to the channel good to see you again we have not  filmed in a while i feel camera shy what there's  

something pointing at my face oh my god supposed  to speak we know how to do this i think so anyways

for today's video i thought it would be really  fun to do a scratch map and scratch off all  

the countries we've been to together this is  something i've been wanting to do for years okay  

yeah we actually ordered this a while  ago um it's been kind of collecting dust  

and it is the day to do the scratching it is  today we scratch yeah so i thought it would be  

fun to look back on where we started where  we met where we traveled together yep and  

just reminisce alrighty i think we're gonna need  some heavy items so stay tuned samuel hold on  

to this i've got lots of heavy candles  okay oh it's just you scratch the paper  

yes um i'm gonna use this i'm not one of those  crystal energy people this is just something  

you are no i'm not it's been in my family  for a long time and i have one of the  

brazilian crystals and this didn't come with any  kind of tool i thought this was going to come  

with like a little scratchy thing or something how  are you going to do this do you have coins i would  

suggest you pull out some money it's going to take  us a while to get settled technical difficulties

before we even begin all right so i thought  we could start with canada since it's where  

we're from shall we scratch canada first and  then we can begin our journey together we're  

gonna scratch all of canada this map is not  divided by provinces and we've actually oh  

here it is it's green i thought for this video  it would be fun to share like the first memory  

that comes to mind from every country we've  been to now canada is obviously home so  

i was born i was born here sam is a west coast  boy yeah vancouver island british columbia born  

and bred so i guess one of my earliest memories  would be being outdoors in nature yeah being  

out in the forest being surrounded by mountains  and i grew up in a very beautiful scenic  

small town called gold river and it's like a  15-20 minute drive away from the pacific ocean  

and you keep going and you might lend it to japan  yeah i finally got to see it two years ago we did  

a trip together with both of our dads as well  and that was a lot of fun yes and for me on this  

canada map i was born in the province of quebec in  montreal so that was originally home but at this  

point i've lived oh my gosh i've lived much longer  in ontario it's a big territory guys ontario feels  

more like home just because i've been here longer  okay that's canada let me show you how how sam  

thinks scratching a map is acceptable this is  sam's version of scratching canada yeah let  

me just say i am not impressed it's like a what a  kindergarten uh crayola kind of level that's about  

that's about where i'm at oh that is horrible  i'm gonna clean it up afterwards but let's start  

moving through these countries next i thought  we could do south korea since it's where we met  

each other it's where the story is that's  nice and small so i'll let you scratch  

what can you tell us about south korea it's the  first international country that i visited outside  

of the canada canada and the us i suppose the us  would be but i'm talking like outside of north  

america my first like real trip abroad especially  culturally speaking and i got the idea to visit  

korea because when i was at university i started  tutoring english as a side job and most of my  

students were korean and so they encouraged me to  come they're like hey when you're done when you're  

done school you can move to korea and get a job  and that's exactly what i did it kick-started my  

travel career and also it was my first experience  working abroad yeah and it's where we met that's  

where we met and i knew sam liked me because  his contract finished three months before mine  

and he was like okay i'm gonna go home to canada  visit my parents for the holidays and then i'm  

gonna come back and wait for you to finish  your contract and then we'll travel together  

yeah it was time well we had met through our blogs  right and it was time to set off and see if we  

could we could turn this this hobby into a little  small business and uh that's where it started yeah

we knew each other from a blog roll exchange  yeah so yeah that's how we met so we met well  

after we finished our year of teaching in korea  the first country we decided to travel to was  

do you remember yeah it was malaysia yeah and we  went there because it was the cheapest flight we  

can find yeah we got an asia flight i think  we paid maybe less than two hundred dollars  

yeah that flight yeah and that was a long flight  i think like six hour flight so yes we landed it  

landed in kuala lumpur yeah i insisted that we  didn't splurge on a 15 or 20 night hotel that's  

how cheap i was back then as a backpacker and  yeah we set up our backpacks in the kuala lumpur  

low-cost terminal and we ended up sleeping on the  on the non-air-conditioned airport on the ground  

i was not impressed with sam being such a cheapo  oh you should be i mean save money come on yeah  

i actually want to film a video just doing a story  time talking about our first month traveling we  

have video footage of this like this this is  this was filmed so you're gonna see some uh  

you can see much younger versions of it  yeah and hear the the behind the scenes  

horrors yeah exactly not impressed after malaysia  we found a two dollar flight to cambodia one of  

the most turbulent flights we've ever been on  lives my memory of they were shaking as we were  

taking off yeah like we were gaining speed down  the runway and like the plane was already going  

from side to side and i was like it's gonna  be a long flight should we be taking off  

and it was but we got to go to um angkor wat  together see him reap we went to batambang  

and we also visited shinoukville in  phnom penh yes we did so and from there  

we took the bus across to vietnam and we  traveled all the way from the south to the  

north so we started in saigon ho chi minh city and  we finished in hanoi and we did it all the way up  

i remember loving the food i was just loving  every meal out yeah i remember the thing too  

was that we were we were traveling at such  a fast pace up until that point that we got  

slightly fatigued from our backpacking and we  ended up taking a flight to chiang mai thailand  

and that was our first base together oh yeah  that was the first place we lived we lived so  

scratched were we there for like three months or  did we only stay for one we were there for a while  

and you actually flew back to canada to renew  some documents yeah i also just missed my family  

at that point i had been away like in korea for a  year and then southeast asia probably like three  

or four months yeah maybe longer and so from there  we ended up going to i think we went to hong kong  

let's be confirmed no next we did not go to hong  kong we went to finland oh yeah that was was it  

our first i think that was our first project  first blogger trip we were invited to finland  

for a week so exciting it was my first time to  europe yes not yours we did not get paid we did  

not make a penny it was just a free trip and we  were thrilled we're like yes we've made it we've  

made it in the vlogging world in the blog they  want us to travel film i also remember my best  

friend was living in finland at the time she was  going to university there to study nursing she's  

finished canadian so i got to see her and that was  super exciting seeing a familiar face after yeah  

it was a great guide i remember we had ice creams  together yeah walked around the markets we took  

a very really fun time in finland and while we  were in finland we took the ferry over to estonia  

yeah because it was just so close by so close and  uh as you guys could probably imagine um a lot of  

a lot of scandinavia like finland sweden norway  is expensive but heading over to estonia it was  

a totally different world like prices were i think  at least half compared to oh compared to finland  

it was so much cheaper and it's so much cheaper  you know so much cheaper to get around and we  

noticed a lot of finns were coming back with booze  from estonia oh so to buy booze the ferry over to  

estonia felt like a booze cruise yeah and back  a lot of people came back with cases of whatever  

mostly hard liquor i believe first impressions  of estonia that's what we've got to share  

yeah um let's see what happened next okay yeah  so after doing that project in finland and then  

crossing over to estonia we flew back to thailand  yeah and from there we went to macau macau yes oh  

that was one that was literally the worst flight  we've ever been on the worst flight we've ever  

been on so i remember we flew through a storm and  it was the scariest flight of our lives on this  

flight the flight attendants sat down got buckled  in their seats yes and there were some drops  

where everyone was screaming and there was like  everyone on the plane was lightning outside of  

our window i thought that was it i'm like wow  it's been a it's been it's been a good life

unfortunately we've had a lot of bad flights like  there's a reason why i don't like flying yeah  

anyways but would you say that was the worst of  the worst one of the worst yeah there's for me for  

me that was the worst from there we went to hong  kong we crossed turbo jet on the turbo jet yeah we  

did do the two that's one of the easiest crossings  you can do both are special administrative  

regions in china meaning that they have their own  immigration and currency and they're so close to  

each other that you can just take a short little  ferry you arrive you get you screen through you  

get a little stamp in your passport and you're uh  you're there you're there done hong kong we you we  

just loved it the first time that was fun yes yeah  seeing the the symphony of lights it was like whoa  

this is the future super high-tech city  yeah uh very crowded very bustling just  

stimulating for me one of the all-time coolest  cities i've ever been to for sure oh okay  

oh okay now first we crossed over to china yeah  oh yeah we got our visas in hong kong take the  

train and we kind of did like south eastern china  so i'm not going to scratch all of china we went  

to guilin and uh and um in particular should  we be scratching the whole map technically yeah  

you don't have to visit the whole country  i don't remember how long we spent there  

maybe two a couple weeks that's it going on three  weeks i remember we had to leave early because  

festivals it was like the moon festival oh we  had a project in israel yeah remember that we  

had to get back for a flight we did okay so after  china we flew back to hong kong or no we took the  

train back to hong kong yeah because we had to  catch a flight over to our second blog project  

we were ever offered in in israel in israel it  was our first time visiting a themed trip yeah  

it was amazing like like i don't think i've ever  ate so much food in a period of a short period  

of time oh my god i remember some of the meals  we had with the team we were with we thought we  

were eating the main course and it ended up only  being the appetizer and we were already stuffed  

and we're like yeah it was great we got to see  historic parts of the country we got to go to  

the dead sea yes and we got to go to we were  in tel aviv we're in jerusalem yeah and then  

from there we flew to turkey turkey turkey and  we fell in love oh my gosh oh my gosh remember  

our first day there we liked it so much for like  this is istanbul was like the most impressive  

city we had ever ever seen at that point yeah  it was just the architecture you know it was  

a busy city it was diverse it was divided the  continental divide yeah the food was fantastic  

it just like it really clicked for us we were  having so much baklava so much turkish delight  

gosh again the waistline was really expanding  at that point for me and then after we spent  

probably a couple of weeks in turkey we had our  third blog project ever we could not believe it  

three in a year but we were invited to jordan  yeah it was a perfect strategic flight going  

from turkey to there yeah very direct and jordan  ended up being one of your favorite countries  

you've ever been to i loved it loved it so much  especially wadi rum being out in the desert  

camping out at night it was a real highlight  camping with the bedouins camel rides um sweet tea  

music yeah so good great food oh that was also one  of the ultimate trips yeah yeah i loved it it's  

i would say that's one of my top five countries  like i just loved it didn't we fly back to israel  

meet your parents oh we did visit your parents  yes we did go back to israel from yeah it made  

sense it was so close yeah right so we all met up  together yeah and we probably spent like 10 days  

i think maybe that trip was 10 days just traveling  the length of the country that was the first time  

we did a trip with your parents together all  of us it was tons of fun so after that we flew  

back to turkey again we spent a lot of time  in turkey that year we liked it so much there  

we took a train to bulgaria yes and we had the  funniest immigration experience of all time  

there yeah the train just stopped in bulgaria at  this random little station where we were to do  

immigration the immigration officer had slept in  yeah he didn't show up he didn't show up so people  

were trying to get in touch with him and finally  he came down to the station like hours later  

we got our our stamps hop back on the train  and off we went again off we went yeah we had  

a good time in in sofia we weren't there for  very long and then we went back to istanbul  

back to istanbul that's where i spontaneously  surprised my mom with the flight out to visit  

us yeah we're celebrating my birthday together  and uh she got on the plane first time for her