“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
My favorite theme for the blog challenge: Places! I have a lot of places I wished to go to, given with unlimited resources and ready-to-travel visa’s. I will rank my top places basing on Architecture, History and Culture.
6 Places:
1. Mesopotamia, corresponding to modern-day Iraq. I think Filipinos are not allowed to travel to Iraq for the reason which I don’t know, but I do really want to go there. Mesopotamia is considered the birth place of Architecture. And having Architecture as the chosen profession, I’d like to pay a visit and maybe I can still see for myself what’s left of the Ancient structures.
2. Europe. Because it is a Continent with countries worth visiting for. They also have contributed so much for the human race, they’ve set standards and class. They Have Parthenon, Stonehenge, Roman Aqueducts, they started the idea of Baths, Greek Temples of different gods and goddesses, they have a Çatalhöyük, they have the Colosseum, the Ampitheater, different Byzantine Churches like the San Vitale, they have magnificent Gothic churches like the Cathedral Chartres, Duomo, Milano. They also have the Hagia Sophia, the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre, they have the Eiffel Tower, they have the Bauhaus. I think we don’t have enough time and space to mention all of it but it’s worth a visit.
East End of the Cathedral Chartres.
3. Japan. The Land of the Rising Sun. A country with the best model for discipline and perfection. A nation who is deeply rooted with its history and its identity. They even have their own measurement used for their Architecture: the Ken. The use of construction modules keeps proportions between different parts of the edifice constant, preserving its overall harmony. For Japan, it’s always been harmony, nature and nation.
4. Vietnam. Whenever I hear Vietnam, I never fail to remind myself of what the Vietnamese did during the Vietnam War: To always protect the mother ship! I can’t remember the full detail of what the curator said during a museum visit but it did a great impact to me.
Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay. A natural Architecture.
5. South Korea. No, I don’t want to go to Korea because of the K-pop, but because they have a lot of museums that showcases their culture and history.
6. China. After the giant’s been finally awaken, we can feel their power, their rise to power. We felt it during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, we felt it when Shanghai’s been starting to host World Expo’s, we felt it when China’s been building magnificent and “impossible” infrastructures, and we felt it because they finally rose to power.
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
― Henry Miller
Letters to Everyone 