Stuff Digital Edition

What memories may come

Stephen Heard

Ihave a boring obsession with revisiting the same attractions when travelling. During a pre-pandemic trip to Budapest, in Hungary, I shamefully stopped by a rundown subway station three times, in just as many days, to savour the city’s best deep-fried langos. Two trips to Bangkok have involved lengthy strolls at the same night market looking for bargains and interesting delicacies impaled on sticks.

There’s something satisfying about finding familiarity in an unfamiliar place.

Entering the 10th week of lockdown in Auckland, the extent of my travel recently has involved following the same route around my leafy neighbourhood.

It’s easy to forget that the world outside my fivekilometre walking loop has been ticking over this entire time.

In the past year, while New Zealand has been cut off from the rest of the world, new attractions have opened across the globe.

On pages 38-39, you can read about a new floating park on New York’s Hudson River, a highly anticipated museum in Egypt, which features the entire contents of Tutankhamun’s tomb, and Dubai’s absolutely massive observation wheel, which stands twice as high as the London Eye.

One of the best things about living in an island bubble is that there will be even more sites and attractions to discover when we can finally travel again.

The Government’s new traffic light framework has at least given us some light at the end of the tunnel for when we can expect some normality in the post-vaccinated world.

When restrictions loosen, I will be looking to do something new in our own isolated slice of paradise.

And then, once international borders open, and there’s an opportunity to visit faraway lands, you can be sure that I will be sniffing out some new experiences, and that night market.

Travel

en-nz

2021-10-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-24T07:00:00.0000000Z

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