I got tired of google not giving me something good so I prompted an AI with quiet scene of a guy sitting on a beach.
I'm disappointed in you guys.
I waited in vain for this answer...
Hexbear. For obvious reasons.
Hallmark earnest character voice: "And why the woods? Sorta exactly?"
I remember as kids we would go to the woods and build sheltered areas where the homeless people that the adults told us took drugs could keep their drugs dry in the rain.
We were pretty dumb but well meaning
Went on a road trip by myself through Canada and wound up stopping by a tiny little town in Alberta called Patricia. Ended up taking a moment to stop by early in the morning by the town's cemetery, maybe like 30 graves dating back 150 odd years, with one as recently as 2019 I think. I sat there in the early sunrise next to a couple dozen dead strangers, watching the cows in the horizon of a place flatter than a table. Extremely peaceful, beautiful moment. I've thought about driving all the way back one day with a better camera
I really like Auckland. Very friendly people, good weather, least fucked politics available in the Anglosphere, lots of stuff going on downtown.
When I lived in Tokyo I was struck by how different my experiences were with Aussies and Kiwis.
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Aussies - very loud, brash but very friendly. I had an Aussie roommate and when his Australian friends who also lived in Tokyo came over - the apartment got very loud and my roommate would lapse into codeswitching. Ordinarily he had a slight Australian accent. But when they came over - they pulled his actual self out of him and he quickly sounded like they did - working class. Also - they once drank every single beer in the apartment including mine. My roommate paid me for the beer but it was still sort of annoying.
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Kiwis - chill, friendly but at least a bit reserved.
I realized my mental map was wonky. In my head I had changed reality so New Zealand was something like 50 miles away from Australia. When in reality it's more like ~1,000.
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My first thumb was regular photo of a guy at dusk at the beach looking towards the darkening horizon. You could call it "atmospheric" but in any event it was too glum and I was tired of googling. My go-to when I'm stuck is to try to see if AI can make something offbeat for me. Sometimes it doesn't work. But when it does - it can hit the spot.
I did a 2 day hike starting at sea level up the "Old Hermit Trail" into the mountain rainforest on Yakushima of the coast of southern Japan to see the multiple millennia old Jomon-sugi trees. oldest growth forest I've ever been in.
a very close second was Skara Brae and the Ring of Brodgar area of Prehistoric Orkney. it was in summer, sunny and gusty winds that coastline with the blue water, salty and violent air, and massive sky was incredible. I don't buy into generational memory, but that place felt familiar, like some kind of home.
Worldwide? Probably Paris. As fun as it is to make fun of :france-cool:, I think the people there are more chill than they're given credit for (at least in Paris). While they definitely appreciate if you attempt to speak in French first, a lot them seemed happy to accommodate me and speak English if my French was a bit broken. That, and all the trains and walkable cities were completely alien (in a good way) to my American ass. I remember visiting St. Malo to make sure I visit something other than Paris, and I loved the place. For anyone who isn't familiar, St. Malo is a super walkable city that's an old French port. Eventually, I found out about the concept of walkable cities and I have been on board ever since that visit when I found out alternative ways of life exist.
So I kinda owe it to France for helping me to go from a moderate lib to eventually becoming a leftist.
Here's St. Malo, and a random Paris road that is somewhat pleasant to walk across.
It's so hard to pick some favorites, but as some general advice: take it all in. Like I said, super walkable and it feels like you're in a work of art, as cliche as it sounds. That, and if you're coming in from the US or Canada, invest in some sturdy shoes and break them in unless you already live in a walkable city. I'm sure you're picking up some French, but I would also try to learn a few "emergency" phrases by heart. If the worst happens, it's important to clearly ask for help in places outside of Paris where people are less likely to speak English. Even some phrases that explain that French isn't your first language would be helpful.
But I do have plenty of recommendations:
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Go to any crepe place. Brittany is where crepes originated from, so you're bound to find some of the best crepes: sweet or savory.
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If crepes aren't your thing, cider is another popular thing there. Annadatta and Le Penjab are two restaurants that have good options for vegans. Usually in France if you're looking for a bite and you don't eat meat, there tends to be a little more planning involved.
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If you haven't booked your hotel yet and you're staying overnight there: check out hotel de l'univers: it's really unique four star hotel that seems to be reasonably priced from what I remember. The one thing that kept it from being 5-star is that they didn't serve dinner there, iirc. Regardless, it feels like a total steal, and you're going to a local hotel rather than a cookie cutter chain.
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Strolling around the ramparts is free, and you're bound to get plenty of great pictures.
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If the tide is low, you can hop on over to a small island that's a short distance away called grand Be.
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The town itself, just finding some of the unique shops and other landmarks was a nice adventure, I couldn't even do it all in one day.
Have fun on your trip, those memories will last you a lifetime.
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Probably a coral reef off of Florida, it was a very interesting expirience; very serene, and yet busy with life everywhere you looked.
Český Krumlov is gorgeous and I had the best lentils of my life there with extremely good and cheap beer
I miss living in Okinawa. The people are great, the food is great, the culture is great - the only thing that sucks are the American military bases which are a blight upon the otherwise beautiful tropical landscape, but if you get your SCUBA license you can go underwater and see some of the most diverse coral reefs through some of the clearest water in the world, which is also great.
Then I lived in Tokyo I told myself a million times to visit Okinawa. Instead I hardly traveled at all and I never went. I should've. I'm far too lazy to learn how to scuba dive but I could have at least gone snorkeling.
Okinawa is a stronghold for the Communist Party, as revisionist as it is. Was it noticeable in any way?
There are old people whose primary retirement activity is protesting the military bases (they're out there basically every day), and every time a news story breaks about a troop committing a crime everyone else comes out in force for a huge protest, which is on top of the yearly demonstration which is practically a cultural festival alongside all of the other ones.
Americans like to cope by saying that actually most of the protestors are paid or that they fly down from the mainland, but it's basically the number one issue among politically active locals so even if some mainland Japanese come down they're pretty firmly in the minority. When I first lived there the protests were a lot smaller than they used to be, but when I left they were ramping up and getting bigger again in response to Shinzo Abe talking about militarization.
Other than that which was impossible not to see I wasn't really involved in politics myself so I can't talk about much else.
Thanks for the answer of a kinda obscure, yet interesting topic. Getting involved in politics as a foreigner is definitely a pretty high bar to clear and I'm speaking from personal experience haha.
tokyo, i was there for two weeks for work, it was amazing, i ate bowls on bowls of ramen, i dont even like anime, i went to that studio ghibli museum, first anime i ever watched was one of the exclusive shorts; i didn't even like it but i had fun everywhere else
I really like Panama. Two very distinct coasts, jungles and mountains and cities linked by cheap buses, fantastic food/some of the best coffee in the world, and it's easy to work on the canal which is a fascinating experience.
Nah, work. The canal has three locks to adjust the water level by like 30m between the oceans. In each one you're secured to the walls by lines. For big ships it's metal chains guided by small trains, but for yachts it's just thick rope. Boats of any size can go through so a lot of retirees take their tiny yachts through there instead of risking the extremely dangerous Drake Passage. For those you need extra deckhands to ball the rope up, throw it to the canal workers on the top of the lock, and then hold the boat steady so it doesn't ram into the cargo ship behind it. Those are called linehandlers and there's no special qualification for it. You just show up at the marinas on either side of the canal, drink with people until you find one sailing through the next day, and get paid like $100+food to cruise the canal for two days. Then do it again.
It's one of my favourite experiences. The canal is a history/logistics/nature nerd's wet dream.
linehandlers
I once watched a 90 minute documentary on the canal and they didn't even mention that in passing. It seems to me that by-and-large there are two kinds of documentarians. The first kind - gets their hands dirty and they know how to tell a story. The other kind never gets their hands dirty and because of disinterest or sloppiness etc - they never get to know the topic as well as they should.
It's a very casual industry. There are a few boater forums where people advertise their transit schedules, but for the most part it's just random backpackers hanging out in Casco Viejo/Colon/Portobelo/Puerto Lindo. I don't even think I saw local dayworkers lining up to do it.
