Tag Archives: travel

If I could turn back time

My oldest daughter leaves for France this morning. She’s going to teach English for 8 months in two very small neighbouring towns on the west coast of Bordeaux. I’m so excited for her, especially since she was supposed to spend a semester abroad in her third year of university and that was cancelled due to the pandemic. She is finally getting the trip she was hoping for 2 years after planning to go. It will be a wonderful adventure for her.

When I did my first university degree, it was in International Development and I told myself, “I’m not going to consider this degree complete until I travel to a developing nation and experience what I’m studying.” That didn’t happen. I ended up spending two years working as a lifeguard, and coaching and playing water polo 6 or 7 days a week, then I moved from Toronto to Vancouver. I didn’t end up doing any major travel until about 18 years after graduation, when I went to live in China.

I live a pretty content life with very little I regret, but if I could turn back time and do one thing differently, I would have travelled more when I was younger. If I could give advice to a younger me, that’s the big thing I’d share… (well, that and buy Apple stocks😀).

I see some high school students excited to head to university and they know exactly what they want to do. To them I think, ‘go for it, good for you!’ But I also see kids that just don’t know what they want to do. For them I think, ‘take a year off!’ Still apply for university if you want, then differ for a year. In both cases, travel and see a bit of the world before settling down in a job.

I didn’t become a teacher until I was 30. I have told both of my kids, “If you finish your degree, travel for 2 years, work for a year, do a whole other degree, and then do a year’s work at something you really wanted to try before finally starting a career… you’d still be ahead of my timeline.” When I’m done my career, I will still have had close to 30 years as an educator. I tell my kids there is time for a career after you try doing a few things you really want to do. And who knows, maybe the adventures you go on lead to a career you truly love.

I’m lucky to have a family and a career that bring me joy, and I know that if I had travelled more, I might never have met my wife and had my two wonderful kids. So I still actually don’t regret the choices I’ve made. But looking back at my younger self, I’d say ‘travel more’ would be the advice I’d give if I could whisper to myself half a lifetime ago.

No matter where you go…

More than half a life ago I had a girlfriend that was a fair bit older than me. She was very well travelled, including a solo trip to Africa in the early 80’s. While I haven’t seen her in almost 30 years, I still remember one of her favourite sayings, “No matter where you go, there you are.”

That saying is said by a lot of people, but I finally understood it when she said it. There is no escaping yourself. If you are kind in life, you’ll be kind in a sunny destination spot. If you’re a jerk, you’ll be a jerk at a touristy landmark. If you feel lost, you won’t find yourself on the peak of a mountain. You take whomever you are, wherever you go.

So whether you seek adventure, excitement, relaxation, or rest, it’s your own expectations and hopes that will determine what kind of trip you have. Disappointment because the room wasn’t quite what you expected, or although the room wasn’t what you expected the view was spectacular and made up for it? The food was more expensive than expected, or the food was pricey but you would have paid double for that red snapper last night? Are you looking for disappointment or are you looking for opportunities to see, hear, and feel positive experiences in a foreign land?

No matter where you go, there you are. Sometimes it takes travel experiences to truly understand what that means. As the world opens up, I hope people find exactly what they are looking for when they travel… just make sure you are looking for the right things.

Holiday on Mars… not in my lifetime

It’s fun to think of space tourism, now that the first civilian visit to the space station has happened. I’d love to spend a few days in space someday. Knowing my vertigo issues on spinning rides, I’d probably spend most of the trip with motion sickness and it will be far less fun than I imagine… but I want to try! I want to experience weightlessness for a few days, and to be an astronaut.

But that’s just for a few days. There are some serious issues that astronauts face when going to space for long periods of time.

“Astronauts on space missions suffer from balance problems, visual disturbances, ‎damage to the heart muscle and bone loss.” – The Dangers of Zero Gravity

These get more and more serious the longer you spend in space. Especially effects to our vision.

“…if we want to think about colonisation or extended stays on Mars, we’re going to have to consider blindness as a potential complication.

Right now, there are no solutions for how to treat or prevent fluid build-up in space, and with the brain damage that’s also expected to come from long-term spaceflight.” – Space Could Leave You Blind, And Scientists Say They’ve Finally Figured Out Why

Basically, a several year journey to Mars will be extremely detrimental to the health of anyone who makes the journey.

The next steps in getting there?

1. We need to find out if we need to replicate a full 1G environment or if long term travel at a less gravitational force will be required to rid ourselves of these health issues for long term space travel.

2. We need massive rotating space stations that are designed to provide us with some gravitational force.

3. We need to build these and experiment with them as we just start thinking about colonizing the moon.

4. We need a working moon colonization before even thinking about colonizing Mars.

This will take decades and decades.

I will be 100 if I can make it to 2067… it doesn’t matter how close they are to moon visits by then, and how advanced longevity Science is, I’ll be in no shape to make the moon journey, much less a several year trip to Mars.

It’s fun to think about space holidays like we see in the movies, and who knows, maybe in 100 years that will be possible. But without some significant scientific leaps in technology, space tourism in my lifetime will only go as far as the international space station or maybe a very short moon landing… I’ll just need to save up a few million dollars for the trip before I get too old. Because in my lifetime a trip beyond the space station (which might be affordable in my foreseeable future) will still only be the holiday destination of millionaires and billionaires. My feet will never touch the moon, much less Mars.

That said, if I had the chance to go to the Moon, I’d go!

Mars on the other hand? Not a chance of this happening. This will likely be an adventure opportunity for my grandkids or maybe great-grandkids. By then there might be a technology that allows faster space travel. Maybe they will take a picnic lunch on a trip to Saturn’s rings. It’s fun to imagine space travel that simply isn’t possible today.

The Jetsons, created in 1962 was supposed to depict our world a hundred years in the future. I don’t think we’ll be living and traveling like them in 2062. Technology does not advance as fast as our imaginations.

Jet lag

It took me my entire stay in Ontario to get used to the time zone. Now I’m back in BC and I can’t keep my eyes open after dinner.

I don’t know if it’s travelling itself or the change in time zones but I’m definitely not 20 years old anymore and need to respect the needs of my body after travel.

Sweet dreams.

Red eye flight

It’s 7:14am in Toronto and our red eye flight from Vancouver just landed. I’m visiting my parents and I’ve still got a long day ahead. First one of my sisters is going to pick us up, she arrived last night and is renting a van to get us to my parents. Then we drive onto downtown Toronto to pick up another sister before driving 2.5 hours north to my parents.

After about 45 minutes sleep the whole night, I’m not really looking forward to more travel right now, but I’m with family and that’s the whole point of the trip. In about an hour and a half I’ll be in a van with one of my daughters, one of my nieces, and two of my sisters. The trip up north will go by quickly… and there might be a nap for part of it.

It’s wonderful to connect with my family. In no time at all I’ll feel rejuvenated, even if I didn’t sleep much on the overnight flight.

Travel plans

I’m heading to visit my parents during the March break. I’m looking forward to it. It will be wonderful to see them, my sisters, and other family.

But hopping on a plane in less than a week got me thinking of a planned holiday that was cancelled almost 2 years ago. We were going on a Mediterranean cruise with stops in Spain and Italy, and holiday stops in Spain and Portugal. Covid stopped that and all other holiday travel.

I thought about this trip and how much I love going to new places I’ve never been before. I love the newness of the environment, I love exploring different foods and flavours. I love the touristy sights, but also the side trips off the beaten track. I love the adventure.

There is a saying, ‘No matter where you go, there you are.’ But I want to see more of the world. I want to visit new places and see new things. And I also want to do trips where I connect with family and friends.

Travel is a luxury. It is also a gift. It’s a way to expand your horizons and have relationships grow richer. I’m looking forward to the world opening up more. Thoughts of travel help me escape the pandemic, and news about war. No big trips planned yet, but the planning is part of the fun. I have no idea where the next big holiday destination will be, but I’m hoping Spain or Portugal might be back on the radar in the next year or two… it’s probably not something we could do this summer, but it really is good to be thinking about travel again.

Blog posts from the past

I have been writing daily since July 2019, but I have had a blog since 2006. Yesterday I had a Facebook memory that was a blog post I wrote in 2010, while on vacation in Vietnam.

The Trap is a post that looks at tourist traps that hook you into buying souvenirs, and then equates this to some of the trappings we find in school like the textbook and resources that become the only thing that is taught. Re-reading my post yesterday, I was brought back in time to my adventures, and it made me think about how enriching travel is. We really expand our horizons and see things from different perspectives when we travel to foreign lands. The post shared a link to an earlier post, Bubble Wrap, that starts off, “After a month in China, I’ve come to realize that North Americans live in a bubble wrapped world,” and looks at how we try to (over) protect kids.

Being exposed to different places and cultures really expands and enriches our perspective. Visiting our writing from years ago allows us to see the influence that these experiences have given us. I miss traveling and feel like there is so much of the world still to explore… and to feed me creative things to write about. I don’t see a lot of travel in my near future, but I think I’ll do a little reflection on some of travel I have done, and revisit some memories that are still present, but slowly starting to fade. I haven’t revisited a lot of my past writing in a while either, so I think I’ll do that too.

Space Travel

If you could take a trip to the Space Station, would you go?

If there was a shuttle to an outpost on Mars, is that I trip you would want to take?

Does the idea of weightlessness, and escaping gravity appeal to you?

I wonder if leaving Earth’s atmosphere is something that will be as accessible as traveling to a distant continent in my lifetime? Pay for a ticket, hop on a spacecraft, and spend a luxurious week in zero gravity.

Part of me wonders if I’d enjoy it as much as I think I will, and part of me thinks I’d feel nauseated for most of the trip. But I want to go! I want to experience weightless and see the entire earth from space. I want to do a space walk. I want to put my feet on the moon or on Mars.

I want to holiday off planet. This is a bucket list destination. Who’s with me?

The nod

When I lived in China, if I passed a foreigner, an ex-pat, I got ‘the nod’. It didn’t matter if the person was British, East Indian, Australian, Japanese, or American, they were from another country and I got an acknowledging nod. We were in Dalian, North East China, and of all the foreigners, the Russians were most abundant. The Russians would not give you the nod, even if you gave them one. It was weird.

I got to know a few Russians while in Dalian and they were all very nice, but seeing a Russian stranger on the street, or in a shopping mall, they would give you a quick glance, decide you are not ‘one of them’, and look away. Never the nod.

It’s funny, one of my daughters once asked, “Do you think that they think we are American?” Because we were often asked (in Chinese) by locals if we were American? (Nǐ shì měiguó rén ma?) To which we would answer ‘Canadian’ (Jiānádà rén). Then the person would smile and be even more friendly. My kids picked this up pretty quickly and figured the Russians were assuming we were American.

Here in Canada I get the nod from people of Middle Eastern descent. It happened last night, when I was in a Lebanese Donair shop. I ordered my large, spicy, extra lamb donair, paid and walked along the counter to where I pick it up. Directly in front of me I made eye contact with a young man sitting and enjoying his meal, and he gave me the nod. I returned it with a smile. That was the whole exchange, nothing more. The knowing, ‘you are one of us’ nod.

Oddly enough, I have a Russian grandfather, and my Middle Eastern ancestry is that I’m 50% Ashkenazi Jew. So, the Russian in Dalian that shrugged off without the nod had no idea I actually had heritage, and the Middle Eastern in Canada would probably be surprised to know that my heritage is Jewish. And the Chinese in China had no idea my Grandmother was Chinese.

I’m used to not fitting in a cultural box. As I mentioned before, “I have a look that Italians mistake for Greek, and Greeks mistake for Italian. I am neither.” I am ‘white’ but with a combined heritage of being 75% Ashkenazi Jewish and Chinese, I don’t readily identify as white… other than the privilege I know that I ‘wear’.

But the nod is not about that. The nod is not really about nationality or heritage, it’s about sharing a common experience. It doesn’t matter if the nod is a case of mistaken identity, it doesn’t matter if you are from different parts of the world. The nod is a way that two human beings connect and say “I see you.” And it’s a beautiful thing.

Distances by time

So TikTok has taught me something about travel in Canada. Apparently we are one of the only places in the world that describe distance using time. How far is Nelson BC from the Vancouver Lower Mainland? About 8 hours. Kelowna? 4 hours. Coquitlam to downtown? 40 minutes unless it’s rush hour, then it’s over an hour. My commute to work? 6-8 minutes depending on my timing through one annoying traffic light.

This will change. Many more countries will follow our lead. Not because Canada will have some kind of significant influence, but because of Google and Waze. As more and more people plug their destinations into GPS, they will start to think more like we do. They will come around to how much more sense this makes rather than discussing distances according to kilometres or miles.

We are just ahead of our time. 🤣