July 30. Moscow.
Early arrival in Moscow Kazanskaya station. Walk around that station looking for the internet. O how dependent I have made myself. Don’t swear. Buy a cup of hot water and sit for a moment outside the station building in the drizzling rain, observing three women putting a raincover on a pram. See the long line …
July 23. Irkutsk > Novosibirsk
The train from Irkutsk to Novosibirsk. I watch a movie and still my appetite with instant noodles just like all the other passengers I can see since I can’t look into the first class waggons where caviar feasts and wodka deliria would shorten subjective travel time for upper class Russians. It is nice though …
July 21. Train stories #3.
Someone pulls my arm and points at the window. Suddenly, it was there: Lake Baikal. Majestic, pristine, a venerable lady hidden somewhere in the center of the Eurasian landmass. It is wonderful, cameras are pulled out including mine, there is an atmosphere of gaiety on the train, people smile. And she never lets her visitors …
July 19. Train stories #1.
I feel comfortable on the train, playing in my head with reminiscences of my earlier Russian trainrides. The platzkart, the hot water tap, the linen, the short conversations in broken Russian, the angry looking young men, the smiling women – it is all the same here in the far east. The train rolls through endless …
July 16. The Cave from my dream.
I am supposed to take the ferry to Vladivostok today, but “due to natural disaster” it has been postponed. I receive the email from the friendly Dongchun ferry employee on time, and I’m happy about it. Now I can go hiking Soraksan with Malia and Andrea. I wonder what the “natural disaster” would have …
July 14.
What is friendship? This entry will take us to the height of theoretical considerations, to a summit where icy winds blow large snowflakes against our reasoning skin, where big halcyonic birds spread their giant wings to cast a mighty shadow upon our theories, where you can look to all directions without seeing anything. Who knows …
July 13.
Yog-hu-ru-tu, Yog-hu-ru-tu, the woman shouts. Yog-hu-ru-tu, where are you? I am watching a children’s theater play with joy. The title is “Looking for Yoghurt” and Yoghurt is actually a cat. Yeon, the set designer, is my couchsurfing host. The set is colorful and simple. I like the lighting effects assisting pantomime play on stage, and …
July 12. The human predicament.
This day is intentionally left out. Writing this some weeks later, I can hardly remember what I did. I guess I hung out with my new friends in Seoul. Played pool on the 28th floor of an apartment building overlooking greater Seoul and the surrounding mountains we hiked a few days ago. Watching movies and …