When The Light Got In

The moments that lit up my soul in Asia

In the wake of a heavy year, I took my first trip in a while for a mixture of rest, work and kinda running away from my problems (spoiler alert: it didn’t work). There is much I could share about the whole trip but I wanted to highlight a few things that felt like the sunbeams coming through the shade of the trees. “Komorebi” as they call it in Japanese. The beauty of light and shadow.

The concert that rekindled my passion

I had the chance to see Hyukoh and Sunset Rollercoaster performing their “AAA Tour” live in Seoul. This one was unexpected, but it ended up being a huge highlight - I didn’t even realise it was the final night of their tour. The atmosphere felt so wholesome and celebratory.

You know those moments of wonder when you experience art that transcends the everyday? Art that feels like a full-body experience? That was this concert.

The show opened with one member walking out alone in the dark, followed by bird sounds with reverb and then layers of reverb and industrial textures as the band entered one by one, building into a rendition of Clair De Lune as a visual backdrop rose behind them. Every element from the sound, lighting, visuals, set design - worked in harmony to create something so special. I felt my soul glow a little brighter.

It reminded me of concerts I saw with my dad back in 2010 - moments that first sparked my passion for music and sent me down this path. And this concert rekindled that spark all over again.

I think my sweet spot of passion lives in the overlap of music, design, and visual storytelling - something truly immersive. It’s what I aim for in my own tours. Seeing it on this scale, done so beautifully, reminded me why I love live music. It was the kickstart I didn’t know I needed.

Ironically, on the plane over, I’d been wondering if I should just stick to being a studio artist and stop playing live altogether. But this concert changed my mind in an instant.

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We made this together

I’ve come to realise more and more that writing songs is such a healing process for me. I’m often a little too aware of my inner world and what’s happening in my soul, but music gives it an outlet. Instead of simply ruminating on my emotional state, I have a way to process it - to give voice to my feelings and create something that builds a bridge to another human soul who might listen.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’” — C.S. Lewis

I feel that way about great songs, too. I sometimes hear a lyric and think, “You too?” It makes me feel less alone to hear someone else express a similar feeling. That’s what I’ve been trying to do with my own writing these past months.

Even on a practical level, when I write, I often enter a flow state. I lose track of time. Hours go by and I don’t even realise I’m tired or hungry until it’s over.

One of the greatest gifts of this trip was spending three days in the studio with some incredibly talented musicians I also get to call friends. We entered the creative process together. It wasn’t just me directing a song and telling people what to play - it was the four of us, in the room, shaping something we all felt part of. Crafting, reshaping, bouncing ideas back and forth. Sometimes bringing things that felt a little crazy and saying, “Let’s try it.” Sometimes reeling it back. Sometimes running with it.

We worked on songs I’d been stuck on for a long time. Demos that had sat on my hard drive at just one minute long - a verse and chorus, and not much else. But in the studio, the four of us brought seven songs from vague outlines to full tracks full of joyful twists and turns. Even on the train rides home or over late-night ramen, we were still talking about them.

Listening back to all seven at the end of those days was a real highlight. So many of these songs were born out of private grief but completed in community. Perhaps it’s telling that each song became progressively more upbeat - culminating in one that had us all dancing in the control room. God quite literally turned my mourning into dancing (Psalm 30) through this process.

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Coffee and creative concepts

When people ask why I love Seoul so much, I usually say, “the cafes.” Part of me always feels a bit silly saying that - it seems like such a small thing to travel so far for. But just like a great concert, a good cafe taps into that same core passion I have for creating experiences. From the flavour of the coffee, to the interior design and lighting, to the way the staff interact, to the lettering on the window. Everything contributes to the vibe.

Secretly, it’s a dream of mine to open a space like that one day.

And I don’t know anywhere that does cafes quite like Seoul. The sheer number of them is overwhelming. You walk out of one and immediately see three more across the street, and they all look great. The competition is fierce, and that drives a kind of creativity I love. Some places I had pinned from a year ago were already gone or rebranded into something new. But that constant change brings bold experimentation.

In Seoul, having “a cafe” isn’t enough. You need a hook. I visited a vinyl-listening cafe, one that hosts DJ sets, one that lets you rent a cassette and Walkman to take to the park, one inside a gallery with a steaming mountain installation, and one with a huge LED wall playing space footage while you sit at metallic, futuristic tables.

Sure, some of them are “Instagram spots,” but the level of design, the commitment to aesthetic and trend-pushing ideas - it lights up my designer brain. I often say Seoul feels like living in real-life Pinterest. And it’s not just the cafes - it’s the music scene, the fashion, the creativity. One of the only things that made me want to leave Seoul was the urge to get back to my studio and create again.

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The friends we made along the way

Having lost some of the closest people and biggest sources of love in my life recently, I’ve been learning to find love in new places - and reminding myself that love is still all around me, in many forms.

Friendships have been an anchor for me in this time. I’m learning to lean on them more. Even though I still feel the weight of loneliness sometimes, I also felt immensely grateful to find deep friendship on the other side of the world.

There were years where I didn’t have any close friends - no one I could really open up to. Yet here I was, far from home, having heartfelt conversations over coffee, in bars, on long drives, at riverside picnics, or even with a 7-Eleven ice cream in a friend’s apartment. We talked about everything - vulnerabilities, grief, things we’re proud of and ashamed of. Each connection gave me strength for the journey. Each one made me feel a little less alone.

There was even a moment later in the trip when I actually wanted to be alone -something I haven’t felt in a long time. I found a little chai spot in Tokyo, and as I sat quietly sipping my drink, tears came to my eyes. It surprised me. The staff probably thought I was having a spiritual moment with that tea (it was good, but not that good.)

No, it was the reminder: those feelings I try to distract myself from are still there under the surface. But they were also tears of gratitude—that I even get to be here, and have people to journey with.

I didn’t even have time to see everyone I wanted to on this trip. That was a little sad - but also a gift. To go from seasons of feeling like I had no one, to a time when I didn’t have enough time to see everyone - I don’t take that for granted.

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On my way to this trip I joked: “the cafes will heal me”. In a small way, they did. I’m still not over all the grief I’m processing, I still carry some of the same weight, but these things all brought some much needed joy into my life right when I needed it.

I’ve been learning that these things can co-exist. In Colossians it mentions being strengthened “for all endurance and patience with joy”. And that’s often how it is. Joy is not something that only comes after we endure, but something we can find in the middle of the patience and endurance.