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[pbnjellyfish]

The last time I was in Paris it rained every day.  My host left for work in the mornings, so I found myself wandering around most days seeking shelter in the many cinemas around St. Michel.  My favorite thing about the city of light is its seemingly endless offering of celluloid delights for the insatiable cineaste.  I saw a scratchy print of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me at midnight, and matinees of Zelig, White Heat, and Lady for a Day on other soggy afternoons.  My trip only allowed for about five days in the big city before moving south to continue my journey.  Perhaps it was the rain enhancing my melancholy, but I couldn't help wanting the city to be how I knew it years before, when it seemed brighter and more hopeful.  Thinking back, I know that the city hadn't changed at all.  The cinemas were still there and the streets winded in the same way they always did, but I had changed and my experience in the city reflected that.  I went back expecting the city to always be the same to me but in truth it wasn't.  I could still visit the same places I had and sit in the same creaky cinema seats as I had years before but something was missing.  Cities are only backdrops or blank canvases for us to splash or dot meticulously the paint of our lives upon.  The experiences you have in them are only the result of circumstance and not the cities themselves.  Sometimes however, if you're lucky, the city can participate in your life, and bring you gifts of wonderment or people, and that can have an impact.  But cities can also neglect you with their indifference.  Fortunately, Paris has been both a welcoming friend who's introduced unforgettable people to me, and also a stranger who has turned its back.  In my mind, because of the contrast, the city means even more to me.  Moreover, I'll always have the dark theater and the bright light projected ahead.      

[pbnjellyfish]

The ferry from Busan took about an hour an a half to arrive in Fukuoka. Upon arrival at my hostel, I met up with a gang of four travelers: a couple from Switzerland who were attempting to traverse Honshu on foot, and a that point had made it 3/4 of the way, albeit in pieces rather than one long trek; a man on vacation from Chile; and another from Korea who was on leave from his job in Algeria.  It was his idea to check out one of the yatai (food stalls), that Fukuoka is so famous for.  He and I sat for a while, separated from the others in the crowded stall, and ate pork ramen and mandu.  He was from Korea and I had just finished working there, so we could easily make small talk comparisons of Japanese and Korean street food and culture.  What was so odd to me was that, throughout our conversation, he never actually told me what he did for work, or why or how he ended up in Algeria.  His responses to my prodding were vague, as his default answer was continually 'contracting.'  He did tell me about some of his day to day life in Algeria, that he was assigned guards during the daytime if he needed to go shopping and that he wasn't supposed to go out at night.  My imagination fired and I pretended that he was a character from a Graham Greene novel and that his vacation in Fukuoka was not in reality, vacation.  He was not so charismatic as to lead some sort of political agitation or dissent, so perhaps his vocation was more clandestine, the mere passing of sensitive information to shadowy figures in dimly-lit staircases would certainly have suited him.  As we finished our broth, I realized the amount of information I had given up about myself was decidedly more than I received from him.  We rejoined the others outside the stall, and looked at a city map to find our route back to the hostel.  He mentioned that he was going to walk alone and find his way back without the metro.  The four of us nodded to him as he separated from us and moved on into the night.  I figured he had another engagement.  Was there a parcel to be picked up or delivered?  

The rest of us walked on, taking in the neon lights, and still tasting the salt on our tongues from the meat.  We chatted and took turns fumbling with the map and laughing, but my mind remained with my mysterious dalliance with the Korean saboteur.  These people, the ephemeral ones, pass into our lives only for an evening or for a conversation, but it's long enough to intrigue or influence.  I don't remember the man's face but I remember where he'd been and my conjured up ideas of the deeds he'd done.        

[pbnjellyfish]

Last weekend was our local cherry blossom festival and there was speculation as to whether or not they would actually bloom in time for the activities.  They did.  I didn't attend this year, but I found myself passing through heavy traffic on the number 11 bus in front of school where the festival was held and memories from two years ago flashed in my hippocampus.  The pulse of the bus murmured under my feet and helped to contribute to an apt atmosphere for reflection.  Much has changed since my first arrival, my friends are different, and the newness has waned.  It's surprising that a place that was so different and strange at first became ordinary and now feels like home.   

I placed third in a contest in which I had to transfer as many slippery mudfish as I could from one tank to another in one minute.  I got 87.    

[pbnjellyfish]

Aug. 23, 2009.  Rural Ohio.  The last time I went to my grandmother's house nearly everyone was there.  It was the first time in many years that all of my father's siblings and their sons and daughters were together to share a meal and reminisce of times past.  I remember when I was fearless and didn't mind cannonballing into my grandparents' icy pond with my brother, but it was enough to watch my cousins and shiver behind a camera lens.  My great-grandmother was there watching too, and about to turn 100 in a few days.  It's hard to believe it's been so long since I've been back.       

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These few were taken in early March, at Gakwonsa temple a few minutes outside the city of Cheonan, South Korea, where I currently reside.