okay we are live well uh well we're not live actually we're you're going to be watching this after the fact so I want to welcome my friend Jake Jake and I actually connected through my YouTube channel uh he's
done a lot of travel and he's recently gotten back to the US to try to continue to level up his programming skills and I thought it'd be valuable to have a discussion and uh discuss his experience also like
the entry process I'm looking at possibly having to do that myself uh in the coming weeks and so I thought it would just be valuable to cover that because you know some people uh you know they just don't
know what that looks like they don't know what that's going to be like and so we should uh yeah we should discuss it so Jake if you could go ahead and introduce yourself sure thanks for inviting me Alex
uh I've been following Alex's channel for some time now before he's gotten as big as he is now but but I uh am Jake I am from the US grew up in uh the Midwest I'm 37 years old
I have a background in um actually English Lit um I have a masters in composition and rhetoric and uh six years of Wildland firefighting experience so it seems like there's a contrast there but I've been doing a lot
of different uh things with my life and during my off time during my seasonal firefighting work I would come to Asia and start traveling and that's kind of how I got uh interested in this lifestyle uh very cool
Jake and yeah you've had such a variety of experiences in your life um there's a lot of contrast there it's like a high contrast lifestyle right um and I just think that's so interesting like so what um what
got you interested in Asia and what was what was your first trip to Asia like and then uh you know kind of briefly and then what was your more recent trip like so I just thought I wanted to
do something radically different and I went to Asia for the first time in 2014 I went to China and that was quite overwhelming I hadn't even been to Europe at that point I was pre- smartphones pre- translator apps
so I remember taking photos of the Lonely Planet and like showing it to my taxi driver to get around so um that was definitely one of the more extreme traveling uh experiences I've ever had but to answer your
question like what got me interested I think it was just a genuine curiosity and uh something that was uh considered to be the polar opposite of everything I had known and um I'm a big fan of like trial
and air sometimes you got to just jump into it and learn the hard way and that was one of those experiences where I just like jumped into the deep end there were no baby steps involved and um um
I think unfortunately I Associated Asia with that Chinese experience so I kind of was afraid of Asia for some years after that and it wasn't until I got into fire and I started working alongside a lot of guys
who had spent time in Southeast Asia they're like no dude you you need to give it a real shot and go to a more um like I guess beginner friendly type of country like Thailand and uh so I
spent an entire summer getting an earful from this one coworker that's like you need to go here you need to go here and he sent me a whole Google document with all his recommendations and so I went and
I just had the time of my life and um and then uh it kind of it flipped the script man like I just saved all of those um recommendations and just already started planning for my trip the following
year and so that's kind of what my fire jobs turned into after a while like while I was passionate about the work it turned into a means to make money just to go back to Asia so um that
that reminds me a lot of uh I'm a subscriber to channel called Captain trucker and he and I have done a little bit of a collaboration and he's very similar to you in that regard and that he'll drive
for an extended period of time he'll save up his money he'll go and spend a big chunk of time in Asia because there's limited career options that have that much flexibility as far as being able to work for
x amount of time and then getting off a big chunk of time because uh you know I can't speak for other people but it's a lot it's a it's a pretty big lift to go to Asia to just
go for a week right and I don't blame people for doing that I know people have finite vacation time but it's so nice to get that immersion when you go for a month or longer than that I think
month's a good kind of a starting point um because you fully adjust to the time zone you adjust to uh the local bacteria as far as just like Diet goes um you have a chance to like slow down
a little bit um which some times I think when we're on vacation from a corporate job uh we can't really fully slow down I remember when I did some travel when I was working a corporate job it's like
yeah okay this was fun but I'm thinking the whole time I'm going back uh to the Grind so yeah very very interesting that um you know you've had this this kind of variety of experiences could you speak to
your more recent trip because actually this is when we were able to meet in person which is super cool um you I know you visited a few countries could you talk about that what that experience was like for
you yeah sure so in total I was traveling for uh six months and I started my trip in Taiwan so uh the front and the back end of my six-month Journey were more travel intensive but um speaking speaking
to the front end I landed in Taipei and I actually connected with a friend via Facebook that I had no prior knowledge of and had a really positive experience getting to know them and they showed me around the
city for excuse me sorry I have a little cold for about five or six days and then I was able to connect with some other people that I known from a mutual friend that I met in changai the
year prior uh so that was um that was in C Shong and taong and uh Ty so all of Southern Taiwan I got to explore through their train system uh was treated really well had some delicious food and
no real negative experiences whatsoever and then after two weeks there I flew back to Thailand and it had been almost exactly a year since I had left Thailand the previous time and I lived in a apartment on near
the on BTS station and commuted to uh a school that was near plit stop where I was taking uh entry-level Thai speaking courses with uh eight other students all from Asia I was the only Western person in the
class so they they as expected they were more than kind to me and kind of took me under their wing and uh it was just a really cool cool school I think I was paying close to like 225
five for the month package and uh really intensive three hours a day five days a week uh uh loved my teacher crew tipsuda shout out she's watching this but uh and then so after that month I decided that
the city wasn't quite My Vibe I was ready to switch it up uh flew to copam for a week during s cran uh love that place and from there moved to kosam mui for for another month so I
was in bangrak Beach area for that month and um you know that was okay I I don't know that I would go back and spend that amount of time it felt really um I don't know I guess over
over touristification that was whenever I started uh researching more about Vietnam and dang at that point I was only interested in one thing which was improving my coding skills and marketing myself and I was like where can I
go to uh uh budget live a budget lifestyle and learn more so I went to dang and spent two months there where I met with you and uh had a really positive experience throughout my time there I made
one YouTube video about it that I think um I talk a lot about my experience there and then from there I went back to Thailand and spent a few weeks and then close out my trip in Japan so
I think that sounds like a wild Journey it was great man it was so good like uh in more in many ways out of the places that you've been is there one country and you could even specify City
within a country that if you were talk if you were talking to somebody who's never been to Asia in general maybe never even left the United States or maybe never left Australia uh which of those countries do you
think is the most beginner friendly and yeah just if you could speak on that yeah in my experience I would say Thailand with a fair amount of certainty just based on the western amenities and how uh kind the
people are and the the focus on on serving and taking care of you I think that they're they're approachable and they're willing to kind of help you navigate things and and uh especially the younger groups people speak a
fair amount of English so I think if if you can get by with a certain level of um initial discomfort and you have some sense of adventurousness you you can make it work especially with all the trans ation
apps and whatnot now I did forget to mention that I I went from Saigon through Cambodia back into Thailand so Cambodia was another country that I got to experience but I think Cambodia might be like the next step
up um if you're if you're looking for like a little bit calmer Waters I mean I hate to say that about Thailand it's there there's some chaotic components to it but um if you do your research and you
show up with a good attitude I think I think you can have a good time yeah I definitely agree I mean the energy in Thailand is eclectic and very fastpaced and I love Thailand uh but I can appreciate
that sometimes we may find that um uh some places have a little bit slower Pace um maybe for some people they want something with a faster Pace um yeah I've spent more time in Thailand than any other country
so have a lot of love for Thailand but uh yeah I mean it's uh it's nice to get a variety I feel like the experiences you've had in Taiwan um you've been to uh Cambodia you've been to Vietnam
you're able to compare and contrast these different countries and get a and also you've been to Japan what you like about each one and what you uh you're not as preferential to and then decide like okay this is
what I've done this is what I haven't done what do I want to try to add to the mix next time so I think that's such a a good way to look at and I I I'm a big
proponent of the discovery trip not not necessarily committing okay I read about this one country I'm gonna go there and I'm done but get a taste of this like almost like a buffet southeast Asia there's so many cool
places to see that you kind of I think a lot of people would benefit from trying this and trying that even within Thailand try the big city try the small City try a lot of different things and uh
you'll get a stronger sense of what you like don't like um and yeah yeah I think that's just such a great a great variety that you've gotten to experience on your trip um now you know kind of moving
on from there and this I know it it could be a I don't I don't know if I'd say difficult subject but it could be a little bit stressful um you recently returned back to the US I'm looking
at having to do the same soon and we had a little bit of conversation about culture shock um what kind of culture shock did you notice coming from you departed from Japan to arriving in California yeah so I
I keep describing it as mild culture shock but it is it is significant and I suppose there's there's like an intuitive feeling of culture shock where you just experience it like energetically or you just you know from from
the way the people behave the the pace of Life the pace of walking um the expectation that things need to be done in a quicker manner um which is a little unsettling after you kind of acclimate to the
more calm approach of Southeast Asia uh that combined with just small little twinges of like oh that's annoying that I just paid $100 to fill up my truck with gas um so you just feel like you're you're you're
hemorrhaging money um which you don't feel that way whenever you're in in the American Fishbowl and you're swimming it well I gu I suppose you could but uh just when you have the comparison of being in Asia for
six months coming back that's that's one thing that I experien uh and I think that the the people tend to be a little bit um what's the word like abrasive you notice things you notice things a little bit
more more and there's like just this expectation that you have to be a little more callous uh uh to either judgments or like maybe harsh words or whatever like for instance I was called wimpy by a barista for
buying uh a chamomile tea rather than a espresso shot I was just like okay well that would definitely never happen in Vietnam but things things like that you're just like oh yeah yeah yeah I gotta have my guard
up a little a little bit and then um you like people talk louder people talk faster uh so that those are kind of the uh original noticings you know yeah I definitely have noticed that too when I came
back from Latin America several years ago uh unfortunately I'm sure I'll notice it you know whenever I make it back from this trip um it's I don't know it's just such a you don't notice when you're there right
and if you haven't been outside the country you don't really think about it one of my close friends is actually visiting Thailand for the first time right now he's he had never been outside of the US and he's
noticing a lot of what you're talking about as far as comparing Thailand to back home where he's like man people here are just like so nice and so friendly and really chill and I think about you know being
in the work setting and getting constantly corrected by uh leadership no do this way no do it this way no do it this way this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong uh and you know just not
having that experience now some of that of course is that we're not working in Thailand we don't have permission to do so true the yeah sorry the other thing I'll mention is just it feels like there's like a
subtle competitiveness just to everything like in maybe it's like basic conversation or you're interacting with uh strangers have talking about like some kind of sports team and then they're they're almost like wanting to like up the Annie or
like uh show that they know a little bit more about that team or it's just things that you don't ever deal with in Southeast Asia you feel like in the US people are more status conscious on average compared
to your experiences in Southeast Asia for sure yeah yeah I definitely have noticed that myself U just in conversations sometimes with people back home uh where you know they're they want to turn the conversation into competition it's like
what are we there there is no competition like I what's find this yeah what what's happening like um I find this a lot you know you talk about you're how you're in California I'll talk to people in my
home State oh but our home State's better it's it's not a competition right they're so different from one another uh that it's they're in two very different worlds I mean um yeah yeah it's just a really it I
you know I think part of it is called what they call like reverse culture shock um so you have the culture shock when you go to Asia and you're surprised at how friendly people are and how relaxed people
are and then you have the reverse when you come back and you're like oh wow like I didn't notice any of this stuff and now it's just like so readily apparent to me um and yeah so I'm trying
to think of of what else uh is top of mind um well I I just speaking on what you're what you're saying I I credit southeast Asia with kind of helping me dissolve those parts of myself that were
hyper competitive I mean I I think there's like positive qualities to having that ambitious part of you I also am grateful that I got to spend time in places that uh showed me a different approach so coming back
my home country looks different yeah and you've talked to me about your athletic background and when you're an athlete uh you're trained to compete right you want to beat the other team you want to be the faster individual
you want to be uh you know the stronger individual you want to be able to have perhaps uh just like rapid movement that that fast twitch energy and so you're really trained to kind of think how do I
win and then you go to Southeast asan like nobody cares how fast you walk I remember in changai I when I landed in changai I'm just walking really fast and why and and then realizing like why am I
you know why am I trying to like outpace somebody on the sidewalk nobody cares and so that that competition that's a really good point about the walking and at first it feels like really uh annoying that you're just
kind of trying to get around everyone and then you sort of after some time you you kind of fall in line with their flow of things and then you come back here and it's like you're G to get
run over yeah there's so many times I remember back in the States uh I'd be driving along and somebody would pass me really quick and just fly by and then we'd pull up to the same light and it's
like come on these lights are designed to maintain a certain flow of tra they're not designed to be like beaten or whatever you know um but yeah people people get in their heads that they've got to compete um
you know so I know we've we've talked somewhat about you know your interest to come back to Southeast Asia uh you know I I'm curious is there anywhere in particular that you want to focus on in your next
Journey over here yeah great question I am particularly interested in spending more time in Japan after my short stay there this time uh but I also would like to go to Philippines for the first time so that I
can see uh what that's like I haven't been there quite yet so it would be an interesting experience and hopefully get to get a flavor of what what life is like there I think it's weird but the Philippines
feels in some ways like there's less culture shock than some of the like some of the mainland countries because there's so much English here um so when you land at the airport you can talk to people in English
you walk down the street or you get a cabin in town you're able to speak English to the driver you're able to speak English you know you go to McDonald's uh you walk you see people wearing like NBA
J um it's uh it's really it's really interesting like it uh it's different you know it's certainly not like being in the US but it's also not like you know you're leing in Bangkok and you see Thai characters
everywhere and you hear people speaking Tha and like uh you see you know you just get a strong sense you're somewhere very very different to me it's almost at times like The Uncanny valy where I feel like sometimes
I'm halfway in between uh the US southeast Asia it is more laidback I'm not going to Discount that but part of it is that you do have the English um and you have a lot of Americans here uh
so I I think it's it's definitely valuable to check out I don't think it's for everybody but uh certainly there's there's some cool places here um I will mention too like it's not as expensive as I thought it
was going to be everybody's always warning me oh Philippines so expensive so expensive I believe it's pricier in Manila or SIU but you know I'm down here in dagate and I know dumag is top of buying for a
lot of people it's reasonable it's not the cheapest place uh in the country it's not the cheapest place in the world but I mean I found it to be pretty decent value for money yeah it's been interesting and
I've really enjoyed keeping up on your videos since you've moved back there and uh curious how like are there times where you feel like you you like get tricked into feeling like you're still in the US or is
it is it never uh apparent like is it you know what I'm trying to say occasionally I see somebody fresh off the plane and it I can tell because they're always walking really fast they're they're always walking really
fast uh wherever it is they're walking fast in the mall they're walking fast like on the boulevard you can see them kind of like just the the aggression in their bodies like that kind of anxious energy um they're
looking around too like kind of I don't know if it's just me I feel like in the US we're kind of stressed out so we're trying to like look for hidden threats like ah is there somebody coming around
the corner is there you know uh I don't there's a dark alley there is there somebody that's going to you know come out of there like uh and so you see this kind of just like agitated body movement
I also have seen some Corners just like lose like particularly like at a Visa service I'm not going to mention um them but you know somebody who uh seemed very stressed out I'll put it that way and then
I overheard him mention I just got here and uh you know he was he just seemed really wound up tight and I get it right I'm not going to sit here and put the gentleman down uh I've been
freshed off the plane too I've been super wound up ready to like get settled in but also having that pent up energy you know that that energy that you feel like when you're you know when you're just trying
to stay on top of things you got 11,000 bills and you got you know 24 hours in a day and trying to figure out how to pay them um but yeah I've definitely noticed you know that's when I
I get the strongest sense oh wow because I could understand them right like I could you know somebody who's speaking English I can understand what they're saying and so I can I can really I don't know it it's
I love the country I love the Philippines overall it's I think it's going to be the place for me long term presuming you know I'm able to maintain a compliance with uh the Visas which I believe I'm capable
of doing but it's uh it's also you know it's it's closer right like if you want to fly to California from the Philippines you're talking about you fly to Manila and it's like 12 hours to LA so you
shave off some time from like going from Thailand um or Cambodia um even Vietnam or Indonesia um but yeah anyway uh you know I do want to dive into a little bit uh and we'll go from you know
a few more minutes here but uh you've you've talked to me about your programming and I'm curious uh is this something where you're interested to offer these services to people and and to provide your your Insight I know
you've been grinding away at it um and then maybe if you could just kind of share like what you're focused on because I think some people in the audience they they might want to pick your your brain and
then also somebody might be interested to to bring you on board or to uh yeah yeah I would be thrilled I'm absolutely open to uh talking with anyone who has an interest in coding and talking about my experience
uh learning I at this point I feel proficient at designing certain types of websites I'm in the middle of a uh JavaScript curriculum and I've been hard at it for about four to five months now spending two three
sometimes four hours a day uh studying so my first month or two was spent uh learning HTML CSS which is the common uh building block for building a website and then from there I'm I'm getting into the more
um um complex curriculum of JavaScript and then my next steps will be learning react and Ember and apis so I'm I'm trying I'm doing my best to equip myself with the skills to make myself marketable and useful for
uh companies so that's why I'm here back in um Tahoe California I have a really kind Mentor who's been doing it for almost three decades who's taken me under his wing and has been um kind of hurting my
brain a little bit with all that he knows but it's been uh I feel really fortunate and lucky to have this resource right now and I'm trying to make the most of it and my goal is to have
a um nice job here in the next six to eight months but we'll see what happens uh but to give you a little bit of a timeline of how I've done it I first started started watching YouTubes I
think you and I are both YouTube Scholars and that's how I've educated myself on pretty much everything in my adult life at least last 10 years I guess but I started out watching YouTube videos and then I took
some free code Camp introductory classes on CSS HTML and JavaScript and then I uh looked into this udem me course excuse me and it's taught by a man named John SCH smedman and it's a 50-hour course uh highly
reviewed and I'm about halfway through that now so I also have been making my own portfolio and showcasing my projects there so maybe I could send my portfolio to you at some point yeah I'd love to check it
out and and definitely uh you know I want to provide links to all these things in the description of this video so that anybody who's watching this uh you know they can reach out to you and and chat
with you and uh you know potentially create some interesting discussion and dialogue and uh maybe Inspire some of them too right I mean I think that there's so much opportunity for coders and programmers um and I think that
you know I think it's just like it's something I looked into doing some years back because I felt like it was the ideal job to be a digital Nomad I'm like how how much better can you get right
you literally all you need is your computer and you've got your workstation um you can if it fits in your backpack uh you take that with you anywhere you want to go in the world and you're able to
be productive um and so do you foresee and and just kind of moving toward the future and want to be mindful of uh your time because I know you you're still like uh you know you're putting in your
time every day um what kind of how do you envision you mentioned you want to look have a job in the sixth to eth month range uh what do you envision as far as just like your location you
don't have to specify country um but kind of how do you envision yourself what let's say you once you that first paycheck hits your bank what do you where do you want to be at and how do you
want to be doing how do you want to be living oh man that's a I love thinking about that um so first off I would be willing to take uh a good entrylevel job I suppose anywhere if it
was a hybrid sort of situation in order to get my bearings and G gain experience I'd be willing to uh remain in the US or elsewhere uh just just to get that primary experience but my ultimate goal is
to be fully uh untethered to a location so uh to answer your question what what that would look like for me I would like to um get all of my things out of a storage unit that I'm paying
for for and then just just go so I'd have one one roll rolling luggage one backpack and then I would be uh spending one two maybe three months in each country and still feeling out where I wanted to
stay uh I don't have like a long-term trajectory plan for one location but I feel adaptable enough to know that if I find the place that I enjoy being then I can make a more sustainable life for myself
there and in the meantime if I'm making the wage that I want to make then I'll be acre more income to potentially make a down payment on a property back in the US to have as a residence to
go back to so uh that's that's sort of the trajectory I'm looking at and I see myself in in Asia for a longterm period of time and that's a great option where let's say you got you know you
got down payment built up you put it down on a property you could rent it out you know you could hire a property manager and you could rent it out for however long you want and then when you
decide hey I want to go back for a while for whatever reason uh in line with what your needs are hey I'm gonna come back I'm G to clear it out for six months a year I'm GNA you
know uh catch up with people maybe host some friends who want to come visit from out of town uh you know wherever that may be you you really got a lot of optionality there what you're talking about and
I think that's the best way to do it is like you know that's what's cool I think about Asia is it adds options um you've got the option of like hey I worked as a programmer for a year
and I saved up uh X thousands of dollars and uh that's going to buy me x amount of time or why you know y amount of time in Southeast Asia and then I'm going to use that time to
do this and so that's what's so beautiful to me is I think a lot of people think oh you're just traveling you're just having a good time no I I'm buying time to think that's something that we talked
about that I thought was so powerful was like it's such a luxury to be able to assess where you're at and where you want to go and we don't have that luxury in the US all the time because
Bill we have bills and we have responsibilities and the pace is so fast we're just trying to stay on top of stuff we're not thinking where am I going to be in six months where am I going to
be in a year uh we're just like I need to keep my job you know I need to keep uh you know I need to so so the pace is just so fast we're not always able to assess
well yeah I think this has been a great conversation Jake I really appreciate you taking the time uh to kind of fill us in on what that's look like uh you know talking a little bit about the reverse
culture shock I do want to give you the final word do you have any final thoughts to share uh in in the next few minutes before we wrap up for this evening and morning yeah yeah no I just
would like to say thank you Alex for all the content inviting me on and uh I hope that you continue to uh promote what you're promoting and you're providing a valuable service to uh X xats and digital Nomads
so I I appreciate your channel and uh if if anyone out there is curious in what I'm doing I have a YouTube channel as well and um it's Jake aope travels and maybe Alex can provide a link for
you I'd be happy to have more subscribers as usual and I'm usually very responsive if you want to comment and uh start a conversation but thanks again Alex really appreciate you absolutely everybody check out jakou travels reach out
to Jake he's definitely a responsive guy um really engaging and uh somebody I feel very fortunate to have met through the interwebs and so yeah um thanks so much everyone for watching today if you haven't already subscribe to
the Channel Down Below comment what do you think uh what have you learned today from our discussion this is ideally the first of many this is the first time trying this format out let us know if you like
the format if you don't like the format um what we could do better I I think feedback is a gift and I hope everybody has a wonderful day or weekend or week ahead wherever you're at whatever time it's
at and we'll see you soon byebye
