Toby's Travels

It seems only appropriate that I officially launch my blog here, on the road from Indonesia.  It was while traveling here that a series of events occurred that resulted in a big shift in the direction of my life.  I remember getting on that plane from Singapore haeded to Bali for the first time.  I really can’t completely explain it, but I knew that if I got on that plane  something was going to happen.  I haven’t really shared this story with many people, but at the gate in Singapore, I literally got off and on the plane about four or five times until the flight staff finally asked if everything was all right……I am certain that today I would have ended up being interegated by security!

I had already done much traveling and it wasn’t a fear of flying,  but I had the sense that getting on that plane was significant….that something was going to happen or change, but I could not sense if that was going to be good or bad, just a feeling of “something”.

Over a dozen years  later and frequent return trips in between,  I find myself in Java with one of my very closest friends, Kadek, that along with his wife Megan I met on that first trip.    We just spent the last couple of days sourcing new stone carvers, both buying some of their sculptures and working on new designs.  It is that first trip to Bali that changed my travels from being just a curious bystander, to actively finding sculptural elements, artifacts, stone and other items to incorporate into my gardens.   I started that trip exploring the island on a motorbike and later left with two full shipping containers completely packed.  This later led to traveling to other countries to find additional items  for AguaFina’s projects and clients to give our designs true authenticity.  This eventually let to being involved in projects overseas, our own product catalog, a design studio and more.

Below are some photos I wanted to share from this last trip.  We actually saw many pieces that looked surprising similar to some of the signature pieces in AguaFina’s catalog that I helped design several years ago……hmmmm. ….unfortunately par for the course  at times here.  Additionally,  if you go to the link of “recent finds”, you will be able to see images of some of the pieces we collected.