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Hey there,

Nice to meet you! I’m Janette, the human behind this site. I am NYC-based author & travel blogger. Here, you will find a little bit of everything. Come for the travel + lifestyle-related content but stay for the occasional feelings + thought dump.

Current project: I just published my debut ~book~ entitled “Letters to Home.” Come with me as I navigate through my book journey and life in my 20s.

See you around ~

About Me

I Published A Book!

Hardcover Edition (May 2022)

Paperback Edition (August 2021)

What began as an idea from a late-afternoon nap in the beginning of the 2020 pandemic turned into the beginning of a legacy project

What is it about?

Order on Amazon

Praise for Letters to Home

“If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then the memoir is a door. Letters to Home is raw and vulnerable while being as lovely as funny as its author. It’s the kind of book I wish I’d been able to read as a young Asian American when I felt alone in my experiences. A must-read for sure!”

— Ariel Tsai, Author of Narcissus

“In this raw, witty, and soulful memoir, Janette Wu fills every page with her love for her family and her pursuit of finding herself. This story will be a legacy that will last for a long, long time.”

— Lilian Li, Author of House of Koi

A City Getaway to the Foothills of the Catskill Mountains

Walton, New York seems like a quaint little town where everyone knew everybody…” Here is my experience in this little town in the foothills of the Catskills mountains.

Read More
One Year in Quarantine

A Photo Journal Series (& 10 things I’ve learned)

Read More
5 Habits that Helped Me Ride Out the Wave of the Pandemic

(my actual) quarantine diaries

Read More

Taipei | A City Guide

A curated list of recs after 3 months of living in Taipei, Taiwan

I Got Sent Back To NYC Because Of The Pandemic: Here's What Happened

A five part series & rant about my 8 months stay in China

Yes, spill the tea

For Myself

July 24th 2017

I wanted this first post to mean something...so I could look back on this a year or two from now or even whenever my mind suddenly reminds me of what I decided to do with my free time after surviving my first finals week. But with all my cards laid out on the table, I have been dreaming of putting this site together for over 4 years already. Of course, every time, I have managed to convince myself not follow through because of time, cost (it's pricey to maintain a site that isn't under someone else's domain), and of course, the little thought that nudges me in the back of my mind telling me that this site could never amount to anything big.

It took a while but I did realize that if I'm going to start this off by thinking about content that will satisfy others—I'm already doing this wrong. This doesn't have to get "big", it just has to be for myself.

Besides that, I also want to bring up a very important point for which why I wanted to do this.

I never realized or appreciated the therapeutic effects that writing has until now. Back in middle school, I was constantly exposed to free writing, writing stories and creative projects almost every day but that was a different era. There wasn't any stress about school, work, friends, or the balance between school, work and friends.

So the biggest problem that I encountered was choosing if my protagonist in my short story was going to be named Gabriella (yup, I admit I was caught in the High School Musical phase) or Miley (because I was all about 'The Climb'). But don’t get me wrong, back then it was probably a very big deal but like I said—it was a different era.

Nowadays, my problems have to be prioritized and I don’t even get to say that these trivial matters will earn a spot on my to-do list. Typing out all my thoughts is a way for me to declutter a part of my mind so that I won’t have to carry that burden throughout the day. It's probably easier if I make an analogy to the very real situation that is going on in my room right now…