Perfect Day
Seven Perfect Days in the Maldives: One Week of Once-in-a-Lifetime Luxury
Welcome to the Maldives where the water glistens like an over turned mirror, the sands are as soft as a down pillow and the Palm Trees rustle in the tropical breeze. What would you do with one week in paradise? To help you experience the ultimate in Maldives luxury, here is a list of suggestions on how to spend your seven days in heaven.
Sunday, a day of shopping in Male: The Maldivian capital city is a thriving port town full of charm and vitality. Spend the day getting lost among the bustling streets, shopping for trinkets, tasting the street food and meeting the charming locals.
Monday, a day of swimming with the fishes: The Maldives have some of the best diving in the world. The crystal clear waters mean unrivalled visibility and the islands are home to a colourful cornucopia of aquatic flora and fauna. If you have a few days, take a diving course for your certification, otherwise take a bubblemaker introductory dive or explore by snorkel.
Tuesday, a day of pampering and beauty: If you choose to stay in a Maldives Resort, the property probably has a spa onsite. Book yourself a full day of pampering, personalised to your body’s needs. For those looking for a unique Maldivian recipe for refreshment, Anantara Dhigu Maldives Resort & Spa offers a special Detox Package with Moor Mud Bath or opt for traditional massages for utter relaxation.
Wednesday, a day of history: Located on Laamu Atoll Isdhoo is home to the largest hawitta in the Maldives, a massive ancient earthen mound, thought to be the remains of a Buddhist stupa and dating back to the pre-Islamic civilization. After soaking in the ancient Buddhist relics, visit the nearby Friday Mosque, a beautiful building over 300 hundred years old.
Thursday,a day of reeling and casting: The Indian Ocean is home to a number of big game fish from mahi mahi to wahoo, sailfish to giant trevally. Try your luck with a rod, then sign up for a cooking class so you can learn to prepare your catch in a tradition Maldivian curry.
Friday, a day of utter relaxation: Don’t do anything today. Lie out. Enjoy paradise. Spend the day basking on the beach or by a private pool villa and let yourself be waited on. Don’t even think about changing out of your bathing suit today.
Saturday, a day of sailing into the horizon: The Maldives are best enjoyed from the deck of a private yacht or sailboat. Some high-end resorts like Anantara Dhigu Maldives offer private excursions on a dhoni (the traditional Maldivian sailboat). Bring along a bottle of champagne and a dinner for two and let the sun set on your final perfect day in paradise.
About the Author
Maddox G. Raphoya is a travel writer based in Thailand and writing about luxury resorts, hotels and travel worldwide.
Perfect Day
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A Perfect Day for Dissecting J.D. Salinger's Bananafish
J.D. Salinger's 1951 classic short story, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," introduces Salinger's favorite character, Seymour Glass – only to kill him some several pages later. The story starts in a posh seaside hotel room, where we overhear Glass's wife on the phone with her mother discussing Seymour's mental health. From there, we head to the beach, where Seymour is hanging out with a four-ish-year old girl named Sybil and telling her stories about the elusive "bananafish." The story ends with Seymour returning to his hotel room and shooting himself in the head. ?!?
Seymour Glass, or, as Sybil calls him, "see more glass," is a hotly contested short story character in American literature – which gives his oh-so transparent name all the more irony. People can't seem to agree on what the guy is like, why he's always hanging out with little kids, or, most importantly, why he decides to kill himself. There are three leading theories on the matter.
Theory One: Seymour is a bananafish. No, really. In the description he gives to Sybil, bananafish are fish that swim into holes and gorge on so many bananas that they get stuck and die. According to some, this is Seymour's unorthodox but fitting metaphor for the materialistic consumer mentality of post-WWII American society – not that we'd know anything about that nowadays. This of course begs the question, what does Seymour's suicide mean? Is going back to his fancy-shmancy hotel room and killing himself the human equivalent of diving into a bananahole and eating to death? That might explain why Sybil thinks she sees a bananafish – she could be talking about Seymour. OR, perhaps Seymour's suicide is a way of overcoming the material world: by leaving it altogether.
Theory Two: Seymour is a pervert. Yup, all that befriending and swimming and story-telling is just his way of getting close to little girls. You'll notice, for instance, that Seymour grabs Sybil's ankles when he is lying on the beach, then again when he pushes her along the water. When he goes so far as to kiss the bottom of her foot, even four-year-old Sybil is weirded out enough to yell, "Hey!," probably remembering something she heard in preschool about a "red-light touch." Embarrassed and/or frustrated, Seymour immediately ends their playdate, heads back to the hotel, and kills himself in shame. The fact that sexual abuse is an ambiguous but recurring theme in J.D. Salinger's other works, notably in The Catcher in the Rye, supports the possibility that something is wrong with Seymour's libido.
Theory Three: Everybody has gotten waaay too P.C. A touch isn't necessarily inappropriate, a kiss isn't always sexual, adults and children can hang out in non-creepy ways, and literature doesn't always have "erotic undertones." Seymour is drawn to the innocence and guilelessness of children because his experiences in WWII have made him feel disillusioned with the adult world – not to mention, talking with Sybil lets him indulge in his creative side. Seymour makes up a great story about the lives and behavior of bananafish, and is tickled pink – in a non-sexual way – when Sybil plays along. Unfortunately, he has trouble dropping this mischievousness when he gets back to the hotel. He jokingly accuses the woman in the elevator of "staring" at his feet, and, in a stunt that only an adult would pull, the woman gets offended by the insinuation. The argument escalates until Seymour becomes genuinely angry instead of just pretend angry, and the woman flees from the elevator. Realizing that he just doesn't gel with adults anymore, Seymour gives up hope of being happy and ends his life.
With so many questions from "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" unanswered, it's no wonder that Salinger went on to feature Seymour in four more stories, most importantly in the two-parter "[Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction]." In these two novellas, Seymour's devoted little brother, Buddy, undertakes the challenge of putting Seymour to paper. The fact that his writing is often rambling, disjointed, and impossible to follow suggests that maybe we're just not meant to know.
About the Author
Shmoop is an online study guide for English Literature, like J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Its content is written by Ph.D. and Masters students from top universities, like Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, and Yale who have also taught at the high school and college levels. Teachers and students should feel confident to cite Shmoop.
Lou Reed - Perfect Day