WOULD YOU RATHER? A series of interviews with Travellers, Bloggers, Travel Bloggers and just generally interesting people. We’ll ask a series of difficult travel questions with two possible answers. They’ll tell us what they would choose and why.
For this Article we have Jamie from Jamie Morgen Phillips a first-time author who writes literary nonfiction about travel. She has been to thirty-four countries on six continents over more than a decade of travelling and living abroad.
Jamie is Canadian, was born in Singapore and has lived in Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Thailand. She has worked as an administrative assistant for the government of Western Australia, a farmhand on an organic sheep farm, a shop clerk at a remote outback store, a teacher of English and yoga, and a researcher for head-hunters in the United Kingdom. She has a degree in psychology from the University of British Columbia.
A self professed storytelling nerd, her favourite stories to tell are true ones. Believing storytelling is powerful, primal human behaviour. We create our histories and belief systems and make sense of our lives through stories. A well-told story can reveal something true about the world, about other people, about yourself.
For over a decade, on and off, Jamie has been travelling the world and telling stories about her experiences. First starting her blog in 2009, as a way to get out of writing all her family and friends separate emails about what shenanigans she was getting into in South America. However she liked blogging so much, she dragged her laptop from South America to Asia, Australia & New Zealand, Europe, the United Kingdom, Central America and Africa.
Now to the questions …
For the rest of your life only be allowed to leave your home country of Canada for 2 weeks a year or only spend 2 weeks a year in your home country?
Two weeks a year in Canada, definitely. A consistent two week visit home every year while also getting to do all the traveling and living in other countries? Sign me up.
Would you rather take a 2 week trip to Asia with Piper Chapman, Lorna Morello and Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson from Orange is the New Black or Charlie Kelly, The Waitress and Frank Reynolds from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia?
It’s Always Sunny. I would love to hang out with Lorna and Taystee but travelling with Piper would be a nightmare. She’d be fussy and annoying and we would definitely fight. And there’s the whole international drug smuggling thing. I’d really rather not go to jail and I think I’d have a slightly better chance of staying out of jail with the It’s Always Sunny crew. Plus, Charlie and I could discuss the finer points of bird law.
For the duration of a two week trip would you rather eat Indian food in Italy or Italian food in India?
Italian food in India. The Indian food in Italy is probably really good, but I’m pretty sure it’s against the rules not to eat Italian food in Italy. You can’t go to Italy and not eat all of the gelato. I just don’t have that kind of will power.
Would you rather sleep in a room with a Tarantula or a Snake?
I’d have to go with a snake since it’d be creeping around on the floor and wouldn’t do a lot of climbing like a tarantula would. No one wants to wake up in the middle of the night with a hairy spider on your face.
Would you rather participate in Sao Joao in Porto a festival were everyone hits each other on the head with plastic hammers or La Tomatina outside Valencia the food fight with Tomatoes?
While I don’t love the idea of strangers bonking me on the head with hammers, I’ve heard horrible things about La Tomatina. A friend of mine said it was one of the worst things she’s ever done. She said it gets so crowded, no one can get out to go to the bathroom, so you’re not just covered in tomatoes by the end of it. Everyone has been up all night drinking so there’s vomiting and general drunk people nonsense. And it’s especially bad for women with all the groping & clothes ripping that goes on. Also, apparently the tomatoes are rancid. Hard pass.
Would you rather visit the ancient Japanese city of Nara to meet the bowing deer or the popular resort of Okunoshima, known as Rabbit Island in Japan, to play with the rabbits?
Rabbit Island. Bowing deer are really cool and I’d love to see them, but I’d much rather get mobbed by a whole bunch of bunnies.
Would you rather do a 2 week bus tour around Europe visiting Spain, France and Italy with 20 x 10 year olds or 20 x 80 year olds?
I wouldn’t enjoy being on a tour of 20 people of any age. But if I have to choose, I gotta go with the 80 year olds. 10 year olds would be too much work (what if you lost one?!) and the 80 year olds are more likely to be better conversationalists.
Would you rather attend Burning Man Festival in Nevada USA or Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival?
Burning Man. Coachella can’t compete with ritualistically burning things.
Would you rather try Hákarl from Iceland which is the rotting carcass of a Greenland or Basking shark.It’s buried underground in a shallow pit and pressed with stones so the poisonous internal fluids that allow it to live in such cold waters can be drained out making the meat safe to eat, described by Anthony Bourdain as “the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing” he’d tried or have a Sourtoe Cocktail found in Dawson City, Yukon, a famed drink seasoned with an actual human toe that has been dehydrated and preserved in salt. If you choose the cocktail you must join the “Sourtoe Cocktail Club” and adhere to their motto: “You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow—but the lips have gotta touch the toe.”?
Sourtoe Cocktail because you don’t actually have to eat anything gross, you just have to get past the squick factor of a human appendage floating around in your drink. I imagine the booze helps.
Would you rather participate in the World Air Guitar Championships in Finland or El Colacho: The Baby Jumping festival in Spain?
Baby Jumping, no contest. That festival sounds so entertaining. Who are these parents that offer up their infant children to be piled on pillows in the street and jumped over by people dressed as devils? Air guitar is cute and all, but a festival that combines child endangerment and devil cosplay is really
something special.
Would you rather your new book of travel memoirs was read by and you receive a short e-mail with their thoughts from the author of your favourite book Self, Yann Martel or famous travel writer Bill Bryson?
Depends. Do they like my book? I would either want Bill Bryson to say mean things to me or be praised by Yann Martel.
