Holidays

Q: What do you usually do on holiday? A: I try to do as little as possible, if I'm honest — the appeal of a holiday for me is having nothing scheduled rather than cramming in sights. I'll wander around wherever I am, sit somewhere with a coffee for far longer than necessary, and maybe visit one or two things I actually care about rather than working through a checklist. The one exception is food — I will go out of my way for a good meal. Q: Do you prefer the beach or the mountains? A: The mountains, though it took me a while to admit that to myself, since everyone seems to default to the beach. There's something about the quiet up there, and the fact that you can't just lie there doing nothing — you end up walking, noticing things, being a bit more present than I am lying on sand feeling slightly sunburnt and restless. Q: Do you plan ahead or decide late? A: I plan the logistics — flights, somewhere to stay — and leave everything else completely open. I used to be the type who booked out every day in advance, and I found it exhausting, because the holiday started to feel like another schedule to keep up with. Now I'd rather arrive somewhere and decide the next morning based on how I actually feel. Q: Are public holidays important where you live? A: Very much so, and I think people here take them more seriously than just a day off work. Tet especially isn't really a holiday in the Western sense — it's closer to a mandatory family reunion that happens to come with time off. Even the smaller public holidays tend to be genuinely used for that purpose rather than just squeezed in as an extra lie-in.