31 January 2008

Circus Interrogatorius: Travel

In keeping with my second New Year's resolution, which was to steal good ideas from other blogs and pretend they're mine own, I hope to make CI a regular feature (though perhaps not weekly as it's done here).

The premise is quite simple really. I ask five questions. All y'all write five answers. You can either answer in the comment section provided, or if you are blogerationnally-inclined, you could answer in your blog and just post your link in the comment section. Today's theme is travel.

Habeas deliciæ! (Have fun, in Latin)

1. Someone is going to drop you off at your local airport early tomorrow morning. You can take any flight leaving the airport for a free holiday. Where will you go? (Please consider: flights actually leaving your local airport tomorrow)

2. You have a holiday coming up and can visit one city on each continent. Which ones will you visit, and for how long?

3. If you had to live in a country (other than the one you think of as 'home') and had to stay in that country for the rest of your life, where would you choose?

4. Part 1: You have $100 and must travel somewhere for a month. Where will you go? (Please consider: cost of living, opportunities to work, people you could mooch off of, etc. –Ah ah ah! No borrowing money! The $100 doesn't have to pay for your travel to the place you want to go). Part 2: You have 100,000$, but only 24 hours. Where will you go to spend it? (No buying real estate, gold bricks, etc.)

5. What is a vacation; relaxation or adventure?

Bonus question: what's your favourite vacation memory from when you were a kid?

7 comments:

Tokyo Tintin said...

1. The Seychelles to get out of this gloomy Paris winter. Air Seychelles flight HM007 departure at 19:30. I was a bit spoiled for choice though since Paris has three airports, including one of the world’s biggest.

2. I actually do have a two week school holiday coming up, so I fit everything into that timeframe (but assumed magical teleportation between cities rather than actual inconvenient flying). Havana – 3 days; Rio de Janeiro – 3 days; Innsbruck, Austria, for some skiing – 2 days; Istanbul – 4 days, Asmara (the dusty, Italian-built Art Deco capital of Eritrea) – 2 days, Uluru (Ayers Rock) – 2 days

3. Wow! Tricky one. I want to say Japan because I love it so much, but ultimately it is a small, homogeneous country. I worry I might get bored. So I’m tempted to say France, because I can cheat and include all of its colonies like Martinique and French Polynesia (and even St-Pierre & Miquelon if I get homesick for Canada). But I’d be worried that I might go stark raving mad trying to deal with French bureaucracy. So I think I have to split the difference and say the UK. I have many friends there, can speak the language and escape from dreary British winters is possible in places like Bermuda, Montserrat or South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

4. Part 1: China, especially Sichuan or Yunnan. The cost of living is cheap, food is delicious, and it would be pretty easy to pick up some work here and there teaching English. Part 2: Definitely Tokyo! Oh I’ll stay in the Presidential Suite at the Park Hyatt, so that’s a good 30,000$ already. Shopping in Ginza and Aoyama. Eating at one of the many five-star restaurants, champagne in a posh bar, dancing in some hip club and then top it all off with super-fancy karaoke.

5. Definitely adventure. I can relax when I’m dead.

Bonus: I don’t know if it’s my all-time favouritest memory ever, but the first thing that popped into my head was a road trip to Cape Cod with my mum when I was about ten or twelve. It was late afternoon and this huge stretch of beach was empty except for us. The sun was sinking and the tide was coming in, rushing and gurgling between these huge sand dunes, wind blowing through the beach-grass. Even though I was quite young to realise, I knew it was a perfect moment.

Anonymous said...

1. paris, to come visit you, duh!

2. las vegas, paris (duh again!), tokyo, rio, sydney, and um, cape town?

3. if yur going to london, i'm going too!

4. my grandmas house. lol. i woudn't even need 1$! id go to new york city for an insane shopping spree if i only had 24 hours.

5. both, but some times you just need to veg by the pool.

bonus: disneyland (duh! its the happiest place on earth!)

Pablo Javier said...

Saludos Joven Ideologo!!

Miss Ash said...

Oooh I do like, my answers are on my blog!

Anonymous said...

1. New Caledonia - this totally random tiny group of French-governed islands about 1,200 km east of Australia. i know almost nothing about them, but met this nice old lady who's daughter taught school there on a flight to California. it seems just gorgeous. and hey, for only $7,000 there is a flight going from Toronto through L.A. (why not stop and visit my parents) and Auckland (stopover in Australia).

2. New York (4 days), Buenos Ares (3 days) London (5 days), Capetown (3 days), Tokyo (5 days), Sydney (5 days).

3. tough call, very tough call, as i'm pretty happy with canada. i would say the UK as well - a very broad definition of 'the kingdom'.

4. (1) nowhere. i absolutely would not be able to survive on $100 and would die of dysentery or some such thing. i can do frugal, not overly rustic. (2) NEW YORK. first class of course, with a limousine picking up a group of my closest friends right from our houses in toronto. we'd stay in the fanciest penthouse apartments, dine modestly in the lower east side, watch a matinee broadway show from box seats, buy ourselves some new clothes, and go VIP style to a funky club. funky, not exclusive.

5. adventure, then relaxation. i find it difficult to relax when i'm on vacation, cause i want to get intall in before i go home. i'd say the ideal is to get some relaxation in an adventurous place.

Tokyo Tintin said...

davecarey-

Did I ever tell you the story of when I worked at Air France at Pearson and sent some jerk's luggage to New Caledonia? Haha! He deserved it! What an asshole.

Nicolas Hugodot said...

Ok, easy as I'm a biiiig traveller (moved 23 times around the globe in my 37y life!)

1. Tahiti (I'm in Tokyo so it's already half way compared to Paris and at last I'll see that). Mangoes, sun, see, kite surf, dive, all I love as for tomorrow morning? Wow...:-P...!

2. 2 weeks around the globe? Ok: Sydney, Salvador de Bahia, New-York, Kruger park in south africa, Mumbai (or any beautiful part of India such as the Taj Mahal). There I know the world: places that counts or beautiful ones.
But the the ones who never been there: Paris, Venise, Kyoto and Burma (Myanmar) are really, really places to see once in your life. Really...

3. Mhhh... Italy, for sure! One of the most beautiful country of the world, in the middle of the beautiful Europe (so not far for the week-ends trips), nice people and food, easy and beautiful language, ski sea and countryside, on the sea side of a great sea, what else would you miss?
I was hesitating with Thailand which is also plenty of great qualities (food, people, region, history and architecture, religion, very cheap (important! a house instead of a flat ;-D), sea islands and forests...), and maybe south america (I ve been told Colombia opr Venezuela are beautiful) that I don't know yet but not safe enough...

4.A: 100$: for sure south thailand: say... Kho Tao but there are so many small islands so cheap a great...
B: I guess one creazy day in NY with an helicopter, flying over the skyscrappers, a diner on the roof of a big ship, with the most beautiful people and best music, ... but well, this will never replace the experience of a day in a fantastic natural place such as the great canyon (again in helicopter), or in a wild forest with wild animals, or a dive with whale sharks... Ok, I finally choose this last one, based on a superb giant sailing boat, diner with foie gras poele a la lytchee and mangoes, and a great movie beamed onto the sails under the moon!

5. Definitely adventure: going with just a one way ticket, no need to return, no stress, and each day never know (=choose randomly) what to do/where to go: hazard makes you live fantastic and totally unexpected things!

Bonus:
mmmh... holidays in the south of France (don't mess up "Cote d'Azur, overcrowdy, and... the protected paradise that "Cote des Maures" -from Bormes les Mimosas to Saint Tropez- is...). A typical rustic house on the hill, 100m to the beach, with fantastic sunsets over the "Levant" islands, an open disco onto the sand, and the first warm croissants at 5am onto the beach, waiting for the sun. Paradise...