Job Discussion Forums

[jpvanderwerf2001]

Just curious as to what all of the world travelers have seen, and what they consider to be a "wonder".

I can think of a few (quickly, off-hand):
1. The Grand Canyon. As Homer Simpson so succinctly put it: "So...Grand".
2. The Catacombs, Paris. Left an impression on me.
3. Devil's Tower.
4. The Duomo, Milan.
5. The World's Biggest Ball of Twine, Darwin, Minnesota.

Anyone else care to share?

[foster]

The Great Wall of China.
The Grandma and Grandpa Rocks in Koh Samui (natural or man-made???)
Mac the Moose.

[Gordon]

Petra, Jordan
Borubodor, Indonesia
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
Cappadocia, Turkey
Floating on the Dead Sea
Underwater in the Red Sea, Egypt
The Rocky Mountains
Seeing my daughter being born

Still want to see Angkor Wat, the Pyramids and the Great Wall

[leeroy]

For a 23 year-old, I've done OK so far..

I've seen the Pyramids, Taj Mahal, Machu Pichu, Borobudor, Jerusalem, the Nazca lines...

To be honest, though, man-made "wonders" simply don't cut it for me the way natural ones do.

In the Andes we were in a little bus rocketing down a mountain road when I saw the sun break through the clouds and shine onto the snowcapped mountains hundreds(?) of miles into the distance. Now THAT was something to remember for me, far more than the aforementioned places combined.

In Siwa (western Egypt) as the sun set the sky was the most incredible orange/red/yellow combination I've ever seen (and the call to prayer to accompany it was quite atmospheric).

There aren't many natural wonders in London unfortunately - but I'll be back to the wild outdoors one day .

As Stephen Fry once put it,

"it is rare that we see anything made by nature that isn't stunningly beautiful. Ugliness in our surroundings is a man-made concept. This.. self-hatred.. that we see in humanity is a result of guilt. Collectively, society sees these high-rise office blocks and zebra crossings at it feels guilty. There is very little man-made to rival that which nature can make in terms of sheer aesthetic beauty. We are responsible for this degradation - the world is simply a less pretty place because of human civilisation, something we all both recognise and lament..."

Well, it was words to that effect...

[Ulyanov]

Well, I haven't been around all that much yet, as I'm still in the research stage of becoming a TEFL teacher, but here goes:

The Cow Bay Moose - This is a big statue of a moose that looks out to sea in Cow Bay. It's pretty cool. Well, anyone from around here will back me up on this.

The Rocky Mountains are pretty cool too.

Hmm, I'd better get out and see more stuff.

[jud]

Ok, the Danube is maybe not a wonder, but waltzing by it ranks pretty high on my list thank you Mr. Strauss.

The Taj Mahal, the Wailing Wall, the jungle of Kenya (in the seventies, slightly less touristy than now), please forgive me it's no wonder but the impact of the lights of Hong Kong at night was something extraordinary for me (also in the seventies, don't know what it's like now), the southern part of Sicily and the northern part of Sardinia, Crete as seen driving from the North of the island to the South.

[leeroy]

After a couple more drinks, perhaps I should qualify my post a little more...

A lot of man made stuff is very cool indeed. The pyramids were great, Petra looks awesome and I loved all the coloured houses in Grenada. At night when you can see the lights of London reflected off the Thames it is very nice indeed - I'm not saying that everything that is man-made is ugly.

Similarly, a lot of what nature has created can be rubbish - swamps can be dull at the best of times.

But, generally, natural stuff beats man-made stuff hands-down aesthetically speaking - why is that?

Do humans have a genetic disposition towards thinking that trees look nice? Or is it all relative? I doubt Amazonian tribesmen have any particularly special feelings towards trees - perhaps the only reason us crazy westerners appreciate them so much is because we surround ourselves with concrete...

(I don't have any pre-determined agenda with this post here, I'm not deductively(?) leading towards something, by the way...)

Could it be that the seemingly random nature of nature is in itself appealing? Trees, leaves, snowflakes, these are all un-uniform in many ways. A solid concrete 1960s tower block is very predictably bland in terms of design. But a tree is not the product of some control or comittee - it simply happened. Could the very appeal of nature be its randomness and unpredictibilty?

Is this an ironic paradox? That humankind seeks to tame nature in ways that it can quantify and understand (i.e. tower blocks and shopping centres) - while at the same time lamenting the aesthetic loss that such a philosophy implies?

Apologies, anyway, for diversifying away from the OP so quickly - netiquette dictates that one should wait until the second page before doing such things...

[Will.]

1) The smile that is aimed at you and says all that is needed to say, upon the face of a member of the opposite sex walking in the opposite direction.
2) The smile which is caught by another person following you and in moments is flashing all around you from person to person in the crowded street.
3) The feeling you have all day thinking about that smile.







4) Human nature and its frailties... Was she really smiling at me?

[Dr.J]

No, she was smiling at me.

Reminds me of a moment once where I was waiting at a crossing and a car stopped in front of me in traffic. I winked at the pretty girl in the back seat and she smiled, and the car drove off never to be seen again...

Anything can be beautiful if you try hard enough. I bet the guy who designed the 60's prefab stuff felt he was a pretty swell guy. It just depends on how you look at it.

[Marcoregano]

The sight of the first cold beer on a sweltering Hong Kong summer eve can have a marvellous effect, especially when accompanied by a fine sunset made all the more glorious by the light catching the stratospheric pollution from China.

In the world of nature, I'd rank the rising sun catching the peaks of the Torres del Paine in southern Chile, and trout rising for flies as the sun sets over the Dane Valley in England. It's often just a fleeting moment.

[Snoopy]

On a flight back to the UK after six months in Saudi, the sight of the sunrise over the Alps was awesome.

[rossiter joe]

Lots of good ones so far; How about the 3 colored lakes on Keli Mutu on Flores in Indonesia, Uluru (Ayers Rock), Stone Henge, Red Square, and most of the South Island in NZ.

Sorry I haven`t seen the Cow Bay Moose There is a Cow (ichan) Bay on Vancouver Island, but it just has a pulp mill.

[yaramaz]

I grew up next to Cowichan Bay, the pulp mill one, and it's actually in a really pretty foresty area-- or at least it was 20 years ago when I was there...
Right now I live 40 minutes by car from Cappadocia, which is still stunning after 2 years of close proximity.
In the past I have been amazed by quite a few places-- Arches and Bryce national parks in Utah, the Karoo/klein Karoo and Winelands near Cape Town, South Africa, the west coast of Ireland, including the Burren and Cliffs of Moher, Northern Scotland/Highlands, some of the underdeveloped and wild parts of the south of Portugal by the Atlantic, the beaches in Ghana....

[rossiter joe]

Hey Yaramaz!

I also grew up around the Cowichan Bay area (Duncan/Millbay) Class of 83 Cow High. I admit it is a nice area, but not on most people`s wonders of the world.

[naturegirl321]