This post originally appeared at Guest of a Guest.

Spring has almost sprung! And with the new season, charities across New York City are preparing to take advantage of the nicer weather with their annual spring galas and events.

The themes this year range from “White Gloves Gone Wild” to “Enchantment in the Secret Garden,” and everything in between.

The one thing that is certain, however, is that these events are sure to take you far away from the depths of the Manhattan winter we are slowly coming out of. We've rounded up the best, most talked about and most prestigious charity events going on this spring.

Check out the charity events >>

Art Production Fund Gala

When: March 12

The Details: This year's Art Production Fund Gala has been dubbed the “White Glove Gone Wild Gala” to honor Carolina Herrera and Linda Yablonsky, and you can certainly expect a glass of Dom Perignon to be awaiting you at your arrival, as they are the official sponsors of the event.

Guests are asked to dress in black tie, with women sticking to the theme of the night by adorning white gloves, while enjoying the performance art of Vanessa Beercroft and dancing the night away to the music of DJ Rachel Chandler Guinness.

All we can be sure of is that this is one event you will not want to miss.

The Frick Collection Young Fellows Celestial Ball

When: March 13

Where: The Frick Collection, 1 East 70th St., New York

The Details: The Frick’s annual Donna Karan sponsored event is the place to be this Thursday night.

The fifteenth annual Young Fellows ball is often ranked by the New York Times as one of the most "memorable" social events of the year, right up there with the Met Gala.

Guests in attendance will be treated to the ambiance of the Frick mansion, as well as the chance to view some invaluable artwork. All donations and ticket sales go to support the Frick Education Program.

New York Academy Of Art Tribeca Ball

When: April 7

Where: New York Academy of Art, 111 Franklin St., New York

The Details: This year's Tribeca Ball is taking on a “Nature Inspires” theme honoring Laurie Simmons and Carroll Dunham.

Guests of the event typically include members of the art and entertainment community, such as Justin Timberlake, Robert DeNiro and Nicole Kidman.

New Yorkers Padma Lakshmi, Tory Burch and Julianna Marguilles are known to frequent the event as well. After the abysmal winter New Yorkers faced this year, the theme of "Nature Inspires" is certainly just what we need to take our mind off of the snow and to focus on what's ahead in the warmer weather.

Over a decade ago on a cycling trip across Europe, photographer Christopher Herwig stumbled upon a curious phenomenon that would become his obsession for years: bus stops.

Curiously for a regime usually associated – both architecturally and otherwise – with uniformity and with sameness, the bus stops built by the Soviet Republic display remarkable diversity and creativity.

Herwig made it his mission to photograph as many of these remarkable structures as possible, traveling through Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Russia; Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan; Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Abkhazia.

Now complete, Herwig has launched a Kickstarter to turn this remarkable collection of photographs into a limited edition book, which he describes as “the most mind-blowing collection of creative bus stop design from the Soviet era ever assembled.” 

This bus stop comes from Pitsunda, Abkhazia, near the Russian border on the coast of the Black Sea.

You can find this bus stop in Saratak, Armenia, near the Armenian-Turkish border.

Find this bus stop in Pitsunda, Abkhazia, near the Russian border on the coast of the Black Sea.

As of 2011, 252.78 million people in China were migrant workers. That number will increase by more than 240 million migrants by 2025, putting the total urban population at nearly 1 billion people. Many of these urban-dwelling migrant workers are young people who leave their country homes to work in the big city.

Swiss photographers Stéphanie Borcard & Nicolas Métraux of BM Photo recently documented this migrant phenomenon through the lens of young Chinese hairdressers in the city of Chengdu. The city, while lesser known than Beijing, Hong Kong, or Shanghai, is quickly becoming an economic powerhouse in the country. After taking portraits of the hairdressers, the duo asked their subjects to allow them to photograph their homes. Though cramped and lacking privacy by Western standards, the dorms, apartments, and roomsexemplified the living conditions of other young migrants in China.

Borcard and Metraux shared some photos from the project here, but you can see the rest at their website. They share work from their latest projects on Facebook.

To begin the project, Borcard and Métraux walked the streets of Chengdu for 8 hours a day, walking into every hair salon they encountered to scout potential subjects and ask the owner if they could photograph.

The hairdressers are very easy to pick out in a crowd in China because of their style. Their outlandish fashions are not common, except among these hair stylists and karaoke bar operators. 

After photographing their subjects, they came back a week later with a translator, who further explained the concept of the project. The translator was key to getting the hairdressers to agree to let them photograph their homes. In Chinese culture, it is not common to allow strangers into your home. 

Most hairdressers live in accommodations provided by the owner of the hair salon, often in the same apartment as the boss. Sometimes there are as many as 10 or 15 people living in the same apartment, dorm-style. “Privacy is nonexistent,” Métraux said. 

At the back of most of the hair salons was a door that lead to an apartment building where the boss and hairdressers live. “It was like Alice-in-Wonderland to go from the glitzy hair salons through a door into a whole other world,” Borcard said. Yang Hao (pictured) lives in the same apartment as his boss and sends money home regularly, despite rarely seeing his family.

These two hairdressers must share a bed, which is in the entry hall to their boss’s apartment. 

Yang Wei works at the Romantic Space Salon and lives with his wife in a small apartment. They are expecting their first child in a few months. The hairdressing job isn't all it's cracked up to be. A few months after working at the Flower Vine Image Design Salon, Xin Zeng quit his job to work nights at a local gay bar. Like many migrants, Zeng shuffles through numerous jobs to make ends meet.

SEE ALSO: A Fascinating Glimpse Of Ordinary Life In North Korea

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After selling New York City's first $100 million townhouse to the nation of Qatar, the A Team — a real estate group headed by brothers Tal and Oren Alexander from Douglas Elliman Real Estate — have another impressive listing on display.

This time, the brothers are representing fertilizer billionaire Alexander Rovt, who's not only selling his Upper East Side townhouse, but a Phantom Rolls-Royce to go along with it, according to the New York Post.

The Rolls-Royce was actually added to the property by the brokers, not the seller, Tal Alexander told Business Insider. It draws extra attention to the fact that the townhouse comes with a private garage, which is rare. 

"This house is going to cater to a Chinese or Middle Eastern buyer," Alexander said. "We know that the Phantom is an attractive car to that type of buyer."

The property spans 25 feet, putting it on the wider end of the city's townhouses. It has five outdoor spaces, including a rooftop patio. The five-bedroom, eight-bathroom home recently underwent renovations that took five years to complete, and now comes with a pool and jacuzzi in the basement.

The home and car are on the market for a total of $25 million.

The Upper East Side townhouse has a width of 25 feet, putting it on the spacious end of New York City's townhouses.

The house has 11,400 square feet with ceiling heights between 12 and 14 feet.

The home features an ornate staircase in the foyer as well as an elevator.

We could all be dinosaurs. The Economist predicts that robots are going to replace telemarketers, accountants, and retail workers, and Bill Gates says software bots will take even more jobs.

This isn’t the first time that whole swaths of the labor market have gone extinct: The Industrial Revolution did away with gigs that your great-great-grandparents might have had that sound preposterous to us today.

Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s occupational classification list from 1850 and some research of our own, we found several bizarre-sounding occupations that are now totally extinct. 

Additional reporting by Vivian Giang. 

"Computer" used to be somebody's title. Before electronics took over, these workers — usually women — would convert figures and crunch other numbers by hand.

Factory workers needed a little entertainment, so a lector read news and literature aloud to them.

Before everyone had refrigerators, milk quickly went bad. So you'd need it delivered regularly by your milkman. With home refrigeration, this profession disappeared.

Later this year will mark the 10 years since “Lost” premiered on ABC.

To celebrate, executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse along with seven cast members reunited over the weekend at PaleyFest, the annual two-week event in LA consisting of television show panels for fans.

Among the cool trivia bits we learned, it turns out the writers also disliked random background characters Nikki and Paulo, Daniel Dae Kim (who played Jin) wasn’t speaking (real) Korean for a while on the show, and Yunjin Kim’s (Sun) role was written just for the actress.

And if you’re still reeling nearly four years later about the show’s controversial ending, Lindelof and Cuse confirmed once and for all that the castaways were not dead the entire time. (But you probably already knew that.)

Since “Lost” ended in 2010, some of the cast has tried their luck in Hollywood. Others have ended up on different TV networks while many have reconnected on one successful ABC series.

THEN: Matthew Fox was the leader of the Oceanic 815 survivors, Jack Shephard.

NOW: Fox has tried to become a breakout movie star, first in 2008's "Vantage Point" and as a villain in flop "Alex Cross."

Most recently he had a small role in zombie film "World War Z" and is currently filming horror flick "Welcome to Harmony."

Fox also had some trouble with the law. In 2011, a Cleveland bus driver accused him of battery, while in May 2012, he was arrested for DUI in Oregon.

Co-star Dominic Monaghan accused Fox of beating women, an accusation Fox vehemently denied in Men's Fitness.

THEN: Evangeline Lilly played fugitive bad girl Kate Austin.

Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison is no stranger to the real estate market — he's been called"the nation's most avid trophy-home buyer" and has all but taken over entire neighborhoods in Malibu and the Lake Tahoe area. 

When asked by CNBC in 2012 why he would buy more homes than he could possibly live in, Ellison referenced his love of art. 

"My favorite museums are things like the Frick Museum in New York and the Huntington Hartford in Pasadena where it's someone's home that you walk through," Ellison said to CNBC. "So I'm going to start these art museums that are basically converted homes, and I have one for modern art, and I have one for 19th century European art, and one for French impressionism. I've got Japanese. I own a home in Kyoto, Japan actually on the temple on grounds in Nanzenji that is going to become a Japanese art museum. So, a lot of them are museums." 

Ellison has made headlines in recent years for his plans to develop Lanai, a Hawaiian island he purchased in 2012, into a model for environmentally sound living. Though Lanai has been his largest overall investment by far, he's made a number of blockbuster purchases over the last two decades. 

In 1988, Ellison paid $3.9 million for a William Wurster home in San Francisco's swanky Pacific Heights neighborhood, a popular area that's now home to other tech moguls like Mark Pincus, Jonathan Ive, and Trevor Traina. Several news outlets reported that Ellison planned to buy the home next door for $40 million, but the sale never happened.

Source: Curbed SF 

His home in Woodside, Calif., modeled after a 16th-century Japanese emperor's palace, is worth an estimated $70 million. The 23-acre estate took nine years to design and build, and it was completed in 2004.

Source: SF Gate

He also owns a historic garden villa in Kyoto, Japan, which was reportedly listed for $86 million, though the price he paid is unknown.

Source: SF Gate, Japan Property Central

Pictured: Nanzen-ji Temple, which is right near Ellison's estate

The Centerpiece of Michigan's Fab Five Chris Webber has put his lavish Malibu home up for sale, according to Realtor.com.

The five-time NBA All-Star and current TNT broadcaster is listing his contemporary beach house on the market for $3.995 million.

The 2,900 square foot home has three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and is highlighted by a 180 degree view of the Malibu coastline through glass doors in the living room. The private backyard also has a lap pool. 

An outside view of Chris Webber's home

The living room

Another view of the living room

Campus bars are a fundamental component of the college experience.

Students learn to love their teams, in good times and in bad, while balancing plastic cups of Keystone and watching games with their peers.

Every school has its favorite bar — the one that is as synonymous with a four-year college career as the freshman dorm, quad, or library.

Listed alphabetically by city, we found the best and most beloved college bars in the country.

Mickey's Irish Pub – Ames, IA

109 Welch Ave.

Popular with: Iowa State University

Sitting along Ames' stretch of Welch Avenue nightlife, Mickey's is a favorite among Iowa State students. Many stop over on Tuesdays for a boisterous round of karaoke, accompanied by $2.50 Long Island iced teas, $3.50 Bud tallboys and even, on occasion, free pizza.

The bar itself is even a proponent of ISU sports, frequently tweeting and posting on its Facebook page about the school's victories.

Rick's American Cafe – Ann Arbor, MI

611 Church St.

Popular with: University of Michigan

In the heart of Ann Arbor with a second location in East Lansing, Rick's is among U of M students' favorite places to party. Tuesday night is college night, with $1 well drinks all night and no cover when you show your student ID.

The atmosphere is more club-like than cafe-like, so students who arrive at Rick's should be ready for a good time.

Bourbon Street – Athens, GA

333 E. Broad St.

Popular with: University of Georgia

In downtown Athens, students point to Bourbon Street as the place to be after sundown. Known for its popularity among UGA freshmen, Bourbon Street's best deals are during its power hours, which tend to inspire some table-top dancing.

Those who desire a less rowdy crowd can always head to the upstairs area where pool tables and cheap beer await.

America may be getting safer, but gangs are expanding and becoming more violent, posing a growing threat across the country, according to a 2011 FBI report.

An estimated 1.4 million Americans belong to 33,000 gangs, and together they are responsible for 48% of violent crime in the country.

Following up on a 2012 article, we have profiled 12 of the gangs mentioned in the report and noted their recent activity.

The 18th Street gang is a huge transnational gang in Los Angeles.

One of the most well-known of the "Sureño" gangs in Southern California, the 18th Street Gang is a violent enterprise that was linked last year to a large methamphetamine ring.

The gang is one of the most rapidly expanding criminal groups in the country, with a reach that extends across 32 states, from Maryland to Hawaii.

18th Street gangsters have been linked to homicide, extortion, alien smuggling, drug smuggling, auto theft, and running massive document mills in New York City. These "mills" paper the streets with fraudulent government identification allowing anyone to gain fresh lines of credit, government benefits, and driver licenses.

Florencia 13 nearly turned Los Angeles into a war zone.

Florencia 13 works closely with the Mexican Mafia and is a rival of the 18th Street gang. Florencia 13 is part of a terrifying gang war scene in Los Angeles, and it also has influence in more rural states like Virginia and Iowa.

Gang members have been charged with offenses ranging from piracy to conspiracy to selling drugs to murder. In August, three dozen members of Florencia 13 were indicted for racketeering and drugs. At the time, the Los Angeles Times reported that the gang allegedly "controls swaths of Los Angeles County" and had outposts there for drug-dealing and illegal gambling.

Barrio Azteca's violence comes straight from the Mexican cartels.

Originally based out of El Paso, Texas, Los Aztecas are a powerful paramilitary force on both sides of the Mexican border. Many of the gang's members are recruited from Texas prisons, with some of the organization's most notorious activity taking place inside prison walls.

Los Aztecas work with the Juarez and Los Zetas cartels running drugs and smuggling illegal aliens; gang members also allegedly murdered consulate officials. The gang has a military-like structure that has helped keep rigid order.

In March 2011, 35 members of the gang were charged with a variety of crimes, including the murder of a U.S. Consulate employee and several family members.

That trial was still underway in February 2014.

Before the NCAA tournament starts, there are 68 teams with dreams of cutting down the nets and lifting a trophy.

But even though there will be upsets, there are really just ten teams that have a realistic shot at winning it all.

Using RPI ratings, KenPom.com ratings, Nate Silver's win probabilities, and Sports-Reference.com's Simple Rating System (SRS) we narrowed the field down to the teams with the best chances to be champions.

1. Louisville Cardinals

Regular season record: 29-5

AP ranking: 5

RPI ranking: 19 (.6125)

KenPom.com ranking: 2 (.9515)

SRS ranking: 1 (25.28)

FiveThirtyEight.com win probability: 15%

2. Florida Gators

Regular season record: 32-2

AP ranking: 1

RPI ranking: 1 (.6701)

KenPom.com ranking: 3 (.9476)

SRS ranking: 4 (20.78)

FiveThirtyEight.com win probability: 14%

3. Arizona Wildcats

Regular season record: 30-4

AP ranking: 4

RPI ranking: 2 (.6664)

KenPom.com ranking: 1 (.9540)

SRS ranking: 2 (24.14)

FiveThirtyEight.com win probability: 13%

New Zealand photographer Henry Hargreaves has always liked to play with his food. In his newest collaboration with food stylist Caitlin Levin and typographer Sarit Melmed, Hargreaves takes playing with food to another level by creating maps that use the iconic foods of the countries and continents that they depict.

Before he was a photographer, Hargreaves worked in the food industry and found himself fascinated by how what people ordered reflected their personality. In many ways, Food Maps similarly reflects how what we eat connects with who we are. 

Hargreaves, Levin, and Melmed shared some of their playful maps with us here, but you can see more of Hargreaves and Levin's work at their website. Note that each map is made using real food. 

France is made out of bread and cheese.

The United States is made out of different types of corn and corn products.Japan is made out of different types of seaweed.Australia is made from "shrimp on the barbie," a traditional Christmas food.Africa is made of bananas and plantains.India is, of course, made of spices.

The United Kingdom and Ireland are made out of biscuits.

South America is made up of citrus fruits, such as lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruits.

New Zealand, Hargreaves' home country, is constructed out of kiwis. Though not native to the country, they have been hugely popular in the country since they were first introduced in the early 1900s.

Similarly, while tomatoes are not native to Italy (they actually come from South America), they have since become central to Italian cuisine.

If you are interested in how they actually made the maps, check out their making-of video here: 

Food Maps from Kiwi and Eagle on Vimeo.

SEE ALSO: The Best Food To Eat In Every State

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The real-life "Wolf of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort — who is now a motivational speaker — has lived in this luxurious oceanfront home in California. [via @BoydRoddy]

Belfort's business, JB Global Holdings LLC, was registered to an oceanfront home located at 3423 The Strand in Hermosa Beach, Calif. His fiancée is also listed as a member. 

Click to see the house »

Belfort is the author of a bestselling, tell-all memoir that chronicled his boozy, drug-fueled high-flying Wall Street lifestyle running '90s-era boiler room Stratton Oakmont.

The convicted felon's book was recently adapted into a film directed by Martin Scorsese starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Belfort was arrested in 1998. In 2003, he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering. He served a 22-month prison sentence after being sentenced to four years. He was also ordered to pay $110.4 million in restitution to victims of Stratton Oakmont. He hasn't finished paying them back yet either. 

While the nearly 4,000 square-foot California home is much smaller compared to his former palatial Long Island home, it's still incredibly nice. 

Now we're going to take a tour. 

Clarification: It's unclear if Belfort currently lives in the home. 

Belfort's home has a Mediterranean look.

YouTube/South Bay Digs

The home features four bedrooms and five baths.

YouTube/South Bay Digs

It's right on the beach.

YouTube/South Bay Digs

Starting and maintaining a small business takes an exceptional amount of work, and time is a precious commodity. That's why most successful entrepreneurs have developed a few tricks along the way to increase their productivity and effectiveness.

We asked entrepreneurs across industries to share their favorite productivity hacks, from useful organization apps to clever tricks for cutting down meeting times.

These simple habits have proven to enhance their focus, organization, and happiness, all of which fuel their success. 

Beth Doane, founder of Raintees, lets all calls go to voicemail.

In 2008, Doane created Raintees, an apparel line that plants a tree in an endangered rainforest for every shirt sold and donates school supplies to a child in need for every tote bag sold.

Leading a growing company requires her full focus. Doane lets all of her non-scheduled calls go to voicemail, or else she would never get anything done, she says.

"I tend to return calls at the end of the day, and if someone really needs to reach me I have my assistant's info on my voicemail and let her decide if it's really an 'important' call." 

Eric Casaburi, founder and CEO of Retro Fitness, multitasks by combining a "brainless" activity with a "brain-required" activity.

Casaburi founded the first Retro Fitness in 2004 as an affordable gym for fitness buffs of all intensity levels. His franchise now has locations across the country and continues to grow.

He thinks multi-tasking is key for productivity, but only if it combines a mindless task with one that requires focus.

"For example, you could exercise on a treadmill, while taking a conference call (something that I do frequently)," he says. "Yes you will be winded, but I assure you it won't affect your thinking and communication skills. In fact, there are studies that show the brain neurons fire off at a higher rate while active!"

Jamie Wong, founder and CEO of Vayable, schedules three non-work-related activities a week that nothing can interfere with.

Vayable is a San Francisco-based travel firm that connects travelers with locals who serve as tour guides. Its network includes over 600 destinations around the world.

Wong says that she's found schedules and daily plans regularly get broken, so she started keeping three things in her life that she sticks to no matter what. She commits to one activity in each of the categories "Create,""Love," and "Grow." Right now, for example, she's learning how to play songs on her guitar (Create), keeping Thursday and Saturday nights reserved for friends (Love), and taking boxing lessons (Grow).

"I’ve discovered that few things are more powerful in personal growth than sports," she says. "I block off Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings now for boxing training. Not only is it an amazing workout, but the mental and physical discipline it requires is a great exercise and metaphor for achieving anything outside of my comfort zone... I find that boxing, like many sports, is always a powerful metaphor for life and business, and I am able to draw on its power throughout the week."

Last month, the world was taken by Austrian artist Klemens Torggler and his amazing kinetic doors.

But a lot of us were left with questions: Can the door be opened from the other side? Do they take a long time to build? And where can I buy one?

We reached out to the artist for some answers.

"You just have to push it [to open the door from the other side] — that's all," Torggler wrote to Business Insider in an email. "Honestly, in the ideation phase, I was skeptical myself that the door could be opened properly from the other side. Building and testing the first prototype convinced me!"

Torggler is currently building the doors by hand in his studio in Austria according to customer specifications (some with specially designed locks) and shipping them internationally. He would not disclose the price since it can vary based on materials and how much time the doors take to build. But he said, "the price will be similar to other high-quality design products."

You can currently order your own through Torggler's own website, or see his unique designs on Artelier Contemporary gallery's website.

In the future, Torggler told Business Insider that he has plans to commercialize his doors instead of making one-off art pieces, which will hopefully speed up production and bring the doors to larger retailers around the world — something that would be particularly helpful given the overwhelming response to his creations.

The designer also hinted that he's working on a new project, which "will also be related to doors." Of course.

If you haven't seen it yet, check out the videos showing how Torggler's doors work:

SEE ALSO: The 24 Tiniest Homes On Earth

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Google announced today that it plans to bring Android to smartwatches as part of its newest wearable computing platform called Android Wear. The software will soon be open to developers, but Google has provided a sneak peek at how its smartphone OS will translate to wristwatches.

Android Wear will primarily focus on bringing snippets of information to your wrist that can be viewed at a glance. These include social notifications, updates from fitness apps, the weather, and Google Now services. 

Android Wear will essentially bring Google Maps to your wrist.

You can check the current weather in your area.

You'll be able to conduct Google searches just by speaking to your watch.

There are many ways to screw up a free agency signing.

You can overpay for a guy, sign a guy you don't need, or sabotage your cap space with a pricey player.

All of these things happened this year.

Among the biggest losers: the Giants, Colts, Raiders, and Lions.

Golden Tate (wide receiver), Detroit Lions

Contract: five years, $31 million

Age: 25

Why it's bad: He's still young. But $13 million guaranteed to a third wide receiver with modest numbers is a lot, especially for a team with as many holes as the Lions.

Austin Howard (offensive tackle), Oakland Raiders

Contract: five years, $30 million

Age: 26

Why it's bad: The Raiders have money to burn, but so do the Jets. There's a reason New York didn't match the ridiculous $30 million price that Oakland offered.

Tyson Jackson (defensive end), Kansas City Chiefs

Contract: five years, $25 million

Age: 27

Why it's bad: Despite his high draft position, he was a rotation player for most of his time in Kansas City and only have nine career sacks.

The Hamptons summer season stretches just 14 weeks from Memorial Day to Labor Day, but renters can spend some serious dough in that brief period.

While many Hamptons rentals cost six figures or more for a summer, some take it to another level.

This home, a 12-bedroom Southampton estate on 10 acres with an indoor pool and grass tennis court, is one example.

It was initially listed for $1.3 million for Memorial Day to Labor Day, making it the priciest rental out east. But even with a price cut to $950,000, it's still one of the most expensive Hamptons houses still available. Michaela Keszler at Douglas Elliman is handling the rental.

This $950/summer rental sits on 10 acres in Southampton Village, the oldest English settlement in the state of New York.

The house has 18,000 square feet of space.

It was originally built in 1915, but recently underwent extensive interior renovations.

Last September, two college friends did something a lot of people dream about, but few actually do. They quit their New York City jobs to travel for more than half a year.

Over the course of their journey, Jennifer Diamond and Hilary Walke, both 26, made friends from around the world, hiked volcanoes, saw gorgeous scenery, and created unforgettable memories. In total, they visited 12 different countries in Asia.

They were just catching up on each other’s lives when the idea for the trip came up on the phone one night.

Click here to jump right to their photos >>

“At first it was casual — and somewhat hypothetical,” Walke told Business Insider. “We had been following The Lost Girls, three girls who were living in New York City and quit their jobs to travel the world for a year. We always felt our 10-day trips were cut short.”

Then it clicked. They booked two one-way tickets to Tokyo without a second thought.

"In terms of the itinerary, we looked at a map and checked off the countries we wanted to travel through. That was it," Hilary told Business Insider. "You can't plan 7 months of travel in advance, which is something that excited us."

Both had saved money by living at home after they graduated. During the six months before they left, they saved a bit more and settled on a budget of $20,000 for the year.

At the end of the trip, there was hardly any of the Asian continent they couldn't say they had seen: First they went to Tokyo, then Korea, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Bali and Indonesia, and finally, the Philippines.

Staying healthy was their biggest challenge. One night Jen got an especially bad case of food poisoning.

"With my friend totally out of commission, I had to carry two 35-pound backpacks,” Hilary said. “I was trying to communicate with people who couldn't understand me or where my guest house was.”

Most of the trip, though, was serene. Hilary’s favorite destination was the Indonesian island of Gili Trawangan.

"We were sitting in our beach bungalow with our local friends, playing cards, guitar, singing, laughing, unaware and unconcerned about where on the island our shoes were," Hilary said. "We were definitely wishing we could live in that moment forever."

Now they're back where they started — at least physically.

"Jen's an accountant and I'm writing, just like before," Hilary said. "But the trip changed who we are."

Hilary shared the trip photos with Business Insider. We've put them together in the following slideshow, along with her original captions.

Have an amazing travel story and photos to share? Send an email to thelife@businessinsider.com and we could feature your adventure next.

Our first stop in Tokyo. This was Japanese efficiency at its best — skip the waiters, go right to the ramen vending machine to place your order.

Tokyo arcades are as common as Chase Banks are in New York City. Kids and businessmen alike blow off steam at these overly stimulating technology playgrounds. Eye enlarging is an automatic Photobooth enhancement, but we didn't realize it until we had stared at the photo for a few minutes.

Here we are at Fushimi Inari Shrine, Kyoto, Japan, where there's a path lined with thousands of holy torii gates.

While vintage ads usually bring to mind promotions for long-forgotten brands like Lucky Strike and Schlitz, some of the companies that were big during advertising's golden age remain very much in the public eye today.

And boy, would brands like Pillsbury and General Electric like you to forget some of the outrageously sexist ads they used to run. We've collected some of the worst offenders here, which play on offensive stereotypes about women drivers and suggest that just about every purchase a woman makes should be made with her man in mind.

While today's advertising is by no means sexism-free, these ads give you an idea of just how bad things were back in the day.

General Electric hits the racism/sexism double-whammy.

Jell-O doesn't think this woman's ladybrain can handle office hierarchies.

Kellogg's thinks this woman would be a major catch, if only she could stop being constipated all the time.