wish list

every time i work on the travel floor of the bookshop, i find myself mentally planning my holidays for the next decade. i devise complicaed plans i will probably never have the money to carry out, certainly if i stay in academia.
but planning is half of the fun, and i have long shifts to kill. so i go through the books and make my hypothetical plans for the future.
i have dont this since i was a kid, actually. i remember when i was about 10 going through my father's atlas and looking at all the places i felt i had to go. i made a list of my top 100 hundred to-go places and ticked them off with a highlighted whenever i got to one. if i managed to tick one of my top ten off, it was always a great moment. i remember landing in moscow for the first time and excitedly pulling out my list to tick it off (for it had been in the top ten). mexico city was another such great moment.
but i still have many places yet to go. and here is my revised top ten list:
1. iguazu falls (i have been to some of the countries, like brazil, that meet here, but i want to see this specific point, even if i do get drenched)
2. seoul. i spent 3 years working with korean people. i have heard everything imaginable about korea, and i have tried endless plates of korean dishes. i have to go there and check it out wiht my own eyes.
3. pyongyang. for the reasons mentioned above, with the addition that friends of mine have been and come back with stories bizarre enough to intrigue me.
4. sydney. australia is the only continent i have never been to, unless you count antartica. i will get to both sooner or later!
5. beriut. i want to go there and eat. and eat. and eat.
6. cape town and nature beyond.
7. hong kong. for similar reasons that i want to go to beriut, with the addition of supposeldy good shopping as well. this one frustrated me. it has been on my top ten list since i drafted it for the first time nearly 20 years ago, and still i have failed to get there. it is about time!
8. machiu picchiu. i am not much of a nature person, but i have to see it. even if just once in my lifetime. i am too much of a history geek not to want to see the old inca lands.
9. polynesia (various parts). my mother spent part of her childhood in these parts and yet she never took me. NOT FAIR. i am protesting that i am being deprived of part of my inheritance.
10. dubai. i never would have put this on my list until i went to oman this past april. i never expected such amazing geography and such a different-but-not culture. i have become curious and i want to see more of the gulf!

so now i just have to find the time and money to get to all of these places. should anyone kindly feel like donating a few hundred quid to my travel fund, please do not hesitate.