good health | Ziimeo Blogs

How To Combat Holiday Brain Drain

At some point, we’ve all felt holiday brain drain – that feeling that the grey matter isn’t working at full capacity when you return to the office after a break away. Reportedly, going on a vacation – especially to a warm climate – may even lower your IQ.

So it makes sense that there’s a whole new industry looking to reverse that trend, where travellers will have the option of choosing destinations, hotels and holiday packages designed to keep their minds in good health. Forbes magazine reported that brain training will be the next ‘‘trillion-dollar industry”. According to market research firm Sharp Brains, the worldwide brain health and fitness digital software market is already worth $295 million, and is expected to grow between $1 billion to $5 billion by 2015.

Just as working out at the hotel gym can boost your overall fitness, certain brain exercises can make you better at solving problems and lead to self improvement. Tapping into some of the world’s most innovative minds while away on holiday or on an executive excursion may not be a bad thing — we might even be prepared to travel for it.

“Hotels and resorts are becoming schools of life,” said Elisabeth Ixmeier, co-founder of Healing Hotels of the World, a group focused on well being and travel. “Properties will soon offer lectures on room TVs, they will have libraries with books about healthy, happy lifestyles and be in this sense, philosophical schools.”

Cruise liners regularly offer activities to stimulate the mind. Celebrity Cruises has teamed up with educational tourism company Smithsonian Journeys to offer talks by marine biologists, naturalists, astronomers or aviation historians, while Silversea Cruises has its own enrichment program with guest speakers including celebrity chefs, bestselling authors and historians.

Packing Plato in with your sunscreen or uploading Nietzsche onto your e-reader may just be the start of things to come. Who knows, you may soon be going on vacation to see Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg speak, or booking a fly and teatime package with the Dalai Lama.

What is your own way of reversing holiday brain drain? Share your suggestions with us!

Source: BBC Travel

Image: Escape From Corporate America

Hong Kong’s Vibrant Bun Festival

There’s no question that Hong Kong’s traditional holiday celebrations are colourful, from the buckets of freshly-cut flowers exploding out of market stalls during Chinese New Year to the gentle glow of the elaborate lanterns that pay homage to the harvest moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival. But no ritual is as vibrant — or as zany — as the Cheung Chau Bun Festival, an annual springtime rite characterized by parades, performances — and thousands of hunks of steamed dough.

Held annually according to the lunar calendar (this year falling on 25 to 29 April), the bun festival’s origins date back 100 years to when a plague struck the island, and in response villagers set up an altar to Pak Tai, a Taoist god. They sacrificed offerings to drive away the evil spirits causing the scourge — and it worked. The bun festival is celebrated every year to thank the deities who saved the island.

Hong Kongers and tourists pack Cheung Chau for the four-day affair, which is chock-full of Cantonese opera shows, lion and unicorn dances and Chinese acrobatics. Bands play; drums beat; flags wave. In the parade that winds through the small island, five- and six-year old children are suspended above floats, dressed in bright silk outfits to resemble mythological figures. It culminates in a midnight bun-scrambling competition, during which villagers shimmy to the top of three 14-metre-tall pyramids fashioned out of buns — 9,000 of them, to be exact (and today made of plastic to avoid wasting food). In the past, villagers believed that whoever gathered the most buns would bring their family good health and fortune.

You don’t just have fun with buns at the festival–you eat them. Giant bamboo steamer baskets full of buns are everywhere. They come in sesame, lotus or red bean paste varieties, all bearing a red stamp with the Chinese character for peace. At the conclusion of the celebrations, the auspicious buns are doled out to villagers and visitors. Because of the limited supply, there are often queues, so most festival-goers simply buy them throughout the festival — and even throughout the year — at many Cheung Chau food stalls.

What are your favorite festivals in Hong Kong? Share your experiences with us!

Source: BBC Travel

Image: Cultural China