Hi, I’m Nee Shen — and this is my journey of exploration and reflection.

I grew up in Malaysia, built a career there, raised a family there, and then in 2022 packed everyone up and moved to Ireland. It sounds more decisive than it was. There was a lot of soul-searching involved, and honestly, a well-timed LinkedIn message from a colleague that set everything in motion.

What I left behind was not nothing. Penang, good food, warm weather, people who knew me. A career that was going somewhere. Years spent with the Red Crescent Society, doing work I actually believed in, building something with a community I cared about. You don’t just walk away from all that easily. Some days I’m still not sure I fully have.

Starting over is harder than people say. Ireland is a good place, but it takes time to feel like yours. I write about that too: the transition, the stumbles, the slow work of building a life somewhere new. If you’ve done something similar, you’ll probably recognise a few things.

I’d visited Ireland before on work trips and had already quietly decided I liked it here. The countryside is relentlessly green. People talk to strangers. A rainy afternoon doesn’t feel like a waste, it just feels like Ireland being Ireland. When the job came up, I didn’t need much convincing.

We’re based in Dublin now. It’s a good home base. Europe is close, weekends are short, and there’s always somewhere we haven’t been yet. We hike. We wander cities. We get lost on purpose and occasionally by accident.

There’s a quote I’ve carried since I was a teenager: “I shall pass this way but once; any good I can do, let me do it now.” I’m not sure I always live up to it, but it’s the closest thing I have to a compass. Travel fits into that somewhere. Showing up to a place. Paying attention. That’s mostly what I write about.