Washington State University Vancouver, and I am currently a flight attendant for a leading airline. My career and love of travel has opened doors to unforgettable places, food, and wellness.

I decided to bring “Travel, Food, and Wellness,” to the forefront for my topic in this class because, well, I have always had a love for all things travel related and this is the world I know best! Additionally, communication has always been my great passion especially through the lenses of imagery, taste, and sound.

The reason I chose this topic is because it has always been my dream to share and invite others to join me on a trip of adventure, taste, and to immerse themselves in other cultures. Growing up in Hawai’i I am well equipped with the sense of appreciation for diverse culture, food, and traditions. Social media platforms, such as this blog, allows me to create an immediate connection with you all and share my adventures in real time.

Click clack, click clack. My heels hit the tiles of the concourse. Dragging a bag full of life. A bag that holds my personal necessities, food, and comfort items from home to ground myself while flying to different places. Panicked individuals running and arguing throughout the airport, first time flyers and the beaming light of excitement they hold in their eyes, children admiring take off and landings from the terminal windows, the multiple announcements that ring through the concourse “We are now in the final boarding process of flight 808 with non-stop service to Hawai’i, please proceed to Gate 1 for our on time departure, doors will be closing in 5 minutes”. These are experiences that happen before that boarding door even closes. Typically, we see travel blogs include the final destination and all that it has to offer. The feelings of urgency, excitement, and love for my career has yet to dim. I would like the Paradicing platform to include all things travel, from the whirlwind of meeting the flight to the experiences good and bad at the final destination.

Taste. A bite of a familiar sensory flavor either salty, sour, sweet, bitter, umami (savory) has the ability to flood my mind with childhood memories, relationships, and experiences. Food is at the center of my family. Not in the sense of subduing hunger but culturally and traditionally in means of aiding illness, emotions, celebratory, or mourning, in my family, food heals the soul. With travel, I have been able to immerse myself in the food experience of other cultures and the importance and meaning food holds in different households, cultures, and individuals.

Wellness, in every sense, both mental and physical are so important to me. Growing up, my father was a body builder, so I was surrounded with his experiences of gym equipment, crash dieting, and negative body image conversations that whirl around that career. On the other hand, my father ensured that we did not endure those feelings ourselves and centered healthy eating that brought both happiness and nutritional benefits, family connections, learning to lean on others when needed, and self love in every shape or evolution we were in, in that moment. You do not just find wellness in a gym or in one body shape standard. You can find wellness all over the world, through connection to the land, the community, food, and traditional practices. That is why, in addition to travel and food, I would like the Paradicing platform to include the importance of wellness and the different modes of wellness you can find geographically, within individuals, and communities/cultures.

Again, welcome. I am so excited to share the experience of travel, food, and wellness with you. Every part of the world is a piece of paradise, let’s enjoy a slice!