World Travel

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BedellBrave

It's OVER 5,000!
Where would you go tomorrow if you could? Say you've got funds and time for a 2 week adventure. Where are you going? Is it somewhere you've been before or not? And why would you choose this destination(s)?
 
This is tough. So tough that I've changed my mind several times.

Landed on Amsterdam. A bit cliche -- although not as cliche as Paris, I suppose. Love the vice (pot, smut), the history (Tulip mania, WWII [Anne Frank], etc.), the architecture (canals on canals on canals), the food (cheese, stroopwafels, gummies, Albert Heijn, FEBO), the beer (Heineken, Amstel), and the culture (bicycles, Van Gogh, liberality). It's also incredibly central for Western Europe (Paris, Brussels, London, Frankfurt all within 2 hours by high speed train).

Runners up: Seoul, Budapest, Kyoto
 
Have never traveled outside the country before.

But if you gave me 2 weeks, probably a tour of Western Europe.

Would like to get in one Arsenal game, play at Wimbledon's grass courts for a day, travel to Paris, visit the Vatican, Lake Como, visit Madrid, etc.

Would like to go to the Philippines, but it wouldn't be safe even for my family.
 
Since I spent a quarter of my life in Europe, been there and done that. Should have moved to Japan when I had the chance but my then wife did not want to go there.

Well, I always wanted to go to either New Zealand or Australia. I might still go there one day so never say never is my motto.
 
I'm trying to plan a 2 week backpacking tour through central western Europe. Never been outside of North America and no time like the present.
 
Metaphysicist said:
Why is that?
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Other than a tourist destination beach resort like Boracay, it's probably more risky for an Americanized Filipino family to come visit the Philippines than a white-American family.

Where my relatives are, it would be close to walking in the favela slums in Brazil.

It's dangerous because the locals know you're different when you have clothes without holes, you smell clean, you don't look dirty, and you can only drink bottled water. Police corruption is insane there, where you can get away with murder if you pay off the cops enough money (and we aren't talking millions, just a few hundred american). My dad went there a few years ago after 30 years in USA, needed my extended cousins to escort him with shotguns if he wanted to go walk in the neighborhood or the local convenience store. He was already threatened a few times with guns by random gangs who wanted american dollars his first few days there just walking a block away from our relatives' compound.

The gun culture there in the Philippines is probably 10x more amplified there than it is here, and I'm not even talking or referring to the Southern Islands where the Abu Sayaf/Muslim demographics are. They love their guns and their prisons are more overpopulated than ours are.

Ever since we forced independence from USA and US closed all the military bases there, the country has turned into a huge ****hole.

As I told AA, just as how we use Israel to test out or new military toys on Palestinians, the Philippines is a perfect social experiment for government corruption in a true "capitalist" system. No real investment in infrastructure, education, roadways, etc.
 
thethe said:
I'm trying to plan a 2 week backpacking tour through central western Europe. Never been outside of North America and no time like the present.
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Do the train ride first from Amsterdam, Brussels, Aachen, down to Trier to Luxembourg City, to Paris, then Marseille, either fork to Barcelona to the west or Milan to the east (good backpacking area in Northern Italy/Austria/Switzerland or you can circle back and travel along the Mosel river (I think they make the best wine in the world, but I am biased). Lot of nice towns. I lived on the river in a town call Treis-Karden
 
KeithLockhart said:
Other than a tourist destination beach resort like Boracay, it's probably more risky for an Americanized Filipino family to come visit the Philippines than a white-American family.

Where my relatives are, it would be close to walking in the favela slums in Brazil.

It's dangerous because the locals know you're different when you have clothes without holes, you smell clean, you don't look dirty, and you can only drink bottled water. Police corruption is insane there, where you can get away with murder if you pay off the cops enough money (and we aren't talking millions, just a few hundred american). My dad went there a few years ago after 30 years in USA, needed my extended cousins to escort him with shotguns if he wanted to go walk in the neighborhood or the local convenience store. He was already threatened a few times with guns by random gangs who wanted american dollars his first few days there just walking a block away from our relatives' compound.

The gun culture there in the Philippines is probably 10x more amplified there than it is here, and I'm not even talking or referring to the Southern Islands where the Abu Sayaf/Muslim demographics are. They love their guns and their prisons are more overpopulated than ours are.

Ever since we forced independence from USA and US closed all the military bases there, the country has turned into a huge ****hole.

As I told AA, just as how we use Israel to test out or new military toys on Palestinians, the Philippines is a perfect social experiment for government corruption in a true "capitalist" system. No real investment in infrastructure, education, roadways, etc.
Click to expand...

I guess that is the reason why our new priest was reluctant to speak much about the country. I have a feeling that he was waiting to get the next slip and move here, but the expression on his face to abject horror when we told him that it gets -40 on some occasions here, but I guess being cold and fending for you own is better than what you described Sav. I couldn't imagine living under those conditions.
 
biznews_asia_september_2013.jpg


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But back to the thread at hand.
 
KeithLockhart said:
Are you sure you don't have some mixed mulatto child somewhere in Manila?
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Ummm. No. My friend has a few kids over there. You are bringing so many memories back from my pals from a few decades ago. I wasn't really paying attention on what he was saying. After what you've said it made me realize the pain he was going through, about bringing family over and how hard it is to accomplish it. I read up on it and you were being nice, it is much more worse than I thought. Your parents were smart to stay over here.
 
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