Tremblant Lifestyle

From the strangest, to the smallest, to the kinkiest, when it comes to hotels, we’ve seen them all. But if there is one thing they all have in common, they are all on land. In the near future when booking a hotel room you will not only be asked whether you would prefer smoking or non-smoking, but whether you would prefer underwater, amongst the clouds, or hovering through space in the earth’s orbit.

Poseidon Undersea Resort

A wise crustacean named Sebastian once said “Under the sea, under the sea. Darling its better down where it’s wetter take it from me.” Since 2001, life-long diver and aquatic enthusiast L. Bruce Jones has been working side by side with engineers to design and realize his vision for the world’s first underwater hotel, scheduled to open next year. Currently under construction in Portland, Oregan, the Poseidon Undersea Resort will eventually be submerged and will rest along the bed of a 5,000 acre Fijian lagoon. Elevators will carry visitors to their luxurious suites forty feet below sea level, where nothing but four inch thick clear acrylic stands between them, and the surrounding aquatic wonderland.

For a mere $15,000 per person you get 2 nights in one of the underwater suites, 4 nights of beach accommodations on a “secret” and exotic Fiji island. The hotel itself is fully equipped with a spa, fitness center, library, revolving restaurant on the lagoon floor, conference rooms, and for anyone interested in an aquatic wedding there’s even the world’s first underwater chapel. During your stay you can learn how to pilot a submarine, explore the coral reef, scuba dive, or even trek along the sea floor.

Hydropolis

Also scheduled to open in Dubai is the £300m, 220-suite underwater hotel Hydropolis. It was supposed to be finished in 2007, making it the “first luxurious underwater hotel,” but delays have pushed the grand opening to 2009, placing Hydropolis neck-and-neck with Poseidon. (Although Poseidon will still be the first habitable sea floor structure)

Joachim Hauser, the developer and designer of the hotel, was hoping to be the first to create comfortable living arrangements underwater guided by his belief that “the future lies in the sea, including the future of city planning. I am certain that one day a whole city will be built in the sea. Our aim is to lay the first mosaic by colonising the sea.”

Manned Cloud

While L. Bruce Jones and Joachim Hauser are busy building their underwater worlds, French designer Jean-Marie Massaudis focuses his attention upwards as he aims to construct the world’s first luxury hotel in the sky. The 1,100 sq. meter helium-filled, whale shaped Airship can travel distances up to 5,000 consecutive km, and can comfortably accommodate 40 guests and 15 staff members. Get a blimp’s eye view of the world while enjoying the Manned Cloud’s restaurant, bar, fitness center, library, and terrace. The humanity!

Set to launch in 2020, the 2008 Design Observer Award-winning floating hotel can circle the globe in 10 days, offering passengers a panoramic view of the planet from 18,000 feet.

Galactic Suite

Around the world in 10 days not fast enough for ya? 18, 000 feet not high enough for ya? Well tough cookies sister. Because the odds of you being one of the 40,000 people on earth who can afford the $4 million to spend 3 days aboard the first hotel in space are fairly astronomical. “Pfftt! $4 million is pocket change!” you say? Well, you’ll also need to be available for the eight weeks of intensive space camp training. The wealthy few who make it into orbit will experience a view of the earth like no other, watching 15 sunrises as they circle the globe in 80 minutes. Suck on that every other resort on the planet.

Guests will wear “velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.” Even after eight weeks of space camp, guests of the space hotel may suffer from “Drift-off-into-space-aphobia,” which is why a space shuttle will remain nearby at all times.

Both John McCain and Hillary Clinton support suspending the 18.4 cent per gallon gas tax for the summer. The goal is to let people enjoy their summer more, maybe take a vacation, and stimulate the economy. Citing the experts, Obama claims the average gain will be about $30, criticizing the plan as having only a marginal benefit and therefore ultimately ineffective. GOPers have retaliated, calling him elitist and out of touch, since maybe $30 couldn’t cover one of his “luxury trips to the Virgin Islands”, but it could mean another tank to get to Grandma’s for a cup o’ lemonade. Does finding $30 insignificant merit his trips being called “Obama’s Elitist Vacations”? This article about the matter links to a discussion forum, where angry Republicans sling mud in Obama’s general direction. Here are a few gems:

“Well Obama, if the $30.00 is so insignificant why not let the peasents have it?”

“That $30. or more that Obama thinks is meaningless could make the difference in many peoples lives. Just because it is a pittance to him, doesn’t mean it is to others less fortunate than he is.”

“Just one more bit of evidence that Obama is out of touch with the world. $25.00 could be the diference of milk and bread on the table of some of his constituants.”

Ya! Don’t take away my dinner-and-a-movie holiday!

“We had the race issue behind us or at least to the point it was dying out , I really enjoyed being able to converse with my black neighbors with out fear of being tabbed a racist ,and now we are back to square one with Wright and his wonderful speeches he gave and the fact that Obama has sat there over twenty years and claims he never heard those words and then he said he did and now he didn’t again .”

Man, Obama, you had to pick the ONE black person in America who didn’t put that old “race issue” behind him to be your preacher. Pick up the next issue of Vibe and get with the times. We were all McMaster and James, McNulty and Bunk, Riggs and Murtaugh - until you got here.

“However, his comments in San Francisco, the Wright issue, and now this are a clarion call to most Americans that this man is big government socialist - or perhaps even - dare I say it - a COMMUNIST. My parents lived in a communist country and that is precisely what they call Obama.”

Clearly, the Reds have infiltrated Chicago, with Barack Obama’s first major acts of rabid socialism perpetrated through his work as a “community organizer”. COMMunity? COMMie traitor?

“Osamabama and his racially motivated spouse has no true interest in this Nation or its people. He is just another of the domestic terrorist occupying a seat in the U.S. Congress and his true agenda for this Nation, should he get the nomination and the Presidency, is his own private corner of the coming Islamic take over of the entire world. they had the bulk of the known world at one time, now their, and his agenda is the entire world and future plans to encompass the universe in the name of Allah, the false representation of The God of Abraham by Mohammed the Prince of Darkness and Deceit.
Be wary of one who speaks with no passion and smiles like a cheshire cat, they are most often the worst nightmare you will ever have to deal with, due to the ulterior motives behind the smile and the gift of oratory.”

“Obama Hussein Mohammed Barack: you can have my $30 if it will help take you far far away from the U.S., where you might find folks who agree with your and your wife’s anti-Middle America mentality.”

Indeed. Watch out for that man who, with his words, can summon the hope of a nation to improve healthcare and conditions for the poor. He’s probably a knight of evil, bent on world domination and the skewering of infidel skulls.

“While the Dems moan and complain about ‘excess’ profits made by oil companies, the real winner is the government. Oil companies may have profited by $600-billion in the past few years but government has raked in $1.3-trillion and it has not only failed to produce a drop of oil, it actively thwarts the effots of others to do so.”

Yeah – the government’s raking it in for these “social services”, none of which help me at the pump. Either stick a high school on an off-shore rig, or I don’t want my kids learning, you hear me?! At least the oil companies, taking a *pffth* paltry sum of just $600 billion, got me from A to B, you fossil fools.

“The arrogant elitism of this man is mind-boggling….
and yet he is still harping on how hard he had it as a child…and that Clinton and McCain had more privileges than he did….cause his Mama was on food stamps…yada, yada, yada
Spare me….elitism is a State of Mind….and you Mr.Obama have chosen to be a SNOB!”

“Poor, downtrodden Barak and Michelle Obama. They can’t afford a Caribbean Vacation on the rebate of 18½ cents per gallon on fuel. What a rough life they lead, with an annual income of roughly ½ million dollars per year. Boo-hoo-hoo.”

At least Bush spent the majority of his record-breaking number of vacation days on a good ol’ American ranch. Clearly, Obama’s an order of snob chicken with elite sauce.

Edit: Just to be clear, to call Obama elitist over the $30 is nuts, as far as I’m concerned. Above is a listing and mockery of some shocking Republican reactions to his actually honest and reasonable position, to expose some of the worst of how people are discussing this issue. Hope the humour came across, and wasn’t misinterpreted (which would make me sound, well, nuts)

Nothing shifts a vacation into fifth gear like a high-intensity hook up with a beautiful stranger. Your stresses and inhibitions are left at home, exotic drinks with tiny umbrellas are flowing, and all too aware of your limited time together, you are both having the time of your lives.

The goal here is to help you transform your international fling fantasy into a reality, and the first step is to put the odds in your favor by choosing the right setting. Following are some of the pros and cons associated with popular holiday pickup locations.

The Beach

Unless you were cast as a Spartan soldier in the film 300, you should forget about trying to pick up at the beach. People generally go to the beach for 4 reasons:

1. To tan their chiseled bodies.
2. To show off their chiseled bodies by throwing various beach objects like Frisbees, footballs, or nerds.
3. To stare at the people with chiseled bodies.
4. To place bets on who can throw the nerd the furthest.

So if you’re the type who doesn’t so much tan as you do catch on fire, and who usually relies on archaic techniques like conversation, charm, and sense of humor to make your first impressions, then you’d be better off waiting for the sun to go down and the beer lights to go up, putting on your best money-shirt and hitting the dance clubs or the hotel bars. Now women might actually listen you what you have to say as opposed to wishing your belly keg looked more like a six-pack.

Cruise Ships

A cruise vacation can either be an incredibly romantic experience, or a horrifying floating prison sentence, depending on your pick-up objectives. Meeting someone on a cruise is never the problem. Packed with casinos, dance clubs,restaurants, and even rock climbing walls, your chances for bumping into someone who shares your love for peanut M&Ms and reruns of Family Guy are extremely high. Once the connection has been made and the sparks have flown, a cruise ship suddenly transforms into the ultimate dating extravaganza with exciting activities and romantic settings from sunrise to sunset. Perfect for someone looking for an action-packed one week relationship.

However….and this is a big however, what happens when you’re more of a Baskin Robbins, likes to explore 31 different flavors type of guy? Well, suppose you manage to score big one night with Miss Right at the beginning of your oceanic adventure. Now suppose the tequila shooters eventually wear off and you find yourself in bed with Miss Pirates of the Caribbean. Suddenly the classic “I’ll-call-you-later”-then-disappear-forever-into-a-cloud-of ninja-smoke maneuver becomes a mission impossible. Unless you consider walking the plank, stealing a life raft, or sprinting off into the jungle as soon as the ship docks as options, there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

You’re probably thinking “But the boat is huge, she can’t be everywhere at the same time.” True, but women have a GPS tracking system in their brains that starts beeping as soon as you come within three feet of another woman. She will find you. Besides, the whole point of a vacation is to relax, do you really want to spend yours tip-toeing around, looking over your shoulder every second like a deer during hunting season? Of course not.

So what’s the moral of this story? Keep away from tequila shooters.

Hostels

Whether you’re backpacking through Europe or simply saving your vacation cash for more important things like cosmopolitans for the cute blonde at the bar, youth hostels are great locations for meeting single women from all over the planet. Now if you’re extremely lucky, like lottery-winning-caliber lucky, then you might end up sharing a room with a gorgeous Ukrainian dancer named Svetlana. But in reality you should invest in a pair of good ear plugs, you’ll need them to drown out the thunderous snores of Borislav, the eccentric shoemaker from Bulgaria.

Thankfully most hostels have common kitchens and living rooms which serve as excellent breeding grounds for ice-breakers like: “Where are you from?”, “What’s a good bar around here?” and “How about we ditch Borislav and go to that good bar you just mentioned?” Things might become tricky when arriving at the “my place or yours” chapter of the evening, with both of you sharing your rooms with several strangers, and unless you are willing to distribute earplugs to everybody, discretion is next to impossible. In this case you both should combine money you saved from the hostel, and spend the night in an actual hotel.

Unfortunately, Mont Tremblant’s not known as the ideal spot to pick up. Part of the problem is weather, but hey, nothing wrong with a girl in ski gear.

Traveling to a foreign country is always an exhilarating experience. The sights, sounds, tastes and smells expand our minds and broaden our cultural horizons. We try to absorb as much as we can by taking the tours, visiting all the hot spots, cramming our days with activities and then we try to bring it all home in our digital cameras. Why not absorb the experience into our bodies, literally? When planning your vacation’s activities, why not give some good ol’ hand to hand combat a try? You can learn a lot about a culture by the martial art practiced by its people, as it shares a symbiotic relationship with the country’s history, its religion, its survival.

When we hear the words “martial arts” countries like China, Japan, Thailand usually come to mind. But all countries have had to defend themselves at one point or another, and as a result have developed their own unique styles and weapons. Martial art schools are generally friendly, welcoming to visitors, and much less expensive than snorkeling or parasailing. The following are some vacation destinations with some lesser known fighting styles definitely worth sneaking into your itinerary.

India - Kalaripayattu

Whether it’s a spiritual journey to the Himalayan mountains or to visit the white marbled wonder of the world, Taj Mahal, India awe-inspires with its natural beauty and structural magnificence. Home of the oldest major religion still in practice on earth, Indian masters can also teach you the world’s oldest martial art, kalaripayattu. With origins tracing back 3000 years, kalaripayattu incorporates strikes, grappling, weaponry, martial dance and massage. The system draws strength from animal forms such as lions, tigers, elephants, snakes and crocodiles, oh my. Once learned you can move onto wooden weapons, and eventually onto metal swords, spears and shields. Fervent believers in health and healing, training sessions begin and end with massages, using oils and incense to calm the mind and improve flexibility.

To find a school in India, click here

France - Savate

Relatively low-key among martial arts, the kickboxing style of savate isn’t the first thing you think of when you think of France. But providing you’re not on honeymoon, a visit to the land of typically less violent passions can be a great opportunity to learn a new fighting style. Savate is named after the French word for “old shoe”, highlighting the peculiar fact that it is fought actually wearing shoes, unlike most martial arts. This graceful kickboxing style was formalized in France early in the 19th century, having evolved from street-fighting origins. It’s partially known for its particular weapon specialization, a type of cane.

Videos of savate in action:
Savate Training and Execution

The Eminem playing over this next clip is a bit lame, but the match shows the flavor of the savate style.

Find savate schools in France here
Knowing French would help…

Russia - Systema

An ancient country whose history is as rich as its culture, Russia is the birthplace for one of the most effective and devastating martial arts on the planet today. Unlike the rigid forms and animal stances of many Asian martial arts, systema emphasizes fluid and natural human movement. Understanding that combat is a state of chaos carrying with it an infinite number of challenges and opportunities, the Russians developed a system of defense adaptable to any situation. Outside the schools practitioners train in the woods, in the water, in the snow, in a car, anywhere, learning how to avoid and counter-attack all forms of strikes, kicks, holds, chokes, anything. They learn how to disarm knives, guns, sticks, as well as how to become deadly with improvised weaponry such as pens, magazines, and shot glasses (if you don’t think pens or magazines can be dangerous, please see The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy).

Don’t let the cheesy music and slippery movements fool you, systema is taught to the Spetsnaz, the most elite special force in the Russian military.

Brazilians know how to celebrate, and the martial art of capoeira literally embodies the celebratory spirit. Add martial spice to your visit to Brazil, and at least try to see some of the style in action. You can’t miss it – it’s a hybrid of traditional fighting techniques and dance-like moves. It began to take shape in the 16th century with the mass influx of West African slaves into Brazil. While there is certainty that there are African elements, there is no pre-slavery evidence of a capoeira fighting style in Africa.

The art, which is considered a kind of play, was developed as a cultural pastime for entertainment and fun, but also potentially as a means for slaves to practice defending themselves against their owners. Either way, the dance element could have a powerful psychological effect on an opponent during a fight.

Capoeira clips:
Peculiar music, but a nice clip of capoeira sparring.

An impressive demonstration of the acrobatic ability of the capoeira adept.

Keep learning about capoeira here

Find Brazilian capoeira schools here

Philippines - Eskrima

Known for stunning beaches and hospitality, the Philippines have always been a great spot to visit. An extremely favourable currency exchange means the possibility of an extended stay, perfect for the learning and cultivation of the local martial art, eskrima. Likely developed from a mix of Chinese, Indonesian, and Malaysian styles, eskrima differs from many mainstream martial arts in that students typically learn to fight with a weapon first, then move to open hand techniques. It is a strongly weapons-based style, specifically those that can be dual-wielded, like short sticks and daggers. Outside the Philippines, it is often referred to as Kali.

Here are some great eskrima videos:
The basics.

Eskrima skills display.

To read more about eskrima, click here

Finding Schools in the Philippines:
It’s actually quite difficult to find schools online. The best bet is to search around FMA (Filipino Martial Arts) Forums like this, or post a thread asking for help finding a school near wherever you are or plan to be.

So that’s it. Unfortunately, there’s no specific fighting style associated with Mont Tremblant!

You work hard, right? And you need a vacation sometimes, right? If your employer’s not the type to give you one, your government might have you covered – depending on where you live! Take a look below at some of the vacation stats from around the world, and notice how North American countries stack up as far as legally due vacation days. No wonder why the Mont Tremblant real estate market welcomes so many foreigners.

France: 30 days (+1 paid national holiday)

Finland: 25 days (+9 paid national holiday)

Norway: 25 days (+2 paid national holiday)

Spain: 22 days (+12 paid national holiday)

Switzerland: 20 days

Italy: 20 days (+13 paid national holiday)

Canada: 10 days (+8 paid national holiday)

United States: None