No title yet, Part 2
She had thought about finding someone to share some of her adventures with, but no one she encountered ever looked quite right. The guys were either dreadlocked hippies with no regard for personal hygiene, or pretty playboys looking for one night stands. As for friendships with girls, she'd rarely been good at that. Most girls were overly obsessed with their looks and Hollywood trivia, or the kind that feigned friendship in order to steal your boyfriend. There were few of either sex that fell out side of those two realms, no matter where she travelled.
She took another long draft of beer. It was quickly warming up to the point where it would be bitter and unpleasant to drink. She could feel a droplet of sweat running down between her shoulder blades. She knew she was well beyond "glistening" by this point, and longed for time to race ahead, so that she could be in the cold shower of her hotel room. Initially, in the more northern areas, the idea of a cold shower seemed appalling, but now she thought the idea wonderful. In fact some days even the cold water became as warm as her beer; running through unchilled pipes, it rarely refreshed.
She looked up to watch a street dog wander lazily past, tongue lolling practically to its knees. In Korea it would be known as dong ge. Shit dog. And it would be condemned to the soup pot as a traditional remedy for the heat. Dogs don't sweat, so eating them makes you cooler. Despite her time spent there she'd never learned to understand Korean logic. Nor had she been able to try boshuntang, "dog soup". It conjured up images of her trusty childhood friend - the only one in her life that had never hurt her, never betrayed her, and only left her side when death had forced its way between them.
A crowd of boys in crisp white shirts and khaki shorts walked past, in that overly confident swagger of the teenaged male. They were still in school uniforms though classes let out ages ago.
She finished her now tepid beer, and gritted her teeth against the bitterness. Gathering her belongings, she headed out into the crowded street market. This one seemed to sell only food - chopped up fruit, every kind of meat and seafood, mostly roasted on barbeques, noodles, rice, dishes served in banana leaves, whole coconuts to drink the milk from. One table was stacked with pigs heads in plastic baggies. She wondered if they were for dinner or a Shamanistic ritual.
In the centre of a pavilion, a group danced to traditional music. She stopped to watch and a man invited her to join in. Blushing furiously, she shook her head, apologized and bowed before scampering into the safety of shadows. She preferred to be on the outside, the observer, safe behind her wall. That's why she enjoyed travelling in countries where she didn't speak the language. She'd learn to say "hello" and "thank you" and most people she dealt with spoke a little bit of useful English, but there were no conversations, no need to idily chat or gossip, or be forced to tell her life story.
Occasionally she'd meet up with other travellers, but most of them seemed to be French or German or Israeli and again she could sidestep conversations beyond the polite "where are you from" variety. Lately she'd been pretending to be French herself when she ran into English speakers. Canadians were the worst for sparking immediate intimacies with you if you said you were Canadian. The unspoken bond of being "not American", though it often meant little more than a shared knowledge of who the Tragically Hip were, and that Ottawa, not Vancouver or Toronto, is the capital.
To be continued...
She took another long draft of beer. It was quickly warming up to the point where it would be bitter and unpleasant to drink. She could feel a droplet of sweat running down between her shoulder blades. She knew she was well beyond "glistening" by this point, and longed for time to race ahead, so that she could be in the cold shower of her hotel room. Initially, in the more northern areas, the idea of a cold shower seemed appalling, but now she thought the idea wonderful. In fact some days even the cold water became as warm as her beer; running through unchilled pipes, it rarely refreshed.
She looked up to watch a street dog wander lazily past, tongue lolling practically to its knees. In Korea it would be known as dong ge. Shit dog. And it would be condemned to the soup pot as a traditional remedy for the heat. Dogs don't sweat, so eating them makes you cooler. Despite her time spent there she'd never learned to understand Korean logic. Nor had she been able to try boshuntang, "dog soup". It conjured up images of her trusty childhood friend - the only one in her life that had never hurt her, never betrayed her, and only left her side when death had forced its way between them.
A crowd of boys in crisp white shirts and khaki shorts walked past, in that overly confident swagger of the teenaged male. They were still in school uniforms though classes let out ages ago.
She finished her now tepid beer, and gritted her teeth against the bitterness. Gathering her belongings, she headed out into the crowded street market. This one seemed to sell only food - chopped up fruit, every kind of meat and seafood, mostly roasted on barbeques, noodles, rice, dishes served in banana leaves, whole coconuts to drink the milk from. One table was stacked with pigs heads in plastic baggies. She wondered if they were for dinner or a Shamanistic ritual.
In the centre of a pavilion, a group danced to traditional music. She stopped to watch and a man invited her to join in. Blushing furiously, she shook her head, apologized and bowed before scampering into the safety of shadows. She preferred to be on the outside, the observer, safe behind her wall. That's why she enjoyed travelling in countries where she didn't speak the language. She'd learn to say "hello" and "thank you" and most people she dealt with spoke a little bit of useful English, but there were no conversations, no need to idily chat or gossip, or be forced to tell her life story.
Occasionally she'd meet up with other travellers, but most of them seemed to be French or German or Israeli and again she could sidestep conversations beyond the polite "where are you from" variety. Lately she'd been pretending to be French herself when she ran into English speakers. Canadians were the worst for sparking immediate intimacies with you if you said you were Canadian. The unspoken bond of being "not American", though it often meant little more than a shared knowledge of who the Tragically Hip were, and that Ottawa, not Vancouver or Toronto, is the capital.
To be continued...
posted by Deirdre at 12:32 p.m.
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