Places where I'd rather be right now

Ah, the life of a student. Broke and bound to the confines of your charming-yet-tiny-and-claustrophobic university town by none other than the ever-pleasant cloud of exam doom. That's right. I have to write about places like Thailand, Malaysia, countries in the Middle East and many more in blocks of two hours (multiplied by six modules) in some drab old room with tens of other exam-possessed robots who I've never seen in lectures. I'd offer that as an exemplary definition of counter-productivity.

Allow me to let my daydreams take over during this glorious break from revising, oh, just the dynamics of democratisation in the Middle Ea... zzzzzzzzzzzzz...

• Back home in Hong Kong, sipping a smoothie in the scorching summer heat on the roof of IFC mall (clearly I have a knack for daydreaming up alliterations). It's going to hit 33 degrees Celsius this weekend, and I am desperate to leave the land of perpetual winter i.e. Durham, so badly that the promise of sun, a cold fruit drink and an urban oasis almost have me reaching for my credit card and buying the next available plane ticket home. Oh, wait. I'm a student.
• Brussels, at my grandmother's house. There's nothing like spending some alone time with grandma and catching up with her. It makes you realise the importance of maintaining those ties with the members of your family whom you see less of. I do love me some Saturday morning local market shopping too.
• Penang, Malaysia. Lying by the pool of some awesome hotel and occasionally nipping down to the beach for a quick go on the jetskis or a bit of horseriding along Batu Ferringhi. Getting a sunburn because you swore you were vigilant with sunscreen, but forgot that you had to reapply it, and subsequently dousing yourself with aloe vera gel and going to dinner feeling slightly sticky (and it's not the humidity). Walking around the night market to check out the insane amount of overpriced counterfeit goods on sale, and trying out some incredible post-dinner street food snacks. That is the life.
• On a luxurious safari in South Africa. Even though it's shifting to winter weather in South Africa, only cute animals bring me joy at this point in the exams period, but I've had enough of .gifs, pictures and memes. I want to see the real thing, even though it might kill me.
• The ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao). I read an article about them in an issue of Condé Nast Traveler on the flight back to Durham in April. It filled me with dread at the prospect of having to wear jeans for another 3 months as I had these images of gorgeous pastel houses and clear seas staring right at me from the pages of the magazine. The only places I have been to on the entire American continent, North and South, are Toronto and Montréal, and as awesome as those places are, I'm impatiently waiting for the day that I can venture into the Caribbean region.

Where would you rather be right now? What are your 'daydream' destinations?