Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 09:50:31 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Your cultural "to do" list

Started by aaaaaaaaaargh!, September 11, 2008, 08:22:00 PM

Previous topic - Next topic
I was specifically talking about a certain type of self-discovering *traveller* rather than people who are experiencing cultural things.

Jemble Fred

I think it's pretty clear we're talking specifically about foreign travel – and even more specifically, flying abroad.

Vitalstatistix

Hmm, well I've just gotten back from Italy, and if anyone thinks they can just as easily experience the Lombardy Lakes or Milan's Duomo, for instance, from a book or article are kidding themselves.

I appreciate the sentiment about the pollution from flights and the wastefulness of travelling to booze and sunbathe (and the pomposity of "self-discovery" gap-year travellers), but you can't beat the wonder of areas rich in history and culture, not to mention the enjoyment of genuine foreign food.

CaledonianGonzo

Quote from: Jemble Fred on September 12, 2008, 01:08:24 PM
I think it's pretty clear we're talking specifically about foreign travel – and even more specifically, flying abroad.

Fair enough, but carbon footprint concerns aside, why - if you enjoy the UK's fantastic museums and other cultural highlights - is it wrong to want to, say, visit the Prado or go and see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?  To go to the Opera at La Scala or go and see the Bolshoi Ballet?

True, you can read about them in books, and sometimes that's more than adequate, but sometimes the best way to experience something is in situ, or at least not from a remove.  


Blue Jam

Quote from: CaledonianGonzo on September 12, 2008, 01:23:27 PM
Fair enough, but carbon footprint concerns aside, why - if you enjoy the UK's fantastic museums and other cultural highlights - is it wrong to want to, say, visit the Prado or go and see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?  To go to the Opera at La Scala or go and see the Bolshoi Ballet?

True, you can read about them in books, and sometimes that's more than adequate, but sometimes the best way to experience something is in situ, or at least not from a remove.  

I'm with you there, that's the kind of travel I like- going somewhere to do a specific thing, rather than to go sightseeing or to "experience" a place, maaaaan. I like going to cities for a weekend, but any holiday longer than that feels too long. Backpacking across Asia for a few months wouldn't appeal to me at all. The only place I really want to visit right now is Cuba, I'd love to spend a week there but I'm not sure I can justify two long-haul flights for a one-week holiday. I doubt very much that I'd ever get to go there for "work" though...

matt

Quote from: Blue Jam on September 12, 2008, 01:35:21 PM
I'm with you there, that's the kind of travel I like- going somewhere to do a specific thing, rather than to go sightseeing or to "experience" a place, maaaaan. I like going to cities for a weekend, but any holiday longer than that feels too long. Backpacking across Asia for a few months wouldn't appeal to me at all. The only place I really want to visit right now is Cuba, I'd love to spend a week there but I'm not sure I can justify two long-haul flights for a one-week holiday. I doubt very much that I'd ever get to go there for "work" though...

But that's the point of travelling. If you want to see, for example, the ancient temples at Angkor Wat in Cambodia as well as Ho Chi Minh City, then rather than taking two long haul flights, time off work etc, you might as well travel from one to the other while you're there, and before you know it you're "backpacking across Asia".

LetterBeacon

Quote from: aaaaaaaaaargh! on September 12, 2008, 10:15:27 AMUnless you linked to the thread for information purposes, in which case, ho hum, move along, nothing to see here.

Blimey, I did only link to it for information purposes!  Easy boy easy!

wasp_f15ting

Quote from: aaaaaaaaaargh! on September 12, 2008, 10:34:37 AM


That sounds really interesting, I might have to check that out as I love reading people's everyday stories.  *Inserts plea for link to be posted in this thread*

http://holycats.typepad.com/holy_cats/1904_boston_diary/

The forum post has disappeared, this is the diary I believe.. sounds very similar. I just did a search on google.

Have fun!

Wow, that's a brilliant link, tons of other interesting stuff on there too.  Cheers!

What kind of close-minded imbecile isn't interested in seeing more of the world for themselves? If I had the money I think I'd spend at least the next few years travelling around, seeing different things - nothing to do with broadening the mind, but because it's fun and interesting. Jemfred, I often marvel at your comments but you really have out done yourself this time.

Jemble Fred

Quote from: something is sacred on September 12, 2008, 03:49:17 PM
Jemfred, I often marvel at your comments but you really have out done yourself this time.

Sorry Mum. And don't call me Jemfred.

Mob Bunkhaus

QuoteWhat gives value to travel is fear. it breaks down a kind if inner decor in is. We can't cheat anymore - hide away behind the hours in the office or at the plant (these hours against which we protest so strongly and which protect us so surely against the suffering of being alone)... Travel takes this refuge from us. Far from our own people, our own language, wrenched away from all support, deprived of our masks... we are completely on the surface of ourselves.

- The late Algerian goalkeeper.


Quote from: Mob Bunkhaus
What gives value to travel is fear. it breaks down a kind if inner decor in is. We can't cheat anymore - hide away behind the hours in the office or at the plant (these hours against which we protest so strongly and which protect us so surely against the suffering of being alone)... Travel takes this refuge from us. Far from our own people, our own language, wrenched away from all support, deprived of our masks... we are completely on the surface of ourselves.

- The late Algerian goalkeeper.

Albert Camus?

Jemble Fred

I just re-read my original post, and it's perfectly clear that I'm just arguing against mindless air travel, I have nothing against travelling per se, as is made clear (have travelled a bit myself, and there are places I'd be interesting in seeing in the future) – especially when it's genuinely done in search of education and cultural experience (and ideally avoiding unnecessary use of planes).

I just think Blue Jam had it right in her original post, really.

Mob Bunkhaus

Yeah, jem got pwnd by Camus!!!!!!!LOL!!!!!!!!!!!.

Mob Bunkhaus

Quote from: Jemble Fred on September 12, 2008, 04:52:50 PM
I just re-read my original post, and it's perfectly clear that I'm just arguing against mindless air travel, I have nothing against travelling per se, as is made clear

Spalding Gray.

Right, that initial comment, it's all about your concern for the planet; you're just like George Monbiot. And I thought you just liked to prattle witless horseshit all the livelong day.

Koant

I'm watching all the TED talks, every single one of them. 200 left to see.

Quote from: Blue Jam on September 12, 2008, 01:35:21 PM
I'm with you there, that's the kind of travel I like- going somewhere to do a specific thing, rather than to go sightseeing or to "experience" a place, maaaaan.

Well, if going to a specific place to see/do something isn't 'sightseeing', I've misunderstood your definition of sightseeing.

I know there's a bit of an anti-travel backlash these days, global travel now in financial reach of most of the British population, many people wasting (their) resources doing what they could do in their own backyard, dreary GAP chaps desperate to dangle without safety net, bottling it half-way round and jetting home on father's credit card with a henna bindi and four hundred bracelets, perennial braggards living to pass round another album of another white beach, sipping cocktails served by coloured fellas in white blazers.

This has nothing to do with experiencing another culture and to dismiss travel on these grounds is pig-headed and Capello-faced. I also have no idea why you think that 'experiencing another culture' is laughable bollocks, BJ. I have to say that of all the travel I've done, which is not a whole lot, by far the best has been staying in one place for a prolonged time and getting into a daily routine of living life as part of a different community. Whenever friends come to visit me in China, I'm always a little reluctant to do the legging around box-ticking thing because it's tiring and eventually becomes a blurred chore. I always try to just show them how people here live and do the normal everyday things - these are more amazing and give a more lasting impression than a day at the Great Wall, a day at the Terracotta warriors, whatever it may be. Shooting the breeze with some barbecued chicken feet as part of a cross-section of the local community and having some funny/stilted conversations based on mutual curiosity is so much more fun, you get to know people, you get invited into their homes, you share your lives and you ultimately make friends. Anyway, I am biased.

mrlizard

Quote from: something is sacred on September 12, 2008, 03:49:17 PM
What kind of close-minded imbecile isn't interested in seeing more of the world for themselves?

Erm, me, actually.

No offense to those who have actually gone travelling, and I'm not suggesting that I won't change my mind in the future, but I don't see what seeing more of the world would offer me right now.

I think I'm probably basing that on the young people I know who have travelled, though. I don't like that seeing more of the world is used as some kind of stop-gap between university and 'growing up', and that you're lacking if you've not ventured out of the UK so much.

CaledonianGonzo

Quote from: mrlizard on September 13, 2008, 12:41:27 AM
I think I'm probably basing that on the young people I know who have travelled, though.

Very probably.  The world, in and of itself, is amazing.  Don't judge it by the people that might want to go and look at it.

Quote from: Mob Bunkhaus on September 12, 2008, 04:27:02 PM
it breaks down a kind if inner decor in is

I don't understand this sentence at all.  Nor the original.

Quote from: CaledonianGonzo on September 13, 2008, 01:19:15 AM
The world, in and of itself, is amazing.  Don't judge it by the people that might want to go and look at it.

That's quite brilliant, Gonzo. I'm going to steal it.

Hank_Kingsley

Quote from: something is sacred on September 12, 2008, 03:49:17 PM
What kind of close-minded imbecile isn't interested in seeing more of the world for themselves? If I had the money I think I'd spend at least the next few years travelling around, seeing different things - nothing to do with broadening the mind, but because it's fun and interesting. Jemfred, I often marvel at your comments but you really have out done yourself this time.

I don't think JF is being close-minded, in fact he can travel to far flung places with his mind. There are a lot of people who waste their holidays on getting a sun tan and eating in Starbucks and McDonalds at every opportunity when they're in really culturally fascinating places with unusual landscapes and strange and baffling customs. Get a sun bed if you just want a tan.

I like your principles JF and you've said it many times that there are so many interesting places on this island yet to be 'discovered' that you could quite happily spend all your holidays here.

I don't have much truck with people 'finding themselves' on extended backpacking trips to south-east asia either though. I just spent a week in Paris (my first time there), which some people might think is too long, but it didn't even seem like time enough. I spent almost a whole day in the Louvre going 'this is awesome' and doing that terrible thing of ticking off lots of sights. It was a huge amount of fun though, the best trip I've had in a while and it's fuelled a desire to read up a lot more on French history and improve my language skills for my next trip there (hopefully way down south to Carcassonne).

So, anyway 'boning up on Bonaparte' (hohoho) aside there are lots of things on my cultural to do list:

I'm going to rewatch all the series of Monty Python since it's been years and years since I watched any of it and there are huge gaps in what I've seen.

I'm going to finally get around to reading Foucault's Pendulum and I'm going to find out some more about the radical political groups of the 1960s since I've become quite interested in the motherfuckers and symbionese liberation army. I'd really like to read some Abbie Hoffman books as they look like they'd be quite funny as well as informative.

Any recommendations?

(I also want an xbox 360, I haven't had a console since the N64 and I like the of some of them games they've got)

Quote from: Hank_Kingsley on September 15, 2008, 09:43:39 AM
I'm going to rewatch all the series of Monty Python since it's been years and years since I watched any of it and there are huge gaps in what I've seen.

Yes, that's something I've been meeting to get round to doing.  I've seen a boxset on amazon which purports to have every episode plus the films (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Monty-Python-Definitive-Outrageously-Collection/dp/B000W8AB22/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1221471942&sr=8-4).  It's quite pricey so would appreciate it whether or not people could recommend (I'll check CC at lunchtime too).

I have a feeling I'm going to get The World At War boxset for my birthday which is another thing to add to the pile.