Travel Writing Anthology

You’re incredibly brave travelling on your own,” said the man in the plane seat next to me, pushing his lunch box from his paunch and wiping his lips and then brow with a linen serviette. “Why India?”’

It was 1984 and I was on my way to Calcutta, India’s largest city. I was 21 years old, but with my skinny 5’4” frame and tangle of frizzy hair, I might have been a high school student.

“I travelled Europe and Egypt last year and this was the next big trip,” I replied. I was a Kiwi girl doing her big OE, ticking off countries and continents. I had worked in a pub in Reading, England to save for this trip to India, and when my two English friends dropped out I saw no reason to postpone.

But it hadn’t been easy. The Indians saw every foreign traveller as rich. You had to be if you could afford plane fares and cameras, and as for foreign women, who were known to wear skimpy shorts and tee-shirts in the heat, they were ‘loose’. Above all, I was a novelty, a free show, never less than the centre of attention. On train journeys every male face would turn in my direction, open-mouthed and vacant-eyed. At first I would feign indifference, then, furious, I would stare back in defiance, until, embarrassed, they turned away.

“What about you?” I asked. I could tell he was bursting to tell me.

“I’m invited to judge dog shows all over the world,” he said in his American drawl. “The Madras competition was cancelled because of the floods so I’m heading to Calcutta early.”

I had encountered the Madras floods too.

13 November 1984, Madras (Chenai)

Several hundred miles west of Madras we saw flooded countryside from the bus window. We passed overturned buses, broken dams, and power lines swinging in the wind. The bus spluttered into the depot five hours late. Tania, an Australian backpacker I had met in Goa, and I dashed into the rain and retrieved our sodden packs.

The driver of our cycling rickshaw struggled to keep his bike upright in the wind. He swerved past uprooted trees, over branches and under broken billboards. As we climbed the steps of the YMCA a power box exploded across the road. The YMCA was full. So was the next place.

In the expensive New Victoria I emptied my soggy backpack into the bath. I had nothing clean or dry and there was neither hot water nor electricity. I washed my clothes in the tub and hung them on a line across the room. Then I settled into the most comfortable bed I had slept in for the past two months.

Later, I read about the floods and the thousands of houses destroyed.

Tania and I had got off lightly.

For the next 15 minutes, while the plane lurched towards landing, the American talked of his travels. I half listened. He handed me a small duty-free whisky. “Get these in the hotels,” he said. “The dog show people pick up the bill.”

“No thanks.” I was too dehydrated anyhow. I hadn’t peed in days. Some places it wasn’t worth risking drinking anything unless it came from a sealed bottle. I remembered the last time I had taken that risk.

9 October 1984, Jodpur

A red-orange sunset coloured the fortress beyond the Jodpur train station. In Kashmir I had befriended Lorraine and Dave, two Australians. Now the three of us battled our way through the beggars, their crippled hands outstretched for money. A taxi driver grabbed our bags and steered us towards a waiting rickshaw. He cycled past four hotels declaring they were full. The fifth guesthouse only charged 10 rupee (NZ$1.20), cheap even for Indian standards. Its paint peeled off plastered walls and rubbish littered the stairwell. Downstairs in the recesses of an ill-lit cafe I drank lassi, a milk fruit drink. Its taste lingered long after. I had no stomach for the dhal and rice, the Indian staple diet.

By the time I rolled out my sleeping bag later that night, I felt nauseated. The next five hours I spent rushing to the toilet or throwing up in a sink. When I returned to my bed I tried to close my eyes but I couldn’t sleep. My body ached; my clothes stuck to my sweaty body. I felt myself sinking, diminishing, disappearing.

As the morning dawned my movements slowed, as if I was walking in slow motion. Dave asked if I was all right. “I’ve been better,” I croaked.

“You’re really sick – I don’t think you should catch the train tonight,” said Lorraine.

I panicked. “Don’t leave me here.’”

When it came time to leave Dave carried my pack. By the time the train reached Jaisalmer in Rajastan 12 hours later, I had just about recovered.

The plane screeched along the runway and when it stopped some of the passengers clapped. The American and I exchanged smiles. Had that been relief, or was it their first trip?

He told me how much the rich Indians spent on importing the best manicurists, hairdressers and vets for their dogs. I gasped. It was thousands of rupees.

I thought of the poverty I had seen. Everywhere there were the beggars: mothers sitting on the pavement with suckling babies; young children crippled deliberately by their parents to gain sympathy from tourists; heroin drug addicts from Europe, too hooked to remember where they had come from.

I did not think I would harden, but I did. You had to. There were thousands of beggars. Loose change would not change things. Once I took a drug addict to a shop and bought him some food. If I had given him money it would have shot up his arm within the hour.

Perhaps sensing my disapproval the American changed the topic. ‘I was in Bombay during the trouble.’ He picked up his leather briefcase and held on to the rail above, as we moved down the aisle. “After seeing a few killings and burnings from the hotel window, I knew it was time to get out. What about you?”

I knew what troubles he meant. I thought back to the day we found out.

31 October 1984, Bandipur

The housekeeper shouted “Breakfast!” through the key hole. Tania threw a pillow case over to my bed and reminded me we were going elephant riding that morning.

The elephant moved off quietly, plodding through the bushes. Spotted deer (chittal) looked up and unperturbed went back to grazing. My camera lens cap fell over the side. I’ll never see that again, I thought. I was not getting off the elephant in case there were some tigers lurking close by. On the handler’s command, the elephant stopped, snuffled around for the black plastic, picked it up and handed it back to me.

“Slime, no charge,” said the handler with a cheeky grin.

Kingfishers flitted past and red monkeys (bonnet macaque) laughed in the distance. Porcupine quills lay scattered on the forest floor. I was not too disappointed that we hadn’t seen a tiger; that might have been scary. The bull elephant charging us the day before when we were on a safari jeep trip had been enough excitement for me.

After we were let off our throne, the Indian elephant’s trunk searched my pockets for food. Finding none, she eased her bulky body from kneeling position and clambered after her handler. My travelling companions, Tania and an English couple, Peter and Sue, were as enchanted as I was.

“Wow! Riding an elephant has to be the best thing on this trip so far.”

But back at the hotel, something was not right. Huddled in a corner, Sikh men murmured in hushed tones.

Instinctively, we stood at the entrance.

“I’ll find out what’s happened,” said Peter, brushing his wife’s arm, as he pushed through our small group.

“What do you reckon?” whispered Tania.

“Isn’t white a colour of mourning?” said Sue.

“You reckon someone’s died? Who?” I asked. I rubbed the goose bumps on my arms and shivered.

“Someone important,” said Tania.

The receptionist bobbed his head in answer to Peter’s questions then brought his hands together, as if in prayer, to end the conversation. Peter turned and gestured to us to follow him outside.

“You wouldn’t believe what’s happened.”

“Tell us,” urged Tania.

“Indira Gandhi…”

“What, you mean their Prime Minister?” I looked at all their faces in shock.

“Yep – she’s been assassinated.”

He told us the Tamil Nadu border was closed and buses were being turned back.

“Does that mean we’re stuck here?” I asked – though perhaps a tiger sanctuary would be safer than a city in anarchy.

As we were to find out later, Indira Gandhi had been shot by two of her Sikh security guards as she left her private residence. It had happened in the morning but had taken all day for the news to reach us. Sikhs were being hauled out of trains and burned alive. Looting and vandalism were widespread. Shops would be closed for the next two days and people in mourning for the next 12.

I picked up my backpack from the luggage carousal and waved goodbye to the American. Once I had gone through customs I plopped my backpack behind a nun’s canvas bag and said hello, at the Airport Hotel reservation desk. The nuns were booking overnight accommodation too. I asked if I could tag along with them. They paid for their hotel voucher and stood aside for me to do the same. The salesperson suggested we go in his cousin’s taxi.

“Only five minute,” he said.

It seemed like a good idea. It was late and I was tired. The nuns and I squeezed into the back seat and the unmarked car crawled away from the airport. Two minutes later, he stopped outside a large guesthouse.

“You two get out, she stay.” The driver pointed at me.

“Aren’t I staying here, too?” I asked.

“No, we take you somewhere else.”

I looked at the nuns with my mouth open. My mother always said my emotions were displayed openly for everyone to see. My face must have telegraphed ‘fear’.

His co-driver grinned and nodded his head.

The nuns beckoned me out of the car. Anger kicked in. I swung my legs out of the car and stood beside the nuns.

“I want to stay at the same place as these ladies!” I said.

“Guesthouse full,” the driver said.

The nuns pulled their bag out of the boot. I grabbed my backpack, wrestling it away from the co-driver.

“Then we’ll go back to the airport and change hotels,” said the older nun.

The driver waved his hands. “Other hotel full.”

All my instincts told me they were lying. The nuns and I exchanged looks – from the steely set of their lips I could tell they would stand by me. It seems to be an unwritten code that travellers stick together in rough times – like a support network. Even strangers had helped me when I was in danger…

6 October 1984 Jaipur

Lorraine, Dave and I were booking bus tickets when we saw hundreds of people lining the streets for a festival. There were women and children wearing bright orange and red saris; men carrying temples, dancing and beating drums; and Indian music blasting out of speakers from shops. Two large elephants adorned with flowers and body paint ambled through the throng of men.

To get a better view we squeezed our way onto the road. A crowd of men, young and old, began jeering at us, touching our bodies. They formed a tight circle around us, their breath close and stale. We heard a young girl screaming and moved towards her until she was wrapped in our circle; better with us than alone. We pushed towards the side – moving like a tide in unison. An old man grabbed my hand and told us to follow him. I knew we could trust him. I held on, Lorraine clung to my other arm and held on to Dave, who had lifted the girl onto his shoulders. The old man led us into a dark shop and told us we would be safe there. “Not good on street with men,” he said. I saw our mistake: the women in their coloured saris were on the pavements, while the white-clothed men crowded the streets.

“That was so scary,” said Lorraine. Her hand shook as she lifted her cigarette to her mouth.

The young girl’s mother rushed in and enveloped her daughter in her arms. She nodded thanks then walked out. The old man told us it was the Festival of Ram. During the day people fasted and prayed for the Mother Goddess. In the evenings they danced and feasted. Had we been in real danger? I’ll never know.

The taxi driver and his partner stood over us.

“Well, we’re going to find out,” I said. I hitched my backpack across my shoulders and headed back towards the airport. The nuns rolled their bag behind them.

“No problem,” shouted the driver. “We ask you stay?”

Those slimy tricksters, I thought. I bet there was room at the inn after all. We checked in and discovered the hotel nearly empty. It was another of those times that could have gone drastically wrong if I hadn’t listened to my instincts.

16 November 1984, Calcutta – Nepal

The plane soared over snowcapped mountains as it came in to land in Kathmandu. I changed some money, gathered some maps and made for the door. A small Nepalese man touting his hotel encouraged me to go with him. I agreed but was disturbed when he came back in an unmarked taxi with another person in the car. Here we go again, I thought. I had no nuns to back me this time, just my intuition. Should I go in the car? I wrote down the registration number of the car as a just-in-case. The men laughed when they saw what I was doing.

“When I was in India I couldn’t trust anyone,” I said.

“Aah, but now you’re in Nepal. We have plenty of women…” More laughter followed.

Nepal was a different place altogether.

Reprinted in Definingnz 20 (December 2011): 34-37.

Logan Carr (2011)

2011-11-01T07:55:00.011+13:00

[Sara.a: The View from Inside the Holding Cell]

“Houston, we have a problem”

I stare out from behind the cold steel bars, my eyes taking in what they can in the dim lit area. Some empty desks, cameras that watch me from corners, and the occasional guard. I sigh. I glance behind me, to where an old, rotting blanket lays waiting on the floor for me. I close my eyes.

I’m no longer in the cell. I’m on a beach, in Mexico, drinking mojitos and chatting up a bevy of tanned beauties. An endless ocean lies before me. Freedom is all around me. There’s no need for blankets or bars here.

I open my eyes to the grim new reality that seems more fantasy than anything else. I was supposed to be back in bed by now. Shit happens, I guess. And shit does not take a vacation when you do.

I look at the clock: 2am. I reluctantly take a place on the freezing floor, a floor that’s as hard as it is cold, and pull the disgusting blanket over me. My thoughts unwillingly turn to the unmarked door. I try to not think about it, instead forcing myself to think about other things. I think about my family back home in New Zealand who I haven’t seen in two years. They have no idea I’m here, in this cell. Maybe I should have mentioned it on the phone? But I didn’t want to worry them.

My thoughts eventually give way to darkness, and I embrace it as I fall asleep. I dream about Portland, Oregon in the U.S. where I have been living for the last couple of years. I came with nothing, and have built an entire life for myself. I am head chef of a successful kitchen and have lots of new friends. I’ve been enjoying the American lifestyle. My hope is to go back to New Zealand soon, but not quite yet.

I head outside into the huge backyard of the house I live in. The house is also huge, fitting 14 people. It’s the dying days of summer but there’s enough sun to grab a seat and sit topless while I read. As I sit, I think that my little American adventure has turned out quite well, and that everything is okay.

“Time to go”.

A gruff voice stirs me from my slumber. The small, comfortless dark room comes back into focus around me, and the smell of the rotting blanket once more fills my nostrils. I am forced to my feet by two fat guards. Fuck you both, I think, but stay quiet. I know I’m in a delicate situation. I have no power. I am in the middle of nowhere and no one who really gives a damn about me knows I’m here. I could have my skull bashed in and no one outside these walls would be any the wiser. My hands and feet are once again handcuffed and chained together, and as I am escorted out of the facility I catch a glimpse of the clock: 5am.

Outside the first rays of dawn offer some glimmer of hope. A new day. Perhaps a better day. I am pushed into the back of the armored van, and take a familiar seat. I try and stifle the now recurring feeling of panic, and tell myself there’s nothing to worry about. But I know that I am being blindly led to wherever they want to take me. Just like last night.

It’s 10pm and I’m fucking exhausted. I’ve been interrogated the better part of 10 hours. I need a break, I need to get away from this place. How much longer? He said it would be soon. Another hour passes. And another. And another. Finally, after what seems like an eternity a door to the side of the room opens. 3 guards in uniform enter. They have guns and batons hanging from their sides, leaving no doubt as to who’s in control. They survey the landscape before them, full of cockiness and misguided self-righteousness. Their eyes fall upon me and stop. Curiosity creeps across their faces. I am intriguing, I am different from the others in the room.

“What’s he doing here?” the fattest one asks.

This is not unexpected. I am clearly the odd one out amongst the crowd, separated by the color of my white skin and European features.

“A misunderstanding…” I start to reply.

He laughs. I’m sure he doesn’t care for excuses, he’s probably heard them all before.

One by one they have us stand in front of them and tie us up. This is my first time in handcuffs, and the steel is cold and tight. A chain links the cuffs on my hands to the ones on my feet, and I am only able to take very small steps. Any thoughts of escape that had played in my head are immediately put to rest. We are ushered out through the side door, and down some stairs. This proves far trickier than imagined.

We all find ourselves being put into the back of a windowless armored van that smells like vomit and pee. Opposite me two grown men have tears streaming down their face. I can’t remember ever seeing grown men cry like this, and behind their eyes I see only fear and the absence of hope. They are dejected and must know that they are going away for what could be a very long time. I keep telling myself this will not happen to me, but I cannot be sure. I attempt to have a conversation with the men, perhaps I can reassure them somehow, but their English is very bad and my Mexican is worse. We end up sitting in silence, all pondering bleak scenarios and scared. Our thoughts are interrupted by the van slowing down.

Someone shouts: “Open the gate”.

Mechanical noises. The van moves forward again then stops. The doors open and we are ordered, with guns aimed in our direction, to get out and follow one of them. We oblige. As we walk I catch a glimpse behind me of a huge 20 meter steel gate with barbed wire across the top of it. This gate turns into a concrete wall and stretches far into the darkness of the night. My gaze returns to in front of me as we are marched to another door. I wonder what lies behind this one.

We are in a room, no bigger than a bedroom. Guards surround us. The handcuffs are taken off me. There is no such luck for the other men. They are pulled to the side, before being roughly taken to another room with yet another door. It is a plain, unmarked door. It could be a door to anywhere. One of the guards opens the door. I catch sight of the horror inside and all words fail me. Never have I seen anything like it.

One of the men who had been crying has new tears streaming down his face, and as he is pushed through the door and engulfed by darkness along with the others, his eyes catch mine and we share a moment that seems to last forever. His eyes foolishly plead to me, look to me for some sort of help, but I cannot give him any. My eyes begin to prickle, and I feel the unfamiliar feel of tears in my eyes. I take a deep breath, calm myself down and look away. That room, that unmarked door is sure to be something that I will not forget.

I am soon thrown into a cell, a cell that has no bed and no toilet, only a blanket in the corner.

I remember what one of the guards had said, “No, nothing like jail”.

Fucking liar.

After 30 minutes of winding roads the van comes to a halt. I am taken out, and immediately feel relief as I realize I am not about to be killed and left for dead in the middle of nowhere, but am being returned to the room that I was interrogated in just yesterday. It already seems so long ago.

After sitting down, I am given some breakfast: a small cup of fruit and a muesli bar. It’s not much, but I wolf it down. I feel guilty about the food when I think about the crying men and the unmarked door. I try hard to keep those thoughts away for the next few hours. Occasionally, I go up to one of the unsmiling faces at the counter and ask them for an update on what is happening to me (“we’ll let you know soon”) or to ask when I will receive my luggage back (always “soon”).

“Logan Carr”.

That is my name. I look at the clock: 2pm. I stand up and move to the front.

“We’ve got you a flight. You’ll now be escorted onto the plane by John…”

The lady nods her head towards yet another fat man in uniform. He wears big spectacles and looks like an idiot. He acknowledges me with a grimace and his fingers pass over his baton in a threatening manner.

“What about my luggage? I still haven’t got it…”

“It’ll probably have been put on the plane by now. You can check when you board the plane”.

I feel frustration inside me, but swallow my tongue and leave with the spectacled idiot with quiet indignation.

The spectacled idiot proves just that, trying to start a conversation with me after a few minutes of silent walking through the airport by accusing me of being a liar and coming to the country with false intentions. His heavy Texan drawl makes him seem stupider than the others.

“Y’all shouldn’t have lied. Y’all like every one of them…”

Like who? Fuck you, you racist asshole. I remain silent.

We are moving very quickly. Maybe it was the slow, grueling nature of the last day and night, but suddenly things are happening. We bypass every security checkpoint, and before I know it we are approaching a boarding gate. I can barely process it all, and am a mixed sea of emotion.

“… Y’all getting what you deserve. Y’all should admit what y’all did, cause y’all were wrong …”

With those words, he manages to part the sea so that only anger remains. Enough is enough, and with the protection of thousands of potential witnesses around me, I finally retaliate.

“Look, you need to be quiet because you don’t know anything about what happened. I did nothing wrong, and it’s none of your business, it was a misunderstanding and you need to stop talking about it”.

Whether it is shock that forces him to finally stop talking to me after that, or our arrival at the gate, I do not know, but I am just thankful he has.

I stand to the side as he explains to the boarding crew who I am and what is to happen. I interrupt before he is done to ask about my luggage, and ask if it is joining me on this flight. It is not. I find out there has been a screw up and my luggage has continued on its north-northwest trajectory to Portland.

I vaguely remember something about how in Shakespeare’s Hamlet Hamlet says that he is only mad when the wind blows north by northwest. I think madness is a suitably encompassing theme for the events that have been unfolding.

The boarding crew assures me they will have my luggage redirected to New Zealand, but that I will be without it for the trip home. Fucking great. Just fucking great.

Following “proper procedure”, the spectacled idiot takes me onto the plane. As I am taken to my seat, a countless number of faces turn to stare at me. I can hear their post 9/11 thoughts “Who is that guy?” “Why is he being escorted onto the plane?” and see the uncomfortable shifting in seats. After I am seated and the guard leaves, a few of the glances linger but people seem to be more at ease. “Surely if he were dangerous the guard wouldn’t have left” “He’s white anyway, terrorists aren’t white”.

Unfortunately one thing that doesn’t go away is my body odor. I do not know how many people have ever got to a point where they can not only smell, but are nauseated by their own body odor, but I now found myself past this point. It’s the smell of sweat, a rotten blanket, urine and vomit, and the lack of clean clothes or a shower in the last 40 hours. I remind myself nothing can be done, so I grin and bear it.

Everything feels surreal as I look around. I am no longer in a cell. I am on a plane. Surrounded by people without guns. The knot that had established itself in my stomach begins to untangle. It was going to be ok. I’d made it onto the plane and I was flying back home to Auckland, New Zealand.

The captain’s voice interrupts my thoughts.

“Welcome aboard flight 749, Houston, Texas to Tokyo, Japan.”

Fuck. I take out my boarding pass that had moments ago been handed by the spectacled idiot to a flight attendant and then to me. I read: Houston, Texas to Tokyo, Japan. To my dismay it does not end there. I also have a ticket for Tokyo, Japan to Christchurch, New Zealand, and another from Christchurch to Auckland. Three flights. I lean back in exhaustion. My eyelids begin to grow heavy and my breathing shallow.

The unmarked door. It stands in front of me. I feel fear, unparalleled fear. My hand reaches out and turns the door knob. I slowly push it open. I gaze inside, and once more I see the countless figures, all handcuffed, all broken. The room is small, the figures are many. Hollow eyes turn in my direction.

I wake up in a cold sweat. Haunting images linger in my mind; faces filled with despair and not a trace of hope. Sleep eludes me the rest of the way.

10 hours later, I get off the plane in Tokyo, Japan.

“Welcome to Houston, Texas” says the man behind the booth, with no real conviction or enthusiasm in his voice. “What’s the purpose of your visit?”

“I’m just flying back to Portland, Oregon. So just in-transit.”

“Uh-huh”.

More boredom. He ruffles through my papers, and then seems to liven up and starts sorting through some stuff on his computer screen. He signals a guard over, and they converse in hushed tones and discreet looks.

“You’ll have to step aside and follow me this way please sir.”

“But I have a connecting flight…”

The “please” is dropped as the guard repeats what he said. I follow him.

I am led into some sort of security room. The walls are a boring dull white, and the room is no bigger than 10 meters by 10 meters. Inside are 20 or so people, many with worried expressions on their faces. The majority of them are Mexican. I assume a lot of them have been caught illegally trying to cross the border.

I am briefed by two men in uniform that there is an error with my paperwork, and the legality of me re-entering the U.S. is brought into question. I explain that they are wrong, and a mistake must have been made as I have been dealing with a specific immigration officer who has assured me I have done everything legally. I give them her number. Unfortunately, it is a Saturday and immigration offices are closed so she cannot be reached.

The situation soon escalates, and takes a more unfriendly tone. It becomes assumed that I am trying to enter the country illegally from Mexico. I am taken to a private booth with a desk. Soon, the questions become more like an interrogation and before I know it they have lasted for 6 hours. I get a break, during which I am fingerprinted and then stripped down to my underwear and searched by a balding guard with over eager hands. I ask repeatedly about where my luggage is as I need my clothes as it is cold. They assure me it will have been picked up, and they’ll have it here “soon”. I get a sandwich to eat, and then the interrogations resume.

I do nothing but tell the truth, while I hear countless others in the room lie around me. One guy near me has 3 different passports with 3 different names. Their lies eventually fall apart, but my truth sticks. After another 4 hours of interrogation, I still cannot convince the customs officers that I am telling the truth, so I am told I am to be deported back home to Auckland, New Zealand.

I ask what my rights are, and if I can wait in the airport till Monday when they can get a hold of my immigration officer. An ugly lady, high on power and who has just joined the interrogations, tells me “You have no rights”.

That doesn’t sound right to me, and I want to tell her to go fuck herself. But I don’t. I’m not in a great position of power. I get offered a phone call, and call home. I let my family know that I have a good surprise - I’m coming home unexpectedly. I do not tell them why or what has happened.

After the phone call, I realize how late it is: 10pm. I ask someone if my luggage will come soon.

“Not tonight, the place that holds luggage will be shut by now-you’ll get it tomorrow”.

Fuck them.

“And am I going to have to sleep here?”

I look around the room full of uncomfortable chairs, several of which are still filled like mine.

“No, you’ll be taken to a facility to spend the night soon” she replies.

I nervously ask “this facility’s not like jail, right?”

“No, nothing like jail” she lies.

In Tokyo I find myself sitting and waiting for my second plane to board. I look around at all the people walking around. I think about the unmarked door, a door that is like so many others and could be any door that I have ever walked through, and yet is so different. Does anybody here even know that door exists? If they did, would they care? Or just continue walking?

Everyone and everything around me keeps moving, oblivious to where I have been and what I have seen. They do not know that behind an unmarked door somewhere in Houston lies a whole other world, a world with no hope, where there are only confinements and no freedoms exist. A room where time stands still. I think about how many times I have looked at a clock in the last few days, and yet for those men behind that door time would mean nothing. There would be only darkness day in and day out till… I don’t know… I didn’t know what would happen to them…

A few hours later I’m on the second plane and Christchurch bound. I look out the plane and see endless ocean outside.

I had always wanted to go to Mexico and stretch out in the sun before an endless ocean. So when the opportunity came, I took it. The only thing I had to make sure of was that it was okay with U.S immigration. I’d been living and working in Portland, Oregon for two years under the watchful eye of immigration and with a work permit in hand. I’d done everything by the book. I called up my immigration officer who gave me the all clear, said she’d make a note of it in the system, and a week later I was off.

Landing in Christchurch I feel a sense of excitement to be back in New Zealand. The excitement is tainted though with the agony of being so close, and yet so far. One more flight. The sound of kiwi accents surround me, it’s both strange and comforting. I call my family and let them know when to pick me up from the airport. I give them minimal details about what has happened and soon am on the third flight.

The minutes tick by like hours. The agonizing wait of being home and seeing my family is almost over. I am full of emotions, and yet even with one eye firmly on the future and the joy and relief that awaits, one eye looks back at what I’ve seen.

72 hours, 3 flights and almost no sleep after leaving Mexico, I arrive in Auckland looking bad and smelling worse. I find out my luggage has beaten me here because of my numerous detours. It is almost like a final insult, and I can’t help but smile at what I have been through.

I make it through customs okay, and as I head closer and closer, step by step, to being reunited with my family I do my best to focus on the positives. I am alive, in good health, and I am home. But as I exit the final door that separates me from my family, and I walk into the light, it is a bittersweet moment and I cannot help but think about that unmarked door that makes the world shine just that little bit less bright.

Review: Invisible Cities (1972)

2011-10-30T09:24:00.009+13:00

[Italo Calvino: Invisible Cities (1972)]

Italo Calvino. Invisible Cities. 1972. Trans William Weaver. 1974. London: Picador, 1979.

It’s 2 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. I sit alone at my desk. In front of me sits a half finished bottle of wine. Next to it lies a laptop. I stare at it. The laptop stares back at me with its blank screen, seemingly taunting me for my inability to turn that blankness into something, into anything. I turn away. In one hand I have a book, and in the other, a glass of wine. The hope is that the wine will make my thoughts more lucid, more focused. I need it to. My mind is currently a cluster fuck of indiscernible thoughts and ideas. I have no clue where to begin. The source of my troubles and newfound alcoholism is the book in my left hand: Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.

Now, I've written book reviews before. Usually, it tends to be pretty straightforward. But I am at a loss with Calvino's unique novel and unusual writing style. Never have I ever read a book like this before.

Invisible Cities is about a Tartar Emperor called Kublai Khan and a young Venetian traveller called Marco Polo. Kublai Khan senses his Empire is coming to an end and is understandably troubled by it. Enter Marco Polo, who distracts him from his sadness and entertains him on a nightly basis by describing cities he has seen on his travels.

Seems straightforward, right? Well, it’s not. Invisible Cities is really an experimental and symbolic piece of literature. There is little or no story and character development, and it lacks all other conventional elements you would expect from a novel. It is instead primarily a series of dialogues describing a variety of cities in a travelogue format, with interactions between Polo and Khan thrown in intermittently as a sort of reflection on the descriptions of cities, which is the bulk of the text. This makes for an unusual and, at first, boring read.

Added to this is Calvino’s diction. Throughout the course of Invisible Cities it's as if he were allergic to small, simple words. His appetite for complicated words in conjunction with his heavy use of lyrical prose makes the book a slow one to read. His description of a lot of the cities - for example, Anastasia:

such is the power, sometimes called malignant, sometimes benign, that Anastasia, the treacherous city, possesses; if for eight hours a day you work as a cutter of agate, onyx, chrysoprase, your labor which gives form to desire takes from desire its form, and you believe you are enjoying Anastasia wholly when you are only its slave

- will leave most readers scratching their heads and doing a double take.

You really need to think about each line and the construction of his sentences and that is a time-consuming process. Because of this, the book is initially quite hard to engage with, and I found myself regretting my decision to purchase the book within minutes of starting it. However, I half-heartedly continued and then something changed for the better.

I realised I had to free myself from the images which in the past had announced to me the things I sought: only then would I succeed in understanding the language of Hypatia.

As Polo comes to realise this while exploring the city of Hypatia, the reader should also abandon and free themselves from preconceived notions of what a novel or travel book should be. Calvino is not interested in creating a great story as we traditionally know it, and once that is understood, the reader can truly appreciate the genius within Invisible Cities.

As you are taken through each city philosophical questions are raised and ideas presented of what defines a city, and the novel acts as a sort of social commentary on a multitude of things, such as are all cities linked or are they all the same?

Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene.

There are deep questions raised within the text, and, because the focus is more on ideas, Polo’s descriptions of cities shy away from the physical.

I could tell you how many steps make up the streets rising like stairways, and the degree of the arcades’ curves, and what kind of zinc scales cover the roofs; but I already know this would be the same as telling you nothing. The city does not consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of its space and the events of its past: the height of a lamppost and the distance from the ground of a hanged usurper’s swaying feet; the line strung from the lamppost to the railing opposite and the festoons that decorate the course of the queen’s nuptial procession; the height of that railing and the leap the adulterer who climbed over it at dawn.

Calvino makes it clear that a city is not only defined by the physical. It is about the society and way of life it contains. It is about the interactions between people and the interconnectedness of everything. Calvino’s intention is to use each city as a way of offering some insight into the human condition or life, and what makes a city. The cities Polo talks about are symbols, rather than just a physical thing. There are 155 cities within the book, and each one effectively symbolically represents a theme within life, such as love and death.

Beersheba for instance is a city with clear allusions and symbolic links to ideas of Heaven and Hell.

This belief is handed down in Beersheba: that, suspended in the heavens, there exists another Beersheba, where the city's most elevated virtues and sentiments are poised... they also believe, these inhabitants, that another Beersheba exists underground, the receptacle of everything base and unworthy that happens to them.

Once you start to read the book with all the above in mind, the initial loathing for the language and sentence construct turns to admiration as Calvino repeatedly describes cities each more vivid and fascinating than the last. You begin to appreciate how finely it is written. Calvino creates great imagery and his cities vary so much; each has a distinctive feel and flavour. He makes the reader “see” these places and want to visit them. Places like Hypatia are easily imagined and desired:

in Hypatia you have to go to the stables and riding rings to see the beautiful women who mount the saddle, thighs naked, greaves on their calves, and as soon as a young foreigner approaches, they fling him on the piles of hay or sawdust and press their firm nipples against him.

It is a fascinating world that Calvino has created, one full of vivid imagery and questions and ideas.

Once you free yourself from what you are used to, you can begin to truly appreciate what Invisible Cities is. Calvino has created a book that is unlike any other. Perhaps it would be most appropriate to compare it to a work of art, as with art everyone sees something different and it tends to make you think even if you do not completely understand what you are looking at.

There is more to Invisible Cities than I fear I will ever understand, but Calvino truly took me on an interesting journey. Admittedly, it was a journey that led me to drinking as I struggled to put together the thoughts and ideas he left me with, but it was a worthwhile journey. If you want something different, or are a fan of books that make you think, this book, with its multiple layers and philosophical take on cities and life, comes strongly recommended. I ended up loving it.

And if you do read it, and someone soon after asks you what you thought of it and why, you too will struggle and feel to urge to take a seat and have a drink, for Calvino’s tale is so unique, so different, that it will at first leave you unsure of what you have just read. You too will be, as I previously so eloquently put it, a cluster fuck of indiscernible thoughts and ideas. And that’s not a bad thing.

REFERENCES

BSC (2007). Book Review - Invisible Cities. Retrieved from http://www.bscreview.com/2007/05/book-review-invisible-cities/ on April 4th 2011.

Camillo, D. (2006). Le citta invisibili. Retrieved from http://www.shvoong.com/books/195101-invisible-cities/ on April 4th 2011

- Logan Carr (2011)

Hae Yoon (John) Lee (2011)

2011-10-26T12:54:00.009+13:00

[Beam of light]

Standing in the Middle

Born in Korea, and having lived in New Zealand since 1993, I find myself caught in the middle of this mixed, multicultural Auckland.

In 1993 I went to Marina View Primary School, a school where I found myself one of a kind. I couldn’t speak a word of English. Over-protectiveness, with constant attention and the sheer worry from teachers still remain as a childhood memory. Unfortunately this didn’t last long - obviously.

From 2004 till now I have been living in Torbay, a five-minute drive to Massey University, and 17 minutes and 24.6 km drive to the city. Living on the shore, an Asian like myself and at an age of being able to pay for petrol, public transport has dissipated into oblivion. Although occasionally I take a romantic sunset ferry ride, I never considered that to be "public transport". More like a quick pass to get her into bed (if you know what I mean). Real public transport resurrected itself when I found myself sitting on a bus heading towards the city.

On the 29th of April I woke up at 6am with high hopes of having recovered from a cold which had lingered inside of me for the past two weeks. I’d made previous arrangements to meet a girl at 10:30am at Mid-city Starbucks; this motivated me (a lot). Besides I didn’t want to become the Asian that gets off the bus and wanders around looking stupid, or like a tourist.

From my previous experiences I have learnt that if you go out without purpose, you will end up with absolutely nothing to do, especially in Auckland. I posted this bus ride on Facebook, and a friend offered to join me in this old-fashioned tradition. He lives off East Coast Road and we arranged to meet at 9am in front of his house; it was a strike of luck, really, because I didn’t even know where to catch the bus.

The amount was $5.60 from East Coast Road, and ironically the bus was called an “express.” I was quite pleased by this at first sight, only to be disappointed soon afterwards. I couldn’t believe a 40-minute bus ride was called an express; it was a wise decision to catch the bus early.

We sat near the front of the bus where there are two seats facing each other. There were already two people on the bus near the back of the bus. I noticed that they were Asian. The bus trip consisted of twenty-four stops and a total of twenty-eight passengers were picked up along the way. This just goes to show how bored I was, but out of the twenty-eight people twenty-three were Asian, including the bus driver who was also Asian. This observation came as a shock. I felt like the Asian that goes off to a new country and sees another Asian and says,

“I thought I was the only one!”

(This is an exaggeration, of course).

But it came as an epiphany, and with this rush of confusion I asked myself where I belonged in terms of origin. Let me try and explain this because I believe it is confusing. So on one hand I find myself growing up as a Kiwi, used to blending in, and on the other hand I have the appearance of an Asian, which also allows me to blend in, splitting me in half.

Come to think of it, another irony is the fact that I am currently studying an English major at Massey University, and in this Travel writing class I am the only Asian, and I never felt intimidated. In fact it hadn’t really occurred to me until now.

Think of it this way, if you have a different appearance to the native people or have traveled to another country you will have experienced this question: “Where are you from?”

It probably is the only question that will be asked throughout my life constantly, and I will always answer with confidence:

“Korea.”

Although sometimes I would like to answer "New Zealand", because it would make no difference to the reaction I receive, which is always surprise due to my English pronunciation (not that I'm saying it’s perfect). This allows me to be treated as an equal, eliminating the barrier which most overseas people experience. So this idea was stuck in my mind. I was lost between two clashing cultures.

In the midst of this epiphany, we were faced with an old Kiwi couple who looked very uncomfortable, and I knew exactly why. They were overwhelmed at the sight of so many Asians like me. I took this chance to break the ice.

“Hello,” I said with confidence.

“Oh? Hello,” A glimpse of surprise turned into a gentle smile from the old woman with a similar reaction from her husband, but he chose to remain silent.

“How are you today?” I really didn’t have anything else to say, it was a random conversation and I might as well stick to the good stuff.

“We’re fine, and how about you?” with the constant gentle smile remaining.

“I’m a bit sick but feeling okay; so what brings you on this bus?”

There was a slight pause, her head turned towards her husband and I noticed the gentle smile disappearing as she said in a deep worried tone,

“Oh …”

Suddenly the nice old lady’s husband grabbed her hand and stood up while the bus was still moving. I sat up straight thinking that it must be their stop. They got up and headed towards the back of the bus;. It didn’t strike me at first but they were moving seats! It became clear; they were changing seats, but why?

Was it because I said I was sick? Everyone in the bus was a witness, most having nothing to do basically. This entire episode caught everybody’s undivided attention. For the Asians the sight that one of their own, an Asian, was talking to an old Kiwi couple must have been entertaining. For others it would have seemed to be a normal conversation. The sudden attention directed towards us was making me anxious. It’s not like I had SARS ...

I guess it was a mistake from the start. I was outraged; or at any rate I had a right to be, but my arms folded automatically and my head tucked down looking at my shoes for answers (how low could I get?).

The remainder of the bus trip was a ride from hell; the shame inflicted upon my pride was unbearable. My friend said nothing; it seemed that he was sharing my pain. At least I had a friend to rely on. Finally we arrived at the city only to face a challenge: we didn’t know where to get off. I approached the driver and asked him where would be the closest stop to Starbucks, and with a cheesy smile he said:

“The next stop.”

I guess even the bus driver was aware of the dramatic episode. Without a word I just smiled and signaled to my friend that it was time to get off this fucken bus.

It was over, and after a quick venting of swear words I began to relax. At 9:40am we got off on the intersection between Albert Street and Victoria Street, and began our way down towards Queen Street. The city was practically empty compared to my usual night-time experiences; it felt weird.

Another unnerving feeling lurked inside me, making feel like an outsider. There was a striking difference in the number of Asians walking around on the street, although I stood corrected when I saw a bunch of overseas students smoking outside Esquire’s. We arrived thirty minutes early and stared at each other asking the same question without hope of receiving an answer.

“What now?”

Arriving early was something that a man should do, according to the past generation, yet there was absolutely nothing to do. So there I stood in front of Starbucks leaning against the black flat support beam with my head tilted for support with my hands inside both pockets, staring into the far distance. This was the perfect moment for my mind to drift off and pick out the dreaded things that keep you entertained.

It is really brutal when you think about it; your mind always seems to focus on an experience you wish you could forget. It patiently waits for the right moment to strike, lingering inside your mind where it will probably stay hovering until resolved or replaced with another. I shut my eyes in false hope but twenty minutes flew by while I maintained the same posture. In those long brutal twenty minutes I had no choice but to face the music. It was like an endless tune playing over and over again.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, there was no reasonable explanation. It was just an act that another person chose to perform: it wasn’t my fault. All this nonsense created an agonizing pain that sliced though my body, building up cold sweat in my hands. I soon felt a disturbance in the air, it was gentle but accompaned by a seductive scent.

Instinctively my eyes opened, only to be closed again as my lips were touched by another set of lips. My senses woke up. The sweet soft tongue slowly sliding and massaging mine was a taste of heaven. This kiss erased everything, and a giant smile covered my face as I gave her a big hug.

“Hey babe. How are you?” I was hardly surprised by all the eyes that were directed towards us. It really was ironic.

“I missed you, let’s go.”

She grabbed my hand and we entered Starbucks. The male audience who managed to catch a glimpse of this action had envy in their eyes, while the females were measuring me up. My situation had flipped upside down instantly and I felt a sense of belonging; we enjoyed our coffee and headed out for lunch.

It was now 11:30am and a noticeable number of people were out and about the city: couples, families of all different cultures all shining in their own distinctive aspects. It wasn’t surprising to me to see the increased amount of Asians, though it did make me feel more secure, but I guess it was due to the earlier incident that a sense of disappointment still rose within me when passing by a European.

I decided to remain undiscouraged as we passed a man performing with a guitar. I smiled and waved while donating two dollars. A shout of “Thanks bro!” with a big smile rewarded my courage.

We arrived at a café called Mecca located in the center of High Street, it is a well-known chain business existing around Auckland. Although it was expensive, the food was worth every dollar as I enjoyed my richly flavoured French toast. My date soon realized that I was sick and was really worried about the kiss she had given me, but fortunately she didn’t let go of my hand.

A total of 54 dollars and 50 cents were gone in less than an hour, which brings me to another common belief which all Europeans seem to share. I believe I am speaking on behalf of all Europeans, that it is agreed that Asians are rich. It is a commonly heard stereotype if one is blessed with an Asian friend. Many people have used this to their advantage or have learnt to deal with this fact, but there is no point in discussing the matter further.

The streets were now crowded with people, the time was 1:30pm and my date had work at 2:30pm. We walked down to Britomart, the train and bus station. On the way down we were amazed at a silver, frozen person wearing a rugby uniform. People were gathered around the performer’s interesting figure, and a small child approached the man and threw some change inside a tin can that was placed in front of the man. The man suddenly shifted into another position and everyone was amazed. I approached the man in hopes of taking a photo, so I donated the rest of my loose change. Beside me another child was approaching and I overheard the mother say to the child:

“Wait a minute son, let the tourist go first.”

I stopped for a brief moment, a tourist? I had been called a tourist. But before I could react the man shifted to a position pointing the ball towards me. The picture was taken and I said:

“Thank you.”

The man didn’t reply but shifted his position, I turned to the woman and the child and repeated the sentence. But this time I pronounced it with an Asian accent and gave a big smile; she also smiled at me. This brief exchange of a smile was more than I needed to resolve this question of origin that had struck me earlier.

The woman had automatically labeled me as a tourist, and it was wise for me not to react to this accusation because it is based on my appearance, and I cannot change it. There was no reason to react; it has become a fact similar to the one about the wealthiness of Asians. All I needed to do was accept the situation.

I was overwhelmed with excitement at this realization, and the release I felt was sensational. I returned the passionate kiss that I had received earlier, and both our faces blushed as we left the scene of the crime.

She went home and my friend and I were stuck again looking at each other with the same look we had had earlier:

“What now?”

My cough was getting louder and a fever was starting to rise and eventually I decided to call it a day. Alone I embarked on the bus trip home, giving me an opportunity to get lost in my mind, thinking about the experiences that I had endured.

Most importantly it was a satisfying experience, and it didn’t take long to arrive at a conclusion. I guess Auckland is a home away from home, and it seems that I will always remain a tourist from most points of view. The answer to my origin will always remain Korean, and I am proud to say so. Although sometimes I will be tempted to say New Zealand, but that may never happen.

I believe that I’m not the only one who has grown up like this; there could even be a new generation of people longing to be accepted. I may never be noticed by the passing random person for who I am, but it will still be a hidden attribute that I can cherish. Standing in the middle will help to define me, armed thus with the possibility of determining my own identity.

Kane Adams (2011)

2011-09-06T09:09:00.005+12:00

The Inspiration Room]

Searching

There isn’t much to do, or even think about when waiting for a bus.

It would seem natural to strike up a conversation with the stranger next to you, who also doesn’t know what to do, or think about when waiting for a bus. But of course in situations like this, a quick conversation can seem futile, considering you only have approximately three minutes or so until the bus arrives. And even if you strike a sweet spot in conversation, you feel obligated to sit with this person for the entire bus journey and stretch out the one topic you have in common, when all you want to do is stick in your iPod ears and forget there are thirty-five other people surrounding you.

I decided not to take the plunge one day, although I did find myself falling into ‘the trap’ after I foolishly elongated an answer to a question where a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would have met the requirements.

The plan was to meet my friends at Auckland University where we would look at the music shops around Auckland City. I left earlier because I needed to drop off an assignment at Massey University on the way. The bus arrived eight minutes late and as I stepped onto the bus, I wasn’t greeted by the bus driver. Instead he glared up at me as if I knew the drill, which luckily I did; otherwise he would have started shouting inaudible obscenities like a mad Italian chef.

‘Just one to Albany’ I said.

Rather than say anything, he just grunts and slams his thumb on a couple of buttons and the ticket comes out. As I turn to my right, I notice only one single seat is spare, and it was in the section of seats which face each other which means I’d be riding the bus backward.

I sat down and opposite me sat a dark girl (who looked to be Cambodian or somewhat) and next to her, an old man with a white, strangled beard who sat like a statue and stared at the wall behind me. I watched his slightly moistened lips, awaiting a small, stretchy drop of dribble to exit his mouth. His toes with squished toenails hung over the edge of his Velcro sandals. He wore long cobalt trousers, a faded ‘Corona’ T-shirt and an ugly-green vest and around his waist, he wore a black money bag that you would normally only see on tourists during their adventures at ‘Dreamworld’.

As free seats became available, the girl beside him quickly dispersed to the seat behind her. A few seconds later, another girl (who seemed to be her friend) sat beside her and before you knew it, the two were in deep conversation.

All was well at this point, until I yawned without covering my mouth. The old man’s eyes instantly shifted, staring down the dark cave of my mouth.

‘You tired, are you?’ he said.

I didn’t hear what he said because the pressure was still against my ears from the continued yawn.

‘Sorry?’ I replied.

‘You tired, are you?’

At this point, I could easily have answered ‘yeah’ but instead I said, ‘Yeah . . . I’ve just had few late nights lately.’

‘Oh’ he said surprisingly.

‘I never have late nights, usually in bed by ten at the latest.’

A short silence followed and I looked out the window as a sign to him that I wasn’t interested in pursuing a conversation. He didn’t pick up.

‘So where are you off to?’ he asks.

‘Uh Albany . . . yeah.’ I said.

This way I subconsciously let him know that I won’t be with him for the whole trip.
Thinking that the conversation had ended, he dives into a great spiel regarding where he’s from and where he’s going.

‘I’m off to Grey Lynn. Because that’s where I live’ he said with a voice clearly
too loud for a quiet bus ride.

‘I’ve just come from Wanaproa (he meant Whangaparaoa). One of my friends drop me off there yesterday morning, cos I needed to visit my lady friend’

While he talked, I watched bullets of spit being shot onto the seat next to me. ‘Oh ok’ I said.

I think he just wanted to boast that he could still score a ‘lady friend’ even at 75, or however old he was.

‘I’m having troubles with her though. She still lives with her mother you see and I say to her “I want to marry you, not your mother.” I mean, she’s twenny years younger than me too.’

I can’t help but smile on the outside and laugh on the inside. What would a 55-year-old woman want with a man like him? He realized that half the bus heard him say this so he began to quiet down his voice.

‘I don’t think she admires the fact that I live in a campground’ he said.

‘You live in a campground?’ I said in a concerned way. ‘How come you live in a campground?’

My attitude towards the man began to change. Obviously he had been going through some rough times.

‘Oh, well, I just don’t have much money. One of my friends owns the place so he lets me stay there for free. I heard that people steal from campgrounds but I’ve never had anything stolen.’

Even though the man seemed like he was from another planet, I became interested in the conversation and what he had to say.

‘So, what do you do?’ I asked.

‘Well, Sunday is the busiest day for me. In the morning I go to the Salvation army because they put on a free breakfast, in the afternoon I go to St Paul’s Church because they put on a free lunch, and at night I go to St Andrew’s Church because they put on a free dinner.’

Surely he wouldn’t go to church three times a day just so he could eat afterwards I thought.

‘So what makes you want to go to church?’ I asked him.

He began to think.

‘Well, there’s the free food and I guess it just gives me something to do.’

He said this in a way of an excuse. I could see that he actually enjoyed going to church but was afraid to admit it.

‘Oh, but Wednesday nights are busy too’ he said, changing the subject.

‘Why is that?’ I asked.

‘Well, my lady friend runs a spiritual meeting in Wanaproa (still not being able to pronounce Whangaparaoa) and I like to go along and see what the fuss is about.’

I could tell the way he said ‘spiritual’ was certainly not spiritual in a Christian sense.

‘Is that like mediums and stuff’ I ask.

‘Yeah, all that mumbo jumbo stuff. I just go cos she goes. And the food is good too.’

I could tell this guy was searching for some meaning.

‘So what do you do there?’ I asked.

‘Oh well, they do stuff with your hands and they talk about all this energy stuff. I don’t really like it.’ He replies.

By the sound of it, he really only went for his ‘lady friend.’ He jumped back to the topic of Church.

‘Have you been to St Matthew’s in the City?’

‘Na’ I replied.

‘Well, you know what kind of church that is, don’t you?’ he said alluding to the alleged homosexual aspects of the church.

‘Um . . . I guess’ I replied.

He chuckled to himself.

I arrived outside Massey and pushed the bell.

‘Well, it was nice talking to you’ I said.

We exchanged goodbyes and I hopped of the bus. When the bus departed, I looked inside and he was staring at the wall again.

I dropped off my assignment and caught the next bus to Britomart. There didn’t seem anywhere near as many people as before. I sat down and this time decided to listen to my iPod. Just as I put my ears in, my phone rang. It was my friend Matthew.

‘Yeah, so Rob’s class doesn’t finish till three and me and Lauren are at the Museum. Is it cool if we all meet up at uni and three?’

‘Yup that’s all good’ I said.

This meant I had a bit of spare time.

I arrived at Britomart and began to walk to Auckland University. I decided that I would visit the uni’s library to see what kind of books they had in regards to a World War II paper I was doing. I thought I may as well visit the common’s room to see if there was anyone I knew there. I admired the walk through Albert Park. I always love looking at New Zealand’s flora. I walked under the huge pohutukawa trees, just outside of bloom, shading the park benches. The wind would rush through creating a shower of a million string-like flower fragments which covered the ground after descending. I love the huge trees with tentacle roots that latched into the ground, and not to forget the tall palm trees attempting an imitation of the Sky Tower behind them.

As I exited Albert Park and began to walk around the university, I noticed St. Paul’s Church on the corner of Wellesley St and Symonds St. I remembered how the man on the bus said he goes there on a Sunday afternoon to get a free lunch, so I decided to walk up to a window to see if there was any advertisements for a free lunch on Sundays. I found none, although as I peered through the window, I noticed a man on his knees at the altar.

I peered closer and saw the man had a white beard and looked remarkably like the man I saw on the bus. I stood outside for a few minutes deciding whether or not to go into the church to see if it was him or not, just out of curiosity. I walked to the front of the church and the red, castle-like doors were already open. I walked in and instead decided just to stand in the entrance. It was definitely him. I knew that he didn’t just go for the food. From what I saw, there was certainly a sense of desperation in him.

I turned around and as I was walking out, I noticed a pink sheet of paper on the noticeboard which said ‘lunch is provided after 11:00am service on Sundays.’

‘Well, he wasn’t lying about the food,’ I thought to myself.

I walked to Auckland University’s library and found my way to the 940 section where the War books were kept. I sifted through looking for a book specifically on the Fall of France. I sat reading until I looked at my watch and it was 3:09 so I raced to the common’s room to meet my friends. As we walked to the music shops on Queen St, I told them the story of how crazy it was seeing the same guy on the bus in a church on the same day.

It’s crazy how things like this happen. I could tell that he didn’t just go to church for the food and I caught him out. I don’t know why he was hiding it in the first place. The only conclusion I could make was because his ‘lady friend’ was a medium. The funny thing is, after all of these events, I still don’t know his name.

Sophia Chamberlain (2010)

2010-09-27T09:49:00.005+13:00

Rangitoto
[Photograph: Jack Ross]

Bloody Sky

This is my story,
A unique travel story.
A story I will never forget,
A story that changed my life forever.
A story of courage,
Will power, a fight for survival.
A story of love, hope,
Family and friends.
A story of life.
The circle of life.
A journey of emotions.
This is my story.

It is the Easter school holidays. If I had my own way I would happily spend the holidays tucked away on a desert island until the kids go back to school, yet my ten-year old son Conor has other ideas.

Conor is quite predictable come the long awaited (for him anyway) school holidays. By week two it is a constant drone of “I’m bored, I’m bored”. As much as I love him he is beginning to sound like a stuck record.

“What oh what would his majesty like to do then?”, I am now beginning to lose my patience after the hundredth time of “I’m bored”.

“What about ...” he murmurs for a few seconds, “... well ...”

“Well what?” I snap.

“Forget it! I was only going to ask if we could go over to Rangi just like you promise every school holidays”, he slams the door as he walks out.

He was right. I always make these promises only to make up some excuse.

Since arriving in New Zealand eight years ago I have promised a trip over to Rangitoto Island at least once every year. Yet each year comes and goes. Rangitoto, which means “bloody sky” in Te Reo Māori, towers above the entrance way into Auckland's Waitematā Harbour like a sleeping giant.

Rangitoto, one of New Zealand's volcanoes and an iconic Auckland landmark, can be seen by most places along Auckland’s eastern shore lines. All that separates the land and volcano is the small patch of wishy-washy sea. Rangitoto is a spectacular view from afar, a picture painted perfect. In the summer it glistens under the sun like a treasure cove ready to be explored. In the winter the clouds hang low blocking the summit of the volcano from view of distant onlookers. So it is no wonder that almost every café and restaurant on the shore has its own style of “Rangi” artwork on display.

“Fancy a trip to Rangi?” Conor’s eyes rolled back and he raised his eyebrows. He did not seem too convinced that I was serious this time.

“I’ll show him” I muttered to myself. I pulled out my wallet and brushed away the cob webs. Cha-ching. Before I knew it I had booked one adult and one child return, on-line, travelling on Fullers ferries.

“Woo-ooh” I shouted, for I had managed to score some super-saver seats at eighteen bucks an adult and only nine fifty a child. I would have done cartwheels if I was younger for I love a bargain. I winked at Conor who now gleamed from ear to ear. For once I was going to be super mum and make my son proud.

The next day had come far too quickly. The sun was just beginning to peep through the broken blanket of cloud. The sky was a musky pink and orange and only part of the sea in the distance could be made out from the road we drove along.

Arriving at Albany's bus station was a mission impossible. There was very little parking. Sprinting across the deserted side streets Conor ran ahead to flag down the bus for there was only so much running I could do. Breathlessly I asked the driver if he was going into town.

“Town?” He looked us both up and down with our backpacks on. His face gave the ultimate impression that presumes “damn tourists”. Taking us by utter surprise this kind, soft and gentle voice offered us information on the “explorer day ticket for fourteen dollars, which gives exclusive use on all Ritches buses throughout the Auckland district”.

He smiled and I handed over my twenty dollar note, “Thanks anyway but we just need one adult and one child return”, only to get two dollars seventy change. What a rip off! With prices like that and lack of parking facilities there was no wonder every kiwi-man and his dog complains about New Zealand’s public transport service.

Throughout the journey people came and went with their business attires and top notch mechanical devices. Four petite Asian girls, similarly dressed and no older than about sixteen or seventeen, seemed oblivious to everyone else on the bus muttered away about how this girl “last night was sooooo irritating”; with that they simultaneously popped in their ear phones and started listening to their high-tech I-pods. One Caucasian man sat on the row of seats opposite us clutched at his bus ticket, as though he was holding on for dear life as we approached Auckland's harbour bridge, looking anxiously at the world outside.

With only twenty minutes to spare, we arrived at Auckland’s downtown Britomart. Making yet another dash across, this time, an extremely busy side road side stepping groups of pedestrians, dodging buses and cars we headed down towards the wharf to collect our ferry tickets. “Booking number 224308, Chamberlain” I told the lady behind the glass ticket booth

“Right away”.

We took our seats aboard the ferry and waited for departure. Behind us a French couple nattered away to one another while groups of school children hastily fought over who is sitting where. Briefly stopping at Devonport, we watched further passengers embarking on the ferry. Emergency protocols were then given by the captain, “children’s life jackets are kept in the cabin underneath the TV”.

We had amazing views from the top deck. We watched as Auckland's sky tower, city and dock yard became a minute imagine on the horizon behind us. Small kiwi baches dotted along Rangitoto's sea shore were becoming progressively more and more visible to the naked eye. They looked so cute and cosy, a more historical setting than I had first envisaged.

Conor pointed out several flip flops that hung, like leaves, from a tree. Several dinghies were propped up outside the batch that read: Little Coogee. The kiwi sense of humour, very subtle but very clever, made me smile as it always does. As we approached the wharf people were beginning to get anxious for the days trip ahead.

We disembarked from the ferry and headed towards the summit. It felt like a rat race for who could get to the top the fastest. People were stepping on one another trying to make their way across the wharf’s board-walk with their points of interest maps flickering against the cool breeze.

“This way” Conor asserted, and I trod on behind him. A few hundred metres ahead we stumbled across our first signpost: Rangitoto Summit straight on or Kidney Fern Glen left.

“Come on” he said “this way”. We eagerly followed the pathway to the left. The narrow pathways hedged with unusual hybrids led us to ... well to ... to nowhere. We stopped and turned around to see a sign on the back of a tree:

“WARNING CAT TRAPPING IN PROGRESS,
Hidden traps below.
DO NOT approach this site. WATCH CHILDREN at all times”.

We both looked at each other, screeched like two little school girls, and ran all the way back to the main pathway. From here on in we stuck to the main pathway like glue.

The hike was amazing. From a distance Rangitoto looked like a lush haven of vegetation yet the only greenery to the summit were the bushes and native plants that divulged out of the rocky landscape. The black lava rocks gave the feeling of pre-historical times and the climate felt at least a few degrees hotter than the mainland.

Along the way, small walkways led to information points describing the formation of volcanoes and their reason for existence on Earth. Other walkways led to breathtaking views across the harbour, across to Rangitoto's neighbouring island Motutapu, and beyond. The turquoise colour sea looked inviting as though it was merely a stone’s throw away, yet it felt like an eternity.

The walk was intense. It was clearly obvious why a good pair of walking shoes was needed, and a good sense of humour too! A little further on from where we walked two boys jumped out of the bushes, roaring with laughter, scaring their sisters. The girls seemed less than impressed, hands on hips insisting “I am not a sissy” and “piss on poo”.

A couple staggered along like they had already had a few too many. Yet when we looked closer, the elderly woman seemed to be struggling for her breath, yet she bravely continued with the climb. We were only half way there and had already stopped for numerous drink breaks.

At this point we had the option of visiting the lava caves or continuing on to the summit. “Lava caves first” Conor was adamant, he wanted to re-spark the adventure into our trip. Unfortunately for us someone had forgotten to pack the torches. (I knew I should have been born blonde).

Without a torch it made it difficult to see where to place one’s foot, though I successfully made it half way without a torch. Conor managed to be cheeky and followed in close behind some American kids who had remembered their torch.

“Did you see any Wetas?” their mother asked. For someone who has a serious phobia of spiders and crawling insects this was not a question you really want to be asking me, well, unless you are willing to except a hysterical answer of course!

Towards the summit people were becoming tired and restless in the autumn day's heat. Children still ran rampage across the island like they had energy to burn. I wish they had given me just an ounce of that energy to rekindle some of the dying passion I had encountered. Yet, my passion was not the only thing dying on this island. A few metres from the summit groups of people had come to a halt on their intrepid journey. A whole lot of commotion was going on up ahead yet my brain did not react quickly enough until it was too late.

There she was. The elderly lady we had passed further down the pathway who was gasping for breath, unknown to us would later be gasping for her own life. The groups of people who had come to a stop were witnessing the unexpected. As we continued to walk I averted my eyes in her direction to see a pair of lifeless legs to one side of the pathway.

Another lady knelt over to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the elderly women, eager to save her life. On the oter side of the summit, a distant helicopter could be heard. The excited yet worried and confused children stumbled up to the summit behind us to give the Westpac helicopter room to manoeuvre.

“Golly gosh” I heard the weta lady say to her family. They sat down to eat their lunch. Groups of Asians talking very quickly among one another made an instant grab for their cameras, whilst hundreds of bee's hummed around us in protection of their territory.

The propellers of the aircraft made it difficult to see anything at first. Sweeping up dust from the ground, and whirling up small parts of trees and bushes in its pathway, the helicopter became a circling tornado swooping across Rangitoto's summit.

The groups of school children were spellbound. I have never seen so many children standing so memsmerised and silent as they stood and watched the live action unfold before their very eyes. The paramedics were spectacular to watch, bum-shuffling off the edge of the helicopter and abseiling down to the ground in the hopes of saving the elderly woman's life.

Rangitoto had taken us all hostage in anticipation. After a long half an hour down on ground, and not a peep of what was going on, the helicopter was back in full view. There was nothing more that the paramedics could do. It was too late. Is this what heaven looks like?

“Well, life is worth fighting for eh”, Conor seemed touched by the whole scenario.

“Sure is mate, sure is”. I took Conor into my arms and hugged him like I have never hugged him before.

All of a sudden my own life passed me by and I realised what a wonderful world this is. Not only was I at the summit of Rangitoto Island, with the most breathtaking views across Auckland, but I was on top of the world. I felt like I had won the lottery. Not only did I have my health on my side, but my family here in New Zealand with me, as well as meeting some of the most wonderful people of all time right here.

Most importantly I had my best friend, my son, right beside me every step that I had taken. I was the richest person alive. Conor was the strength of my own inner journey, the power of my willingness to fight on and he will continue to be so throughout those steps still yet to be explored.

“Maybe there was a reason we hadn't come to Rangi before” I turn to Conor, “maybe we wasn't ready to see the true meaning of life until now”. With that we hugged one last time.

“Oh mum, do you mind? Cuddling is sooooo uncool” Conor laughed as I tickled him before heading back to the wharf, homeward bound.

My journey to Rangitoto Island, bloody sky, had not only been a new place of interest to visit, a local travel trip, but also a new journey of self-discovery and the true meaning of life. Life is so precious. We cannot give up hope simply because it is such a struggle to get to the top.

Bloody sky what have you done?

You took an innocent life

Yet turned two hearts into one

Blood has been shed

Our lives been fed

Bloody sky what have you done?

Sonia Yoshioka-Braid (2010)

2010-08-20T08:46:00.018+12:00

Kualoa Ranch
[Photographs by Sonia Yoshioka-Braid]

Lost in Hawaii

Hawaii. It evokes different memories in people. For some it is palm trees, white sand beaches, dusky natives and a Mai Tai at the Pink Palace on Waikiki Beach. For others, it’s the action-packed memories of “Book ‘em Danno!”… and Hawaii Five-O. Jack Lord and his sidekick always got their man. Or Magnum PI, with his Ferrari and Dobermans, helicopters and Higgins.

I went to Hawaii as an add-on. It was my first trip there. He was already going because of work. He’s the one at the front door of the plane, greeting you as you board. He’s used to being in charge, organising the troops, getting the job done. He’s been doing it for a while now, and he has his habits. He hadn’t been to Hawaii in a number of years.

I was lucky to get a seat on the plane; lucky to have a ‘free’ hotel room; lucky to be going where my extended family once owned land. I wanted to investigate those Japanese roots, but instead, to all intents and purposes I disappeared. My name wasn’t on the hotel register, so I didn’t get my own room key. Big mistake. We ended up stapled to each other’s sides. He hated the heat. I hated the cold. It was a match made in hell.

•

It is a five day trip, rather a luxury really. I am frantic with work but there is no way I would miss an opportunity like this. I am excited to finally get to Hawaii. It holds a special place in my Japanese family. I remember when I was nine or ten, my mother talking about signing a consent form to sell the family land so my grandmother would benefit. She has always wanted to see where that land is. Maybe I’ll get a chance on this trip?

We spend a day getting our bearings, finding his old haunts, like the Wailana Coffee House, a 24-hour diner where the staff look and act like they’ve been there forever. It is relaxed and the food is good. We walk down to Waikiki Beach as the evening darkens - he is keen to show me this magical place. We wander past high-rise hotels and the Pink Palace. It is getting late. We walk back through the shopping district. We don’t stop for a Mai Tai.

We want to hire a car but need to work out our plans. Hanauma Bay is closed on a Tuesday, so we decide to go on Monday. This means we have to organise the car hire on Sunday, but the city office is closed. He calls up the airport branch, and we arrange to go out early the next day to pick up the car. He forgets to ask for directions.

When we get to the domestic terminal, he says: “I’ve got a feeling it’s this way” and wanders off across the path and down a busy road. I see a sign saying “Car hire shuttle here” but he tells me it is for another company. We walk for 20 minutes along the dusty, truck-filled road before we find the car hire office. As we open the office door the shuttle bus from the domestic terminal pulls into the gate.

The car is a small white PT Cruiser. We arrange a 24-hour hire, and drive south, counter-clockwise around Oahu. We stop at Hanauma Bay to snorkel. I am small-framed and somewhat scared of deep water. Maybe the memory of almost being swept out to sea as a child is imprinted on my brain. I love and fear the ocean. I tell him I didn’t want to go out very far. “Come on!” he burbles, before taking the snorkel out of his mouth. He repeats his command.

Hanauma Bay

He is taller and has snorkelled more often than I. What else do you do when you’re resting on tropical islands? He wants to go out further into the bay, into the deep. I follow reluctantly, and keep getting dashed against the coral by the coursing waves, my bodyweight no match for the sea’s power, while his larger bulk seems to hover through the fish. Isn’t this fun? I give up and return to shore, where I lie in the sunshine and let the heat soak through my bones. It turns my skin a slightly darker shade of tea. The scratches on my knees stop bleeding and begin to scab over.

We are on a tight schedule, so we pack up and set off down the highway heading for the Windward Coast. Kailua Beach is for turtle-spotting, but I am tired after the exertions of Hanauma Bay. He’s been told the turtles are not far from here.

“They’re my favourite creatures!” he says. “We can’t come here and not look.”

“You go,” I say. “I’ll stay here with the bags and look at the scenery.”

He goes off in search of invisible turtles, while I sit on the sand, watching the testosterone surge with the tide. It is awash with men. Men with weird short haircuts, the total opposite of a relaxed surfer. Topless men with an unusually upright bearing. I am definitely in the minority. Then it hits me. They are US military personnel from the Marine Corps Base just up the road. They strut up and down the beach, punt footballs and chase bikini-clad girls in kayaks or on surfboards. They are loud and parade their manliness. I shut my eyes.

Our allocated time at Kailua beach over, we head north. In the spaghetti jungle of roads, we get lost around Kaneohe and turn right on to H3, almost ending back at Honolulu. This is not part of the plan. H3 cuts through the centre of the island and exits are few and far between, but we finally manage to get off the highway, turn around and get back towards the Windward side. We find our way to King Kamehameha Highway, looping back onto the road leading to the North Shore.

This time I drive so he can look out the window at the impressive backbone of the island, the Koolau Mountain Range, and I nearly fall asleep at the wheel as we round the top of the island, looking for the Banzai Pipeline. We turn off the highway at Ehukai Beach Park, and walk down to watch the waves crashing over jagged rocks before spewing onto the sand. The seabed rakes steeply away and a couple of surfers revel in the late afternoon quiet, taking turns on turbulent tubes of blue and white. The Banzai Pipeline, it turns out, is the next beach along.

Ehukai Beach Lifeguard Tower

He is keen to get to Waimea Bay and visit a waterfall he’d heard about, so we park the car and negotiate our way across the highway. The sign on the gate says Waimea Valley closes at 5 pm. He isn’t deterred. “We’ve come all this way – maybe we can still see it?” he says. I groan inside my head.

Waimea Bay

We walk down a long driveway, watching cars drive towards us. The native village is empty. Closed. There is nobody to ask for directions. There will be no waterfall today. He looks deflated as we trudge back along the driveway in the heat. He goes to take photographs of strangers jumping off the cliffs while I sit taking photographs of him, and the slowly sinking sun. We watch the sun go down on Waimea Bay.

•

The next day, we get up early and eat a good breakfast before heading down to the lobby. It is just before 7am. This is the highlight of his trip – a five hour Lost tour – in a Hummer! For those who are unfamiliar with the Lost phenomenon, I am told it is a television programme without peer. The series follows a group of plane crash survivors on a tropical island. I smirk at the irony. Apparently Lost spans the genres of adventure, drama, fantasy, science fiction, and psychological drama - the acme of that oxymoron ‘intelligent television’. I’ve never watched it, but he is a card-carrying, podcast-downloading, internet-stalking Lost geek.

We are met at the hotel by our small but perfectly formed tour guide. He has already picked up the other customers, a pair of Crocs-wearing British honeymooners. They are all Lost geeks. I am a minority again. The tour departs early to avoid Honolulu traffic and we head up Nu’uanu Pali Drive.

Along the way the tour guide pulls over. “If you have a look in here, you can see the driveway of a house that was used in this episode of Lost …” He brings out a folder with photographs from the show. My eyes glaze over. The other three nod their heads like plastic dogs on a dashboard.

Pali Lookout is next, an impressive land bluff with a bloody Hawaiian history. It fascinates me. Chickens scratch around the car park while we wander up to read information plaques. It is a brief stop. We are soon back on the road. The tour guide is itching to get us to Kaneohe Bay and the pièce de resistance, Kualoa Ranch.

The ranch, a 45-minute drive from Waikiki, is a 4,000-acre privately owned block of land acquired, so the brochure says, from King Kamehameha III in 1850. It boasts a five-mile coastal stretch, three mountains and two valleys, as well as the Molii fishpond, an 800-year-old, 125-acre aquatic habitat. It is Oahu’s largest and oldest cattle ranch.

Molii Fishpond

We drive up and park the Hummer outside the large wooden souvenir store and café. We are the only people there, but the tour guide assures us that buses of eager tourists will soon be packing the aisles. He goes off to sign our group in with the ranch as we wander around the store. It is packed with the detritus that ends up on office desks or takes pride of place in Japanese homes. Aloha. Welcome to Hawaii.

The tour guide gathers us back together, the other three straining to get on with the adventure. We jump back into the Hummer and set off through the ranch. It is still a working ranch, and all the protocols of farming have to be followed. Gates that are opened have to be closed again. Animals have right of way. It feels a lot like New Zealand.

We drive out into the valley and he throws the gearbox into four-wheel drive. This is no Sunday afternoon promenade. We stop at particular sections of land and the tour guide pulls out a DVD player so we can see a movie excerpt and compare it to real life. As the list grows, I notice a pattern. Very few are Oscar-winners. Most fall into the genres of romantic comedy or the instantly forgettable. It seems an insult to the surroundings.

Photography sleight of hand
[Hurley image from KOS Tours website]

The tour guide kicks his delivery up a notch. We’ve reached Hurley’s golf course! He makes a great fuss of a very practiced trick of perspective, getting the Lost geeks to stand in the distance while he holds up a plastic model of the Hurley character. Snap. Instantly, they’re standing ‘next’ to Hurley. That’s one for the photograph album! My camera, so often my second pair of eyes, remains in its case.

Kualoa Ranch itself is an impressive microcosm of Hawaii, the terrain varying from dense rainforest to broad valleys leading down to beautiful white sand beaches. During the war, the northern end of the ranch was used as an airstrip, incorporating part of the highway into the runway. Whenever planes came in for landing traffic was stopped to allow them through. We stand looking out over the valley. It is breathtaking.

Movie and Lost Museum

The ranch is also home to a WWII gun battery, which now houses a movie and Lost museum of sorts. The tour guide mentions a group who flew out from the mainland for a day to do the 10-hour Lost tour. “They all wore Dharma orange jumpsuits and knew everything about the programme,” he laughs. “Were they from Microsoft?” I venture. He looks at me. “How did you know?” I smile back. “Just a lucky guess.”

There is no escape, but after five long hours, the tour is over and we are returned to our hotels, Hard Rock Café vouchers in hand. “Tell your friends about us,” says the tour guide. “We sure will!” he says, tired but happy. I am just tired. We return to our room and he turns the air conditioning up full blast to escape the heat. I climb into my bed and shiver under the blankets.

•

We rest for a couple of hours before the siren call of shopping rouses me. We are staying right next door to the Ala Moana Shopping Centre, which I have already explored, drooling over Chanel shoes and wistfully staring at a dazzling array of food and gift items in the specialist Japanese store. I find the island a strange but comforting mix of American, Japanese and Polynesian influences. I feel slightly inadequate when I hear the ease with which multi-lingual shop assistants interact with tourists. I still haven’t learned to speak Japanese.

I want to check out Walmart and remember that the bus driver also mentioned a local haunt. “Go to Don Quijote” he says. “My girlfriend is always in there buying something.” We eat a late lunch and venture into the afternoon heat without a map to find these elusive icons, so I rely on my innate sense of direction to find the stores. Our initial foray around the outskirts of Ala Moana reveals nothing, so we head south down the road in a direction that feels right to me. We turn a corner, and there it is, Don Quijote, housing an El Dorado of predominantly Japanese goods.

We spend a bit of time in the store, and then go out again in search of Walmart. He starts walking, but I think we’re going in the wrong direction. He’s fixated on something, and then looks up. He gets a glint of excitement in his eyes. “Ooh – it’s over there. Let’s go!” We are still heading south, away from the shopping centre, and away from where I’d been told to look. We walk a couple of blocks before he says: “There it is!” “What?” I reply. “That church! It’s in Lost. I knew it was around here. I saw it from the Hummer as we drove past.” I groan – outwardly this time - trapped again in a Lost vortex, in the afternoon heat of downtown Honolulu. I look for somewhere to sit, but there is nothing to support me, so I stand at the edge of the grassed verge as he wanders up and down, taking photographs of the blessed exterior.

Eventually he manages to drag himself away and we walk back towards the Ala Moana Shopping Centre. I am foot sore and sullen, a dull ache moves across my temples and I really need to find a bathroom. We stop at an intersection and I look down the road to the left – there is Walmart! I nudge him. “There’s Walmart” I say. “Do you still want to have a look?” he asks. He seems surprised. “Well, I’ve never been in a Walmart before, so we may as well go,” I reply.

We walk into the air-conditioned coolness of Walmart. It feels like an oasis. There is even a bathroom by the front door so I take care of that distraction and then set my sights on the store. Apart from a small Hawaiian section at the front, it is wall-to-wall bland with row after row of the same types of items on display. I feel as though I haven’t left New Zealand. Replace the ‘Wal’ with a ‘K’ and I’m suddenly back in Auckland. It is also not cheap, and is packed with people. I have hit my limit. I’m over it.

I want to leave, but he is engrossed, he’s found a few items he wants to buy. I stand alongside him like a surly teenager. I don’t want to play any more. We go back to the hotel room, and I sit on the bed, too tired to move. He’s found his second wind.

“I really want to go down to the marina – they did a lot of Lost shooting there,” he says.

I glare at him. “Then go on your own,” I mutter. “I don’t want to go anywhere right now. I just want to lie down.”

He looks at me, taken aback by the steely tone of my voice. “Oh. Okay. So you’ll be okay if I take the room key?” he asks.

“Fine,” I spit. “Just go.”

I turn my back at him and put my head down on the pillow. He bustles out of the room pulling his backpack on.

I turn down the air-conditioning and go to sleep, but when I wake up, he is still not back. I’m dying to go for a swim in the pool, but he still has the only room key. I’m trapped. I turn on the television and wait.

The Ala Moana Hotel Pool and view out to Waikiki Marina

•

Visitor Centre looking out over Pearl Harbor

The next day we get up early to visit Pearl Harbor, where infamy runs both ways. My grandfather was in the Japanese Navy and his boat was somewhere in the Pacific in support of the Pearl Harbour raids. He died when his boat was sunk off the coast of Java not long after that by the US submarine Bluefin. I grew up hearing stories of his adventures from my mother, and how her life changed irreparably after he died. When I discover that submarine mascot in a glass display case at Pearl Harbor, I shudder.

We catch a Number 20 bus and arrive at Pearl Harbor early in the day in an effort to beat the crowds and the heat. They are rebuilding the visitor centre, so there are detours and delays getting to the right place. We have to check our bags at the small office and can take very little in with us. We book tickets for the 9.15 tour of the USS Arizona and wait.

The tour is preceded by a short film. I sit and listen to the stories being told on the movie screen, but my filter is out of kilter with theirs. How evil were the Japanese? It looked like they were tactically smart to me. Smaller, quicker and more devastating. You could only pull out your own weapons of mass destruction. What a lesson to give the world.

View of USS Arizona from the Memorial

On board the Arizona loud tourists are shouted at by on-duty volunteers. Show some respect, will you? Why? Did you show any respect when you sent out two atomic bombs to show your might? There are markers where the ships went down. Did you leave a marker over my grandfather’s boat? Oil seeps from the graveyards below water. Rust never sleeps.

I wander around the Missouri where the surrender treaty was signed, and gaze in amazement at the icons preserved. I can feel the ghosts push past me. The stories on the wall don’t mesh with mine. They’ve somehow forgotten to mention the two Atomic bombs they contributed to the war. It is a telling omission. The spot where the surrender document was signed is forever commemorated with a shiny bronze plaque.

Surrender on the Missouri

Fee-paying veteran-guided tours are available, but I want to see this for myself. I look at the spot where a kamikaze pilot crashed into the deck. At least his story is remembered. We wander all over the massive boat. He likes the big guns. I find it ironic I can now sit on the bridge of this once-hated icon.

Outside the souvenir store US veterans sit, under baseball caps and behind sunglasses, talking to visitors. I eyeball them wearily. Which one of you killed my grandfather? What do you think of war now? I search through the books for information on my grandfather’s boat, but there’s not much about the Japanese Navy. I am not surprised.

Looking back at the Arizona memorial from the Pearl Harbor Visitor Centre

I want to stop, sit down and soak it all in. This place evokes a feeling of unreality. He can’t cope with the heat. Thinks he’s getting sick. Lies down in the shade with a cold water bottle to his forehead. Poor thing. I want a drink, but the only tea I can get is iced tea, cold and sickly sweet. The food is fried or jam-packed with fat. I pass.

At last, we leave. It feels like a very long day. He wants to get back to the hotel room, back to the cool and the quiet, so he can rest. I am weary. We board the bus back into town, and go straight to the hotel. He flops onto his bed, still feeling sick, so I take the magic room key and go to find food. He can’t work if he’s sick, so I pick up fresh food and yoghurts to calm his stomach. He has something to eat and then tucks himself back into bed.

I bolt out the door and head back to the shopping centre, looking for a bookstore to wander around in. Borders is open on the level below, so I grab a couple of magazines and sit in a comfortable chair. It is quiet. Bliss. Eventually my phone goes off. Who’s calling me now? Is there an emergency at home? I push a button and hear his voice. “Where are you? I woke up and you weren’t there.”

•

Our last day on the island is a push-me-pull-you of competing demands. I have work to finish, he needs to rest and catch up on sleep before his job starts on the flight home. I still have presents to buy for my family. I pull out my laptop and begin to focus on a piece of academic writing, due the day after I get back. I am way behind schedule. I try to make sense of what I’ve already written and go through my notes. He turns on the television, changing rapidly through the channels. I close my laptop.

“I’m going shopping,” I say.

He looks at me. ”I thought you’d done that already?”

“No, we’ve been too busy doing other things, and I need to get the girls something,” I reply. “I’ll need the room key.”

He sits up. “Oh… well, I was going to go out a bit later,” he says.

“Then we need another room key,” I say. “Why don’t you go down to reception and grab another one, and we can both do what we need to do?”

He nods in agreement, puts on some clothes, and sets off on his mission. He returns in 5 minutes with another key, and I head off, looking at my list.

Aloha sunset

I walk through the door at Macy’s but my budget doesn’t match their prices. I’m determined to find a memento just for me, but something feels off. I try on clothes but the sizing is wrong, or the design doesn’t suit me. This happens again and again. I am exhausted and disappointed. At the very last block of shops, I try on a white J. Crew blouse. Michelle Obama wears their clothes. It fits me. I take it away.

I get back to the hotel and realise I am still missing a few vital gifts, nothing big, but it’s important to me to find something to take back. I discover a collection of shops in the bowels of the hotel. I select a few items and take them up to the room. I figure I can buy more at the airport.

Our flight home leaves late at night. By the time we get to the airport, I discover all the shops are closed. There is nothing to do but wait. In the meantime, he has already gone through the gate to start his day’s work, check if everything is how it should be, and follow his lists. I wait until they call us through, and my heart lurches as I step off Hawaiian soil. It held the promise of discovery and adventure, but I got lost.

Rowan McCormick (2010)

2010-03-11T08:35:00.010+13:00

[Photographs by Rowan McCormick]

Narrative Tourism

Much of the writing happens very close to the time of an actual occurrence. Some, if not all of the writing act is an event in itself – a part of the event and the subject of the event, too, happening in real time – and for me, it seems to enrich and add layers to my experience of the moment.

Writing is a form of tourism, I sometimes think, a way of travelling that offers a direction and course through and between the internal and external – the self and one’s environment – a way of engaging. How else should one travel? In queues, for instance, for the guided tour to Liberty Island, or up the Empire State Building? One might follow a theme, a set of fictional or biographical characters, a line of reasoning, a certain passage of history or time, or an established route through place and space.

My travelling, like my writing, unfolds and I record things willy-nilly – as they occur, or when I have a chance, and events re-occur on the page as reminders that bring on more recollections. I think about emotional tourism – following one’s feelings about. I think about gastro/sex/adventure/slum or poverty tourism – attending to the senses, or appetites. My own narrative tourism involves the adding of layers to a single experience in a compulsive manner – following my nose, jotting down notes, being curious, playing the ‘reporter’ for the local newspaper, and I’m as turning the next street corner as I am turning another page …

My tourist practices consist of a few core activities, which I balance, and where feasible, double up. The trade-off, most often, is sleep.

Sit around drinking coffee, watching life go by.
Get into conversations with various strangers.
Walk around museums or galleries – often listening to symphonic, or psychedelic music.
Take a ride somewhere (anywhere) in a train.
Write in my blue A5 coil-bound Sainsbury’s notebook.

How fine a feeling it is to be in a strange place, recreating/reforming impressions in part through words, but in a variety of manners, as I move through it, or as it moves about the chair in which I’ve sat to pause and reflect.

I sow memories and cultivate them on paper. I seldom consider what might become of the string of words that creeps along the page. I’m unconcerned with the harvest when the act is a pleasure, and fruitful in itself. Occasionally I’ll cast an eye over the dense jungle of script, the tangle of words, seeking a line, a phrase, a place or station name and what flourished on a certain date as I waited for the first or last train… what I found when I emerged above ground, who I met while waiting for a friend, and how sleep was once again inevitably delayed. The little green pencil darts up and down, doing a little dance along the track – a metaphor…

On the train to Coney Island.
Still a little sick from the Bowery Mission lunch,
And/or from/with tiredness.
The free meal moves within me, down into the lower east side

Clothes are removed and replaced as I move between the couches, beds and bathrooms of various folk I’ve met. People with whom I hold brief acquaintance offer me sanctuary, let me sleep over. They generously introduce me to a little of their part of town, their part of the world.

We don’t always know in what ways to connect – yet they are nice about giving the couch, a blanket, a towel, an ex-boyfriend’s T-shirt, and a little of the life story to go with it. We share these moments over coffee in the morning, cereal, milk, juice, bagels. I welcome these various forms of breakfast and kindness. There’s some warmth there. People have their ways about them – some small thing they know how to do to make you feel comfortable in their hands, allowing you to accept their care. They each have a way of letting you share, contribute, and to feel appreciated. Sometimes they have some thing, also small, they do that makes you wonder, and perhaps they wonder about you. It takes a long time for things to grow between people, and with one or other of us passing through, we don’t always have that kind of time. Sincerity (and fun) – that’s all there seems time for …

The more tired I feel, the less ready or able I am to sleep. But often, just as the promise of sleep arrives, something occurs that requires I defer the indulgence – news of a party, an accidental stranding, a chance encounter with a person of interest – a conversation, a story, a late night diner… These are a few of the unmissable opportunities for adventure that arise, and that I seldom refuse.

Travel gets the better of me. Before sleeping I make time for prayers and reflection – I give thanks in my writing. I feel open, generous, patient and kind. I feel blessed. In the night-time I lay in the dark, make up stories involving the strange silhouettes and shapes, configure something out of shadows and light, take in the scent of the room – seep into the darkness and slide into dreams. Come morning, I rise with the sun – yawn, blink, wash and wait for others to wake. Invariably, I move outside near dawn, to be stimulated by the ever increasingly strange (it seems to me) circumstances that will no doubt unfold. I fall into new rhythms that are manageable yet strange to me, free-form movements that are open for exploration, involving variations on a theme…

On this particular day, at 5 in the morning, having dried with a towel I assumed was folded and left for me, I was sitting at Loren’s dining table, drinking her coffee, and getting the remainder of my lunch from the Bowery Mission down. I was (and am now) still digesting events, recording and configuring the details and impressions of my encounters in the city. Being stimulated, I kept on waking early like this – and things were getting weirder by the day, with nothing particularly unusual occurring in the least! But the sense of everything ‘fitting together’ (or needing to, at any rate) increased at every turn…

The train arrived at Coney Island station. I dropped down to street level. The morning was overcast but not grey, just gloomy and lacklustre. Everything looked tired. Deadened. No crowds of children, no throngs of tourists or holidaymakers. No carnival tunes, singing, or loud speakers blasting encouragement. I was about it – the streets fairly abandoned. I couldn’t see anywhere to get coffee or food, or anybody else looking. If there were places, all of them seemed closed for the morning, or the season, it being late autumn.

But it was warm, sunlight and heat bleeding through the high cloud canopy. I walked miles of beach and boardwalk, meeting only older folk and retired types. Retiring myself, thinking about napping either on the sand or one of the wooden ledges, I found a place to sit and write …

Rusty, burned out supermarket trolleys, trash cans and oil drums, empty bottles, homeless folk, signs explaining who and what is not allowed between what times and dates and in which places, under what authority.

Toward the beach at ‘Cone City’ I find the fairgrounds – all closed down. The Ferris wheel is bound in barbed wire, dodgem’s housed in plywood hoardings, carriages lined up and cloaked in torn swathes of sun-bleached canvas. I photograph something on the back of the phone booths – a poster showing script imprinted on the seat of an empty swing, shot at the apex of its ascent: “An Abducted Child is Everyone’s Child”.

At some point this happens, swinging along nicely, back and forth, gaining momentum and altitude, and suddenly we’re plucked up by someone, or a series of events, and never returned – arrested mid-flight, unsure what to make of it all. I stumble about through an abandoned playground, unable to find solace in these amusements – nor any great attraction. An aband… no, abducted child. I move between these swings and contraptions with neither child rider nor parental guide, swaying in the breeze, pivoting uneasily on a rusty axis, corroding in the salt air, sunburned and wind-beaten.

Little by little, through summers and other seasons of the years, corrupted, steadily abducted. Not all in one go, nor at gunpoint, but slowly and surely. I am everybody’s child, out there in the world, alone, disconnected. Or perhaps it is the other way around. Perhaps it is childhood abducted from us as we swing or spin, coast, dodge, bump and blunder our way...

There’s something in the air – that’s what I’ve decided. It’s sucking up. There’s a vacuum. Coney Island of the movies. Coney Island of the past. Coney Island of songs on the radio. Why am I here again? The cloud cover is thick but distant. There’s light but no shadows. A movie set, a ghost town …

Later, when I return to the place I call home, I will sit at my desk, my family nearby, and I will search Coney Island, Brighton Beach, the Pier. I will discover something about we who visit these places, who observe, read signs and watch people, consume the mise en scène, then write about it in travel blogs – often in mocking, ironic tones. In these I will find that I have unwittingly plagiarised these places and people with a similarly careless and trite rendering. In other’s ‘travel writing / narratives’ I find my own observations echoed, almost word for word…

A sign on the fence at one end of Brighton Beach – “Go no further”. Carved into the handrail beneath it, “White people is Stoopid”.

The fairgrounds are locked up, closed down, carcass-like rides half dismantled, capsized, canvas covers slung over. Observing those still suspended, I get the seasick sense of rolling and coasting above the tide. A series of coloured bulbs hibernate, paused between flashes, their blinking on-off-on-off ceased with the seasonal bloom and flourish. It’s a sad place, tired, oozing kitsch the slow sap of which has become tacky and dark, stagnant, tasteless.

It is the ‘off season’. Multicoloured carriages hang from perilous frameworks like dust covered fruit clinging to a dried up vine cut off at the root, slowly fading, dissolving in daylight, swinging in the breeze as if ready to yield. The shouts and cries of the summertime days and nights, shed. The children have gone, taken their shrieks to other places, for other reasons, to other forms of amusement. There aren’t any trees. There aren’t any children. The only nearby movement – a tattered Stars and Stripes flapping in the wind, discordant. Or perhaps in accordance. Things are falling apart.

But of course, the back streets are where true life resides. I move away from the amusements, get off the main drag, cross the railway tracks to the unseen neighbourhoods which tourists are warned about, and fenced out of. I move toward the small township behind the bright lights of the holiday façade.

Once again I find myself roaming at noon, observing the formation of a queue. The people pull empty trolleys of different colours, as if on a track, trundling toward the doors of the mission. Staff are handing out tickets and calling numbers, but there’s no luck involved, no “step right up, step right up, everyone’s a winner” - just patience and perseverance. Folk come forward, present a yellow stub for a bag or two of food – Pepsi Max, corn flakes, bread, tins of beans, cans of soda.

In the other direction, a gathering outside a Salvation Army soup truck. I take up conversation with a veteran who sidles up with an electric whir in an unpolished, once bright red mobility scooter. He’s lucky enough to have secured an apartment in the projects where, if he’s careful about his power, water and gas consumption, and people keep up with their food-bank donations, and the subsidy on the rent is maintained, and his meagre pension with it, he’ll make do, or scrape by – just. He explains to me that his injuries and wounds were sustained in one of the wars of the last century, and that his children live far away, and don’t visit, or write, and that it’s hard sometimes, living in this place –

“There’s no work around here, not for me, nor most of these people – you’ve got to be mobile, and those with somewhere else to go, often do. It’s seasonal work, for those who can work, and some stay year-round. I’ve got my scooter… gets me around town, down to the corner and back, but I can’t get on a train with this – I’m on a limited circuit. I can’t get farther than my batteries will allow. And I have friends here, connections, community and memories, stories, but not many hopes… This town is quietening down, too. It’s not what it used to be – not when I was a young guy… You got your ticket, man? You don’t want to miss out. What’s that …? They’re calling 76. I’m 124. A ways to go yet … what’s your number…? Oh, you’re a visitor here ...? Where from ...? You’re a long way from home, son … Well, take care…”

Review: Angel Gear (1989)

2010-03-04T09:10:00.008+13:00

[Colin Hogg: Angel Gear (1989)]

Colin Hogg. Angel Gear: On the Road with Sam Hunt. Auckland: Heinemann Reed, 1989. 114 pages.

Going on the road with two stoned boozers who utter ‘cunt’ often and refer in jest to bestiality isn’t a smooth ride in neutral gear. Colin Hogg offers no apologies and at the outset warns us, the readers, that offence of sensibilities is bound to occur. Despite its brashness, Angel Gear is a beautiful and unique take on New Zealand’s iconic poet, Sam Hunt. It appeals to the soul through undulating poetry and nostalgic snippets of Hunt’s past which punctuate Hogg’s often erratic narration of Hunt’s poetry reading tour in the heart of North Island in the late 1980s.

Essentially, Angel Gear is a book about a travelling man. As Hogg, Hunt and Minstrel (the inspiration for many bow wow poems) travel through the rural North Island from Huntly to Rotorua, and the towns in between, there is a parallel travel story through Hunt’s life. Through Hunt’s own semi-biography (of sorts) that breaks up the pages of narration, we get a sense of his childhood, of loves lost, of friends killed, and events that have made him who he is. We visit the places and spaces of New Zealand that Hunt has called home from Castor Bay to Pukerua Bay, in the Green Shed, Bottle Creek and Last House South. A sense of travel resides in Hunt as he recalls a time he hitch-hiked back from the Bay of Islands ‘... I remember that being a good feeling. The same feeling of adventure, not knowing what’s going to happen next and knowing you’re going to take it all in.’ Angel Gear has that feel; stick your thumb out and see what ride you get.

This road trip drives us through small-town New Zealand where the economic climate is as harsh as the rural landscape, and according to Hogg, the look of the folk they meet along the way. The layout of the book lends itself as a picture story-book. Black and white photos give visual references to the enigma of Sam Hunt.

Hogg diarises their journey, noting the time and date of each day – often up early after hard nights getting ‘ripped’ – perhaps to remind himself of some sort of reality. He offers his own social commentary on schoolteachers, the strained economic climate, and small towns. Hogg’s view is through a cynic’s bloodshot eyes and quite frankly, he’s not that kind; ‘old before their time, especially the women. All trackpants and saggy arses.’; Morrisville is an ugly town, its saving grace is the fact that its pies are good; the clock tower in Te Awamutu is ugly too; ‘[u]pstairs in the theatre bar, a clutch of giggly and grunty Waikato oxen stumble in late.’ Americans, Japanese, Chinese, schoolteachers, small-town folk, radio station receptionists, even ‘bloodless old couples [that] rattle around in the foyer’ all are victims to Hogg’s cynical depiction.

At times, Hogg manages to be ‘managerial’; but just comes off as a man along for the ride who stumbles into bed in a daze at the end of the night as he floats on ‘a well-established balance of alcohol, dope, painkillers and Berocca’. The snippets of conversation Hogg conveys have no real beginning or end. They are bits of a world. However, Hogg captures the interaction between Hunt and his crowd, which give shape to the poet.

Zac wants to know: ‘Who cuts your hair?’ Sam: ‘My makeup artist when I’m pissed... You have to kick the shit off your shoes and make your own fashion. I cut it.’

The harshness of Hunt is softened by Hogg’s observations. He shows us the romantic Hunt, ‘Sam drags me out to look at the moon – a razor-sharp sickle’ the philosophical Hunt, ‘when there’s no more time for dreaming, there’s no more time for living’ and the humble Hunt ‘”I’m no major poet” says Sam. “Just a man telling a story.”’ Their conversations are recalled with a jilted flow; subject matter matters not, they are fleeting anecdotes that Hogg has been privy to in their wanderings. Hogg writes of the night after Hunt’s last performance of the tour where ‘strange talk’ arises on ‘the loss of Sara, death, suicide...’; here Hogg reflects ‘talk about the no-man’s land between the stage and the page’ and we get the sense of what first prompted Hogg to go along for the ride as he ‘wanted to know more about the loneliness’.

Despite the loneliness, there is also intimacy and plenty of girls who ‘oooh and ahhh’ over Hunt. They surround Hunt for autographs. He is world-famous in these country-towns, implored for autographs, guest spots on radio shows, he’s asked repeated questions, but always has an answer (of sorts) and does not deny the one who asks –

Lois is asking Sam new variations on all the same old questions, and Sam is doing likewise with the answers.

The book is sprinkled with vulgar language and they even joke about bestiality, which made me feel physically sick. One chapter has ‘farted’ in the title; so, no, we’re not on a road trip with a couple of gentlemen. Chauvinistic is one word that has been used to describe Hunt, of which he denies and defends in his biographical prose by saying ‘what some people have branded as overt chauvinism is in fact very little altered from what’s been taking place in song and in chant and in poetry ever since women and men have stood on this earth looking at each other and reacting to each other.’ However through a feminist’s eyes chauvinism runs through the veins of Angel Gear as Hogg recounts one teacher at a performance offering them

‘... our glamorous brunette to look after you,’ he ushers forward a good-looking airhead.

Hunt at one point creepily admits ...

that little girl in the front row at the school, I’d give a year of celibacy for her...

Hunt though, believes in passion, and is not ‘interested in androgynous nobodies who come from nowhere’ – men with their balls cut off. Despite this, Angel Gear has an endearing quality, and it lies in the places of small-town New Zealand and most of all, it lies in Hunt’s reflections and in his poetry.

The performance of his poetry is what has put Hunt in category of his own in the New Zealand poetry scene; it’s his face and voice has made him so recognisable. Ironically Hunt takes his poetry back to the literal classroom of which he was kicked out of and performs his poetry in schools and theatres of the heart of the North Island. Through Hogg’s observations and Hunt’s own words we understand that the performance of the poems is what is important to Hunt:

‘the performance thing for me is a filtering process. It allows you to listen to the poem’... ‘I find it hard, the idea of someone writing poems and not listening to them’.

Hunt’s voice is one of his defining features; so to read this book, is to hear the echoes of his gravelly melodic voice. The reader of Angel Gear needs to speak the poetry out loud or at least out loud in your head. Otherwise half of this book will be lost to you.

Angel Gear may not go down so well in politically correct circles as it offers profanity, vulgar behaviour of two old men leering at young girls in amongst a cloud of dope smoke. However, the juxtaposition of Hunt’s reflections and his poems redeem it. The poems can resonate with us all. If you want to find out more about the poet in a unique way that is neither ‘literary treatise’ or biographical ‘wank’, go on the road with him and his sidekick observer, Colin Hogg. Angel Gear captures a few drops of the essence of Hunt - an eclectic mix of crazy, nostalgia and magic. Sam Hunt is a man that is a celebrated part of New Zealand culture because, in Hunt’s words ‘[t]hey need people to wake up and howl at the moon. That’s my job.’

- Tami Wyness (2009)

Tami Wyness (2009)

2010-03-03T16:40:00.005+13:00

[Olafur Eliasson (Tate Modern)]

The London Project

“It was a dark and stormy night and the rain fell in torrents except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fierce.”
- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

There we were, hundreds of us, tiny black human shaped figures lying on the vast concrete floor space, bathing in a red haze and yellow mist. In awe, like children, we giggled and cuddled up in our winter jackets staring up at ourselves into the sun waving our limbs about trying to see our mirrored reflection hundreds of feet up on the ceiling. Outside in London everything had a grey tinge to it, leaves blew about in the bitter wind, people sunk deep into their jackets as they bustled along the cobbled stone streets. It had been that way for months. Constant grey. The surprise finding of the sun hiding inside the Tate Modern was magical; like walking through the back of the wardrobe and finding the glowing street lamp in Narnia. We lay there for hours, basking in the weather that Olafur Eliasson had installed in the expanse of the Turbine Hall.

The thing about the weather is that it can create our moods and therefore our worlds like a constant changing, evolving backdrop that surrounds us, constrains us, enables us, enlightens us, depresses us. Before coming to live in London all I really knew from the tales of others was about the grey. I had pictured dark, lonely stone houses and streets under a dome of cloud that never lifted. It scared me, the stories of London grey days; how would I survive the promised misery?

It was true, some of it.
Winter days ended at three when
darkness descended upon the city
into winter nights.
The loneliness,
The crowds
The loneliness in the crowds...
The yearning for sunshine
Ache for blue sky
Ocean
or... just a glimpse of the Hauraki Gulf glimmering in its glory

Sometimes, if I closed my eyes I could hear the pounding surf of Piha Beach as I rode the escalators up from the depth of the underground. I would be one person out of the 2.7 million that day on one of the over 400 escalators in London, travelling the underground maze. I would stand to the right of the travelling stairs in Kings Cross, or Bank Station, to allow those in a rush to walk up on the left, with my eyes closed. I could feel the rush of wind on skin which exploded up from the depth of the tunnels below as tubes rushed, criss-crossing in the darkness, through the veins of London Town.

It’s also true that the English talk about the weather, a lot. It’s a favoured pastime conversation around the office water cooler. At first I thought it a bit odd, this obsession of weather-speak. But what rests in the depth of a surface weather conversation is a theme that connects us all, whether we recognise it or not.

The weather affected the tubes and trains too. If it was too hot the tracks would buckle, too snowy the trains would cease, too autumny the leaves on the lines would halt the flow of millions of travellers. Oh – but the Autumn! Never have you seen so many leaves, falling like coloured snow onto footpaths,

whirling and twirling

about in the wind.

Hues of deep beetroot, rusty orange and golden yellows. London would be carpeted with fallen leaves with squirrels rummaging through them in search of food. Seasons did not blur and merge and confuse themselves like they do in Auckland; they were defined and defiant. One could mistakenly believe that London is all grey, brick and mortar but they would have just forgotten to notice the nature that shaped every single day.

“It wasn’t what I expected” the old grandmother explained to the child opposite me on the tube. “Nothing ever is” the young girl replied. I was curious and wondered what they were referring to; but it didn’t matter because I heard what I needed to hear. That’s the thing with travel and living abroad; it’s never really what you expect. Well, that’s my experience anyway. The desired destination is such an ambiguity. Intangible. Abstract in the way that none of the five senses have touched, tasted, smelled, seen or experienced it. An entire country can be condensed into a thick guide book; but none of it makes sense until you’re standing on foreign soil. Actually There. But once you’re no longer there – you’re gone, passed through, done it - the memories of the places and lived in spaces are still intangible. However, we humans like to reconstruct our memories, relive them, remember them in order to extract meaning. And perhaps create identity. Remembering London can only ever be a jigsaw puzzle of reconstructed memories.

“I came to London. It had become the center of my world and I had worked hard to come to it. And I was lost.”
– V.S Naipaul

I remember the first time I was on a tube that was delayed because of a ‘body under a train’. The crackling tannoy voice let us know like it was telling us the time of day. At first I was shocked, oh my god, a body under a train? Are they dead? How did they get there? Did they jump? Oh my god. People around me either seemed completely unphased or just plain irritated. The suited man next to me sighed heavily and looked at his watch. But it’s a body under a train I wanted to yell at them – don’t you care?

We were stuck between stations, the tube windows framed the blackness of the tunnel. Others sat around me, in front of me, all avoiding eyes in the near silence. I could make out words being sung into someone’s ears, only loud enough on their ipod to sound a thousand miles away...

“we all have our reasons to be here... we all have a thing or two, to learn ...”

Suit man next to me began to read his book Catch 22 when I had an overwhelming urge to yell and scream and rant and bang on the doors and walls in this Bakerloo cave; scream to the transport gods (and the ‘body under the train’ gods) to get the tube on the move. The fantasy subsided as patience calmed my thoughts and I knew there was nothing to do except wait, stare and listen to the noise of the music in some stranger’s ears, avoid eye contact, read advertisements and random words from the book of the guy next to me. I never thought I’d be so impatient; London has a way of sneaking under your skin. After a while, a body under a train became a mere inconvenience; apparently there is a peak hour for suicides in the London underground – 11am.

“Not all those who wander are lost.”
– J. R. R. Tolkien

My first real foray into the wild on my own was when I was twenty-one. Disillusioned with my work as a receptionist and restless in my relationship I jumped into my beat up car and headed north, out of North Shore Auckland suburbia. I had $200 to my name and had through my actions, had been effectively fired from my job. I was young, and yes, stupid. I made it to Whangarei before stopping in a tiny backpackers wondering what the heck I was doing. The next day I drove to Cape Reinga and back again. I had gone in search for inspiration, for answers, for truth. I found lots of fields and cows, the odd interestingly looking farmhouse. The thing that struck me most about my short lived escape was the sign post at the Cape which pointed to distant lands; Vancouver, Tokyo, London. They sounded so adventurous, so exotic, so much more fun than Auckland. I desperately wanted to go there, to go in search of life.

[Cape Reinga]

*

Advertisement on a tube station wall: “Keep Discovering”

*

[London Tube Map]

At first, the London Tube Map looks like an organised bowl of noodles. First designed by Harry Beck in 1931, an employee of the underground, it’s evolved over the years to add on the new tube extensions and make it more user friendly. It’s a distorted view of the city, a blueprint for the chaos, but it soon becomes part of your daily life and slowly becomes the reference schema of your own London world. Where you live, where you work, where your friends live; then, where are you going to meet after work, where shall you explore at the weekend, how the heck are you going to get there? It’s all there on the noodle map of London life.

At each station you can enter a new neighbourhood in a new Borough, with new cultures, bars, markets, demographic, geography and attitude. It’s like every time you go underground you’re entering Dr Who’s Tardis, travelling through space and time tunnels to arrive in a new location to explore and investigate.

Zone One holds the keys to central London. Most of it is easier to navigate on foot than by tube and it’s like walking through a giant pop-up history book or flicking through a reel of movies. Things seem so familiar, the red phone booths, the black cabs, the brown Thames. But what you may not be ready for is the overwhelming grandness of the architecture as you wander the clean, wide pavements; feeling humbled by the intensely regal buildings with their intricate designs. Behind the street facade if you looked closely enough you could find a small doorway that leads to a cobble stoned alley way which leads you to a secret garden, peacefully growing roses around a small babbling fountain. There could be an empty wooden bench, waiting, just for you to sit and be as thousands of people pass by oblivious a few metres away up on the street. Or an old Church could appear behind an ancient wall, stones scattered on a courtyard of weeds. Just five steps to the left and London could be yours alone – a treasure chest - if you care to look.

“This melancholy London- I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.”
– William Butler Yeats

The unmistakable smell of dope was an unfamiliar pungent in the tube as I sat down after another utterly boring day at work. Had I come to London to see only the inside of Tubes and Offices? I looked across at the smoker, he was pitch black with bloodshot eyes casually wearing a leather jacket, which was odd because it was the middle of summer. The tube air was stagnant, heavy, hot. My body temperature already up the smell of unwanted dope smoke on the over-crowded tube instantly made me angry. We eyeballed each other and against my better judgement I asked “do you mind not smoking?” He answered by taking 3 quick deep inhalations of his joint and flicking the ash towards me.

I looked about to see if anyone cared. We all just sat there – in the inertia bubbles that the London tube produces behind the rustle of The Metro, the free daily newspaper which informed us of the horrors of the world. Murders, stabbings, natural disasters. Stoner man did look like the type who would have a gun shoved in his jeans and no one really wanted to be on the cover of The Metro the next day. I could sense him staring at me with his wasted dangerous eyes. Was he daydreaming about killing me? I looked across at him to match his stare. He sucked on his crumbling joint as fear began to interrupt my angry thoughts.

I watched him stumble to the other side of the tube, sneezing loudly, snorting his nose, coughing and just sadly, dismally wasted. Drug-fucked he unwrapped milky bars, throwing broken white chocolate into his mouth but missing, the candy dropping like big chunks of dandruff onto his chest. The milky bars were on him I mused. My anger dissipated as I watched him crumpled and drugged on a busy rush hour tube in central London. He didn’t follow me out to kill me. I walked home from the station, passing a burning rubbish bin and a metal skeleton of a bicycle chained to a lamppost – its wheels stolen – wondering, I had left Auckland for this?

I was lucky enough to have a cousin who came to stay in London for a while. Instead of finding work in an office or making cash in a bar Stephen made money by becoming a human guinea pig. Once he met me on his way to the hospital, with a faeces sample in his backpack. They needed lots of samples from him over the weeks; but he was paid well to trial all sorts of drugs. He’s seems OK now, well, fingers crossed there’s no latent side-effects. He’d meet me after work and take me to places he’d found that day he thought were interesting. Once he took me to a rooftop where a family of pink flamingos lived. Or he’d take me to the National Gallery and show me a painting I’d never noticed before.

He’s the one that found out about the London Walks. We went on the Jack the Ripper walk which traced the murder sites of each woman Jack mutilated. One’s a car park now. The walking guide kept us rapt with stories of ye olde London as we saw the nooks and crannies of the East End. I drank a few glasses of mother’s ruin after that.

Stephen and I ‘did London’. We went to musicals and shows, wandered through Covent Garden and warmed ourselves up with mulled wine at Christmas time in amongst the fairy lights that decorated all the streets of London. In the summer we went to Wimbledon, sipped on Pims and ate strawberries.

Amongst enjoying the free events at the London Jazz Festival in Royal Hall some random guy asked if we’d like to sit in on a BBC studio recording. We followed him upstairs and were shown into a cosy room with arty types scattered on the floor like the cushions, overlooking the Thames. The London Eye lazily circulating beside us. “Hey, that’s the dude that sang ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ my cousin pointed out to me. “No! Didn’t he kill himself?” I whispered back as I listened to the amazing sound of Bobby McFerrin. It was my cousin who allowed me to see through the dirt and darkness of London and experience the city on a cultural level. Stephen was from Wellington though; so finding an acceptable coffee was a problem.

flat white noun /Austral. flaat whyette/ /NZ flet wyte/ 1 An antipodean style coffee which is served as a strong shot of espresso served in a small cup with textured milk; a damn good strong coffee. 2 51.51 (51°30') | -0.13 (0°8').
flattie noun. colloq. flat white; I'm gonna smash back a couple of flatties bro /NZ/ mate /Austral./
- sourced from http://www.flat-white.co.uk/pages/main.html

Unfortunately the majority of coffees in London are pretty shocking. London’s first coffee house emerged in 1652 – plenty of time to get it right, surely, especially as there were over two thousand coffee houses by 1700. Late seventeenth Century coffee consumption created an interesting shift in London from swigging down litres of beer for breakfast, to sipping the black liquid, encouraging talk of politics and religion. This type of talk scared King Charles II and he banned the drinking of coffee in 1675, albeit for only 11 days. Stewart Lee Allen suggests that British democracy was borne from coffeehouses.

Regardless of its fascinating history, most of the coffee was still crap. And no one knew what a flat white was. It was all latte’s and americano’s. For an avid coffee drinker, it was a frustrating experience. Luckily other Kiwis felt the same and had remembered their number eight wire and duck tape in their backpacks and made their own cafe, just on the outskirts of Soho. There you will find other antipodeans worshipping at the Kiwi run Flat White, a small awkward looking cafe set up in Berwick Street.

Somehow you find it, even without the trusty A-Z London map book, just follow your caffeine yearning soul. They started trading in 2005, but have already have won ‘Independent Coffee bar of the Year’ in the UK in 2007. It’s tiny really, with two small wooden benches outside that only fit two people side by side, facing the dirty back alley. The staff are decorated in familiar tattoos and greet you with smiles and pearly teeth. My heart actually fluttered when I saw L&P in the fridge. It’s a treat. Sweet as.

Sign in a tube: “Please do not give up this seat if the person next to you wants to chat”

July 7 2005. Woke up in my flat, walked my dogs in Greenwich Park, running late for my course in Notting Hill. Always late, which is fine because in London, the tubes and trains are always delayed. You see, it’s fine to stroll into the office past nine and simply say “‘tube troubles”. I jumped on the DLR (Docklands Light Rail) which is a fun little overland tube/roller coaster that helps connect the South East to the rest of London [see tube map]. At Bank Station, hordes of people were standing around watching a sign flashing the words “Bank Station - Closed”. Irritated Londoners tutted and groaned and furrowed their brows. Much like any other morning really. I sought an alternate route.

Back at Greenwich station I boarded the train bound for London Bridge. I stood in the centre bay between the carriages, swaying in time with the train as it chugged along, and watched London pass by. My phone vibrated in my pocket, “hey! How are you?” I sing into the phone, as I hadn’t heard from my lovely Scottish friend for months. “Tami, where are you?” His tone anxious, worried, concerned, what is it? “I’m just heading to London Bridge, going to a course this week, running a bit late, tubes are a mess this morning.” I replied.

“Oh my god, there’s been bombs, London has been bombed, it’s on the news, get off the train, please go home!” his words fumbled out into my ears and my body froze, heart stopped briefly. What the. “What do you mean, bombs?” I asked slowly, quietly, but others heard me, looked up, (or were they merely annoyed at my conversation puncturing the silent train etiquette) and looked back down into their daily dose of The Metro. “Yes, bombs, please, please get off at the next stop and go back home. Call me when you get there. Take care of yourself.” We ended the call and I felt stunned. Could this be true?

My phone vibrated again. My heart was in my chest, I wanted to warn the other train goers. “Tami” my boyfriend’s voice stern on the phone, sounded like the Policeman he was. “Babe, Rod just called and said something about bombs” I said before he began to speak. This time, others looked up from The Metro with more notice. “It’s true. Go home and stay home, I’m finding out exactly what’s happened, but go home now and I’ll call you later.” He hung up. I got off at the next stop and headed back to Greenwich, went back to my flat, dogs happy I was home for the day. I walked slowly into the lounge, scared to turn on the TV. Then watched the horror unfold as I felt sick and sat on the floor in shock.

I sat there all day, watching TV, talking to worried family members back home, texting and calling my friends in London. Everyone I knew was OK.

Something changed. Shifted. My somewhat vague ambivalence for London turned into a patriotic defiance. Like the seasons; I was no longer confused about how I felt, London was my home and someone had bloody well bombed it. The bastards.

As the day unravelled, apart from the obvious devastation, a theme emerged from Londoners. The same ones that don’t meet your eyes in the tube, or give you a seat, or who stampede into the already crowded train and squish against you. The same Londoners that tut and groan at the daily delays, and bustle past you on the street and walk over the homeless like inconvenient pieces of rubbish lying about on The Strand. The same Londoners who make and drink awful coffee; who don’t blink an eyelid at the mention of another body under a train. These Londoners showed me the meaning of true grit. They stopped, had a strong cup of tea or a slow pint at the nearest pub to gather their thoughts and then proceeded to carry on despite the death.

The next day I woke up in my flat, walked my dogs in Greenwich Park, running late for my course in Notting Hill. Always late, which is fine because in London, the tubes and trains are always delayed. I got to London Bridge on the overland train and headed for the escalators that carried us down into the depths of the city.

It was quieter than I’d ever seen the tube station; but there we were. Each looking at the other for support, hope. My heart was thumping around in my chest, but it had to be done. The tube pulled up and the doors whooshed open. There was a pause before anyone moved.

We stepped on together, sat down, together, looked around at each other. The eyes of Londoners I’d never seen before met my gaze, we held it there as understanding passed between us. We were all scared, but we had to continue on with our lives otherwise the terrorists would win you see. The tube speakers crackled.

“Ladies and gentlemen” the tube driver spoke to his carriages, “Yesterday was a tragedy. But I want to thank you for being on the tube with me today.”

My throat caught. Tears welled in my eyes in grief for those who had lost their loved ones. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t fucking understand the insanity. Across from me a man wearing a turban sat nervously. I nodded my head and said “hey.” His face melted slightly from tension and he smiled, nodded “hi”. And that was enough. That’s all we could do.

My heart broke a little that week as stories were told and tears were shed.

One day soon after that a big bright rainbow appeared. It arched magically across the yellow clouds catching the last rays of the stormy summer evening. People stopped and stared. Took photos with their phones. Londoners in awe. That’s a sight in itself. Then it rained. Fat heavy drops splashed on my upturned hands. Surrendering to the rain I was saturated within seconds. It poured upon me from the heavens. Big, fat, pelting, heavy rain. Nowhere to go, broken umbrella unable to protect me, I flung my arms open to embrace the wet, head back, tongue tasting the rain drops as they poured from heaven. Others scrambled and ran and hid under shop awnings.

I laughed, dripping with nature. Through London streets I waded in streaming puddles. I felt like I’d been cleansed, baptised into the faith. The faith of the human experience.

Erin Gallagher (2009)

2009-11-30T11:57:00.003+13:00

[Aerial View of Wellsford]

Bing Bong

“Calling all remaining passengers yet to board flight NZ534 to Blenheim. This is your final call. Please make your way to Gate 12 immediately. The plane is waiting for you.”

A couple of startled passengers, obviously far too interested in their below-average airport food to have noticed their plane should’ve left the terminal six minutes ago and will leave without them in the next 30 seconds if they don’t start running pronto, suddenly drop their plastic forks, hastily push back their chairs, grab their bags, only to double-take and return for their bottles of water, and race towards the gate, spurred on by the invisible woman talking over the loud speaker. The plane is waiting for you. The invisible woman invisibly points at them. If there were neon lights available I bet they’d be hauled out and the dial turned to HARD-OUT NEON in honour of these guys. Ha. Shame. That’s not going to be me. I will be prepared for my flight.

“Calling all passengers boarding flight NZ476 to Auckland. All passengers seated in rows 11 to 23 are now invited to board the aircraft. Please make your way to Gate 17.”

I look around the departure lounge. No one’s moving. I look at my boarding pass. Row 9. I sigh. I look around again. Still no one moves. The departure lounge is pretty full, but no one looks like they’re in much of a hurry to board the plane. They must all be in the first 10 rows of the plane or beyond Row 23. How many rows are there on the average plane anyway? Not too many more than 23, surely. I shrug. Oh well, I may as well get to my seat before the mad rush. I stand up. Walk towards the gate. Pass my boarding pass to the smiling attendant.

“Sorry, ma’am, we’re only accepting passengers from rows 11 to 23 at this stage.”

I look around. Still nothing. No one. There are a couple of middle-aged ladies slowly and sedately heading in my general direction, but they hardly constitute a mad rush. An entire hockey team congregates just beyond the departure lounge, and I decide that I will safely make it to my seat before they push through the crowds to theirs if it’s the last thing I do on this fair earth. Having to compete with 13 giggly overly-excited and probably over-achieving girls in the narrow plane aisle is not exactly my idea of fun, thank you very much. And I was doing so well at beating them until I was denied entry. Other passengers sit in small groups, heads bowed over newspapers and magazines, either completely oblivious to the boarding call and the gaggle of giggling girls or just stone deaf.

“But no one else is boarding, sir.”

“Sorry, ma’am, I’m afraid that’s the protocol. Your boarding call won’t be too long.” Cue wide beaming smile. It’s a cover. Beneath that unnaturally white smile he’s really thinking, “HAH, I’ll make her wait unnecessarily longer, because I’ve had a crap week and I hate my life.” What a guy.

I sigh, turn around, return to my seat. What a waste of time. And do I really look like a ma’am? Oh dear God. I’m 26 in 19 days and I’m already being called “ma’am.” My life is over. To make matters worse, the hockey team prances past me, giggling and hair flicking, through the gate and onto the plane. Bitches. They were the types of girls I hated when I was at school.

I sit. Wait. Look around. Still no one boards. I open my bag. Reach for my magazine. Flick to the first page. “Calling all remaining passengers yet to board flight NZ476 to Auckland. This is your final call. Please make your way to Gate 17 immediately. The plane is waiting for you.”

I slap my magazine down. Glare at the still smiling attendant. You’ve got to be kidding.

Aboard the squishy 737 I sit in the middle seat, jacket hugged over my arms because the air conditioning is typically arctic, and prepare myself for the awfully tedious but mostly hilarious this-is-what-you-should-do-if-our-plane-suddenly-falls-into-a-downward-spiral-and-we-all-crash-and-burn routine. I am pleasantly surprised. Air New Zealand has made a video presentation that is actually mildly entertaining. I even silently chuckle. Particularly at the bit when the man says “in the unlikely event of us crashing, brace yourself against the seat in front of you like this (cue leaning over and holding head and seat in front of him). Also, while you’re down here, this is the perfect place to find your life jacket.” How convenient. Cut to a woman with a life jacket around her neck, saying, “And make sure you wait until you’re outside the plane before inflating your life jacket, ha ha hardy ha.” Lady pulls cord. Life jacket inflates with a big ppphhhhhht around her neck. Not exactly a good example for us dumb passengers. It’s not until the end of the clip that I realise that all the flight attendants in the video are naked, covered only by strategically-brushed body paint. “Air New Zealand. We’ve got nothing to hide.” My 4D flight attendants must have plenty to hide because they’re fully clothed. Thank goodness.

“I hope we get turbulence.”

I look to my left. Youngish guy. Mid-20s, mousy-brown hair, wearing a tidy blue polo. Interesting-looking fellow, I think to myself. Not bad looking either. I wonder if he’s rich.

“I don’t enjoy turbulence,” I respond. “The last time I was caught in a spot of turbulence I almost cut the circulation off my poor neighbour’s hand, I was clutching so hard. I always pray for smooth flights. In fact, my favourite part of the flight is when we land.”

“Because you’ve haven’t crashed and burned?” he asks.

“Exactly.”

Turns out he’s from Whangarei. Flew down to Wellington for a uni contact course. Arrived in town and realised he’d mixed up the locations, and the course was actually in Palmerston North. Bugger. So he thought he’d take the opportunity to mingle with the locals instead, and quite probably fail his paper.

I’m from Wellsford originally. Most people stop at McDonalds in Wellsford on their way to Whangarei. I comment that there’s nothing else in Wellsford worth stopping for. He agrees. We connect.

Whangarei, like Wellsford, is a small country town. Well, in comparison to Auckland, at least. Talk to anyone who says they’re from a country town, small or not, and you immediately develop a sort of camaraderie. Folks from country communities always make their home town sound like the tiniest and worst hick place in the whole wide world. It almost becomes a bit of a competition. Wellsford normally wins. No one ever actually goes to Wellsford, they only ever pass through on the way to somewhere far more exciting. It’s never, “Hey, what are you up to this weekend?” – “Dude, I’m going up to Wellsford! Wanna come? It’s gonna be wicked” – “Awesome, I’m in!” No. It’s more like, “Hey, what are you up to this weekend?” – “Oh, I’m heading up north for a spot of fishing, and God forbid I’ll probably stop in Wellsford for some Maccas on the way. Wanna come?” – “Nah bro, I’d rather watch Coro Street. Be careful in Wellsford, you might catch something.” The only reason they ever stop is for food. Have you ever counted how many food outlets there are on Rodney Street? Have a look next time you drive through. You’ll need all your fingers and toes.

I also have a flatmate originally from Whangarei. Blue Polo Boy asks who he is. I tell him he’s unlikely to know him. He reckons he might. That’s another thing about hailing from a country town: you think you know pretty much every other soul from your town, dead or alive. I give him the name of my flatmate. He doesn’t know him. I told you so. We laugh. Sit in pleasant silence.

“53.”

“Huh?” he asks.

“53. How long is the Milford Track? 18, 53 or 81 kilometres? I guess 53.” I’m watching the Great Air New Zealand quiz on the monitors above, which has replaced the nudity from earlier.

“Oh. 81 then.”

We gaze at the screen, waiting for the answer to appear. “Hah. 53 it is. I win.”

“Bring it,” he says.

What modern city is comprised of the ancient cities of Constantinople and Byzantine? The answer is Istanbul. I guessed somewhere in Turkey. I’ll take that. Two points to me. What book by James Joyce does this quote come from [insert totally forgotten quote here]? Ullysees. He had never heard of James Joyce. That was the only book by James Joyce I could name. Three points to me. What does the Maori word [insert an obscure Maori place name here] mean in English? He didn’t have the foggiest idea. I have a somewhat limited but fairly accurate knowledge of the Maori language. Te. Wai. Whare. That sort of thing. I split the place name into bits and guess. Four points to me. Gee, this guy might be good-looking but he sure ain’t that smart ...

What team caused a major upset in the 1983 Cricket World Cup final?

“Hah!” I sigh, lean back defeated in my seat and laugh. “How would I know the answer to that? I’d only just been born!”

Long pause.

“Well, I was born six years later.”

Oh my.

He’s been hitting on me. I’ve not been objecting to it. I’m virtually old enough to be his mother. I am a paedophile. Suddenly our conversation dries out.

I think the answer was Sri Lanka. I may be wrong. I’m still in shock. I am old. I am a ma’am and a paedophile all in one day. Not exactly the greatest finale to a great holiday.

You can’t hide a lot on a plane. There’s a woman in front of me reading a Cosmopolitan magazine. She doesn’t really look like the type of woman who’d regularly buy a Cosmo. In fact, she probably only bought the thing because that’s what you do when you fly on a plane – read trashy magazines. Whitcoulls stores in airports right around the country must make a killing from trashy magazines. A bold title screams at me from the front cover. WHY 80% OF ALL WOMEN CAN’T ORGASM. Fascinating stuff. The woman casually flicks through the pages, lingering briefly on the clothing and jewellery and beauty pages. But her flicking fingers have purpose. She knows what she is looking for. I know what she is looking for.

Suddenly her posture changes. No longer is she sitting comfortably upright in her seat, blissfully unaware that I’m reading her magazine over her shoulder. Now she sits in the corner of her seat, right shoulder turned away from me, huddled into the window of the plane, paranoid that her mother (who has that special motherly x-ray vision that really scary mothers have) has just boarded the plane and even though she is sitting at the front of the plane she has special reflective glasses that help her see what her deviant daughter is reading. Or maybe the nuns from her Catholic primary school are seated directly behind her, telepathically sending messages of right and wrong and good and evil and moral and incomprehensively disgusting to her conscience. Or her lesbian lover is secretly watching from three rows back, and suddenly realises why their sex life just doesn’t cut the mustard. But no. None of those people are on the plane. No one can see what she is reading. Except me. I glimpse ORGASM on the page as she strategically bends the magazine under, effectively hiding the first page and, by default, the content of the article. But I can still see the tell-tale words through the crack between her seat and her neighbour’s. SEX. PLEASURE. FOREPLAY. ORGASM. Interesting that the crucial words are always in capital letters. She is engrossed. It’s not until the seatbelt lights go on again and the voice from the ceiling requests that we prepare ourselves to land in Auckland and the temperature is a mild 14 degrees out there so wear a coat that she puts the magazine down and pretends that everything is normal. I give her a pious how-could-you-you-deviant look.

And then I promptly wonder if the Whitcoulls at Auckland Airport will be open at this time of night, or whether I’ll have to wait until the morning before I can buy my own copy of Cosmo. Or maybe I’m too old for Cosmo these days anyway.

Arrival lounges in airports are always heart-warming places. There are the newly-weds who’ve just returned from their honeymoons, all sexed up and ready to take on the world together; the married couples who’ve just spent their first weekends away from each other, wives launching themselves at their bouquet-bearing husbands; the kids who’ve missed their dads while they’ve been away on business trips, their little hands clutching pictures and handmade gifts; the entire families who thought Disneyland was a good idea until their children moaned and fought and vomited the entire journey home, and are now just relieved to have their normal lives back. Airports always make me happy. I enjoy people-watching in departure lounges because I know I’m flying away somewhere over the rainbow too, but the faces of people at the other end are so much more endearing. All that untamed excitement and anticipation and love. I could go to the arrivals lounge on any given day with no one to actually pick up, and never get bored.

“Nau mai, Haere mai, Tamaki Makaurau. Welcome to Auckland. Thank you for flying with Air New Zealand this evening – we hope you enjoyed your flight, and we’ll see you again next time.” City lights blink mischievously below us and the Sky Tower rises through the hazy atmosphere with a welcoming salute. Auckland is a beautiful city at night. As we touch down I breathe a sigh of relief. We didn’t crash and burn. Just as well, really. I can’t remember where my life jacket is.

Amanda Orr (2009)

2009-10-01T16:05:00.009+13:00

[Henderson, West Auckland]

The Train Ride Home

In a bid to prevent my entire student allowance lining my landlord’s pockets, my cat and I shifted to a cheaper part of town: from the East of Auckland to the West; from a stunning seaside two storied holiday-home to a workshop in the industrial estate of Henderson.

Yes, wretched, but fortunately - only temporary.

A week into my transient western nightmare I was shocked to discover I (a woman raised in poverty flats in Wanganui – or is it Whanganui?) was actually a snob. Now, this discovery is infinitely shocking because I was raised to view snobs as abhorrent, bottom of the barrel, brainwashed capitalist clones who lack free-will or any independent thought. Simply put, snobs are worthless. This God-forsaken cruel joke bestowed upon me hit like a thunder-bolt after shopping in Henderson Township for a new duvet cover. Let me fill you in.

While looking for a locally owned linen store of some kind I stopped to admire the courage of a young Maori boy busking for money in the main square. He beat-boxed and rapped impressively, but quickly I realised he was actually provoking a fight - his red hoody friends were ‘staunching out’ their blue hoody foe.

I attempted to flee across the road but there were a dozen or so enormous islanders also provoking a fight with the rappers. Their disguise as mobile flower gardens didn’t fool me, brightly adorned with multi coloured lava lava’s and slow motion hooves protected by jandals the size of roasting dishes which dragged painfully testing the asphalt.

‘BANG!’ - “SHIT” I screamed as I was knocked to the ground. Grasping my throbbing elbow, I looked up to see a teenage boy peering down at me.

“You right?” he muttered.

“No” I replied, adamantly.

His glazed red eyes were obviously incapable of remorse, his appropriate ‘White Zombie’ t-shirt (seemingly worn as a warning) was smothered in his long dishevelled blond locks. Within a second he leaped back on his skateboard and took off with his long blond hair chasing him; flickering in all directions as though it was just as retarded by the marijuana as he. I staggered upright and found myself unwittingly mimicking the slow dragging of calloused monstrous feet, in what seemed like a ceremonial crossing of the road - mobile-garden style.

Nevertheless, determined to buy a duvet cover from a locally owned shop, I didn’t see one over the price of fifteen dollars, and it was difficult to find any that didn’t have an indigenous design on it. Though in many ways this is inspiring, I did not want to have an unsettling duvet cover with even more loud colours than an assortment of M&M’s, or a political symbol such as the Tino Rangitiratanga flag.

After finally purchasing a ten-dollar duvet cover which smelt second-hand I began my limp home (which is only an unfortunate few minutes from the main square). On three separate occasions I was asked for ‘change’: “Miss, have you got change for the train?”

In only five minutes being asked for change became a given, and it was always required for the same reason – public transport. Accompanied by the screeching sirens of police cars I finally reached my workshop. While double-checking the deadlock on the shut front door, I thought “What the hell am I doing in this sess-pit? I’m better than this” – and that’s when the epiphany thunder-bolt hit. I slowly sat on my old tattered sofa, feeling sick to my stomach and, short of oxygen, gagged on the word “snob”.

I felt ill with this realisation – where did this judgement come from? Who do I think I am? While washing my new duvet cover I received a phone call from an old friend, “Hey Hun, it’s me – Jan, come over to my place next Monday for lunch...” and on she went with the details of how to get there, “easier to take the train, you couldn’t possibly get lost that way, I live right next to the Waitakere train station”.

After our conversation I felt a small loathing at having to get out and about in my new surroundings – ‘why can’t I still be in the East’ I thought, shamefully. For the following week I only went outside only to get in my car and drive straight to a motorway – EXIT. I really missed going for morning runs, I missed window shopping or walking down to the dairy just because it’s a beautiful day, but not once did I step out the door without heading straight for my car.

The following Monday I put together a small contribution for my lunch with Jan; bananas, lollies, muffins and lemonade, then began my short walk to the train station for my first public transport experience in Henderson.

With my hat and sunglasses hiding my face (a bid to be unnoticed by those needing change), and a long dark coat (possibly a symbol of armour) I began my deafening journey to the train station. I agreed with myself; ‘why does TV2 only have ‘Motorway Patrol’? ‘Henderson Patrol’ would be far more interesting’.

I arrived on time at the station; precisely five minutes before the train was due to arrive. While sitting in the station shelter I couldn’t help but notice the cleanliness; everything shone – literally. Ignoring the ‘No Smoking’ signs I finished my cigarette and walked the 20 or so metres to the rubbish bin to dispose the butt, I just couldn’t throw it on the spotlessly clean asphalt (I felt guilty that I had ever done so elsewhere).

The train arrived when expected, gratefully I stepped on and took a seat right at the back of the last carriage. It was completely empty until two Maori teenagers of opposite sex ran from separate directions into the carriage just seconds before the train left. ‘BEEP BEEP BEEP’ - the doors slammed shut.

Again I was appreciating the cleanliness of this experience; the train was surprisingly cleaner than my car (my pride and joy), the carriage even smelt like lavender - it was a welcoming environment. I was shocked that I was so shocked.

The young Maori boy adorned in gangster colours stood up and began to walk in my direction, ‘what the...?’, I felt my hands clench my handbag, I made the decision to use my keys as a weapon, I drew a deep breath and reached into my bag - just as I grabbed my keys he sat down next to the Maori girl – I panicked – ‘what’s he going to do to her’, at that moment they embraced and exchanged a most passionate kiss.

They giggled the whole time – oblivious to their surroundings – they laughed out loud obviously overjoyed to be together. She cuddled into him patting the back of his blue hoody, he pulled her red hoody back off her head. Together they held each other tightly, eyes locked, cheeks blushed, hoody colours insignificant.

The giant passenger operator had a name badge saying ‘Selau’. He approached me with a cheery smile which illuminated his teeth against his dark complexion, his gentle voice and island accent almost made music of his words: “Where are we off too today, Maame?”

Still looking over at the teenagers’ embrace, I told him my plans.

While he exchanged my payment with small change I needed for the return trip home he remarked, “You haven’t been on this train before, Maame?”

I smiled and explained it was my first ride. He must have had spare time, because he proceeded to explain to me how the service works, he gave me pamphlets and timetables while patiently explaining the various arrival times, ticket types, concession fares, ticket agents and so on.

Appreciating his kindness, I still could not help my wondering eyes admiring the teenage affair.

Selau looked over at them. Lowering his voice, he said, “This train seems to be the meeting place for those two.”

My reply was a confused frown.

He continued “They can’t be together; they are from rival families.”

I asked, “Is he a blood and she a crypt?”

Selau nodded. “That’s the way it has to be for them out here where they’re from, but every now and again they meet in this train, then get off at Waitakere.”

Immediately an ex-boyfriend's face flashed in my mind. He was the ultimate forbidden fruit: a skinhead raised by skinheads. I was only 15, but we really loved each other. My Mother ended that.

Looking up at Selau I asked, “What is it with the gang issue in Henderson? Why is it so full on?”

Selau smiled even more openly, then replied, “Unfortunately in many parts of the world it’s safer to be part of a gang sometimes.”

I suddenly understood, my mind and heart came together and felt an acceptance of Selau’s words – and with that I felt enormous gratitude towards my safe home in a workshop, my loving boyfriend, my supportive family, my reliable student allowance complimenting my University study, my entire life.

Then Selau told me to ask if I need anything. I thanked him, and the first conversation I’d had with an islander in Henderson then ended.

While looking out the window I nibbled on M&M’s, I could have easily enjoyed the surprising spectacular views; various blossoming trees, spring lambs and ferns. But, instead I focused on the graffiti; the ineligible, colourful, clever assortment of gangster symbols blended together like a melting pot of alienation, which actually seemed to unwittingly unite the taggers with us all – who isn’t searching for acceptance? While finishing the last of my M&M’s Selau came by to let me know the next stop is Waitakere Station. Stepping off the train I realised I was looking forward to my train-ride back to Henderson.

I walked the short block back to the train station after a leisurely lunch and a few good laughs about Michael Laws and the prohibition of gang patches back home in Wanganui (or Whanganui). Delighted to see Selau waving to me from a carriage I immediately made that carriage my welcoming home for the 25 minute journey back to Henderson. He asked me about my lunch and I asked him about the previous two hours; just like that we are friends.

This time numerous people boarded the train, all sitting individually from each other – no conversation, no clues of their humanity. Though, I was rather intrigued to see a man in his late thirties (I suppose), wearing bogan regalia to the hilt; black jeans, studded belt, leather vest, a long blond ponytail and goatee to boot. I smiled – God bless those westies. But, we must ask – ‘How the heck does a grown man get away with that get-up?’.

BEEP BEEP BEEP, the train doors slammed shut, away we went. I couldn’t stop looking at the grown-up bogan, I mean – seriously – could he have a regular job when he looks as though he’s just left an Iron Maiden concert on a Monday afternoon? I was prepared to bet ten bucks this guy would be getting off the train at Henderson. Again, I felt the shameful snobby part of me make judgement... but this time I couldn’t shake it; he reminded me too much of myself when I was a teenager.

Looking at the graffiti out the window I remembered a long time ago doing the same while adorned in studs, a trench-coat and Doctor Martin boots – but we would use a vivid to draw anarchy symbols or giant penises (depending on how drunk we were from the cheap rum). I found myself smiling, I had forgotten about all that. “See”, I mumbled, “don’t ever speak too soon. I was a bogan-gangster,” I chuckled.

The train slowed down and then jerked to a sudden stop, we reached Henderson station. Surely enough Bogan-Guy was exiting – ‘I knew it, I bloody knew it’. Looking at my watch I decided to follow him for no more than ten minutes, this is creepy – yes – but it felt like a small public experiment (and I liked the idea of following someone – God knows why).

I slipped on my sunglasses and began stalking Bogan-Guy while keeping a safe 10 metres behind him. Across the clean train station we walked, up the escalator, a left turn towards the city council buildings, down the steps into the city council grounds, and then he turned right into the city council offices. I quickened my pace and swung open the door into the giant office block just in time to see Bogan-Guy say a cheery ‘Gidday’ to the office workers and pick up a folder from the front desk and enter an office at the back.

Now, realising Bogan-Guy worked for the Henderson city council was the most hilarious moment I’d had in weeks – possibly months, or even years. I walked out that building and headed home giddy with the light-bulb moment which had rightfully proven me wrong about all I thought I knew.

Yet I did not feel ashamed of myself, instead I was encapsulated within the feeling of the free-spirited teenager I once was – the girl who tested boundaries, loved equally and fearlessly and dreamed of huge success, a girl who was passionately determined to do whatever the hell I want. God, I missed her, and yet – here she is... she never left, she just got lost in an older body slowly losing itself to cynicism.

I reached my workshop and quickly replaced my jeans and shoes with shorts and sneakers. In 2 minutes flat I was out the front door jogging across to the Henderson Domain – it felt so good to go for a run. While passing a large group of Maori teenagers in blue hoodies I smiled – I saw myself in those kids, they were inspiring, they were a piece of me, and who I really am is wondrous.

Then one yelled out at me, “Miss have you got change for the bus?”

‘What a good idea’ I thought, ‘take the bus next time’. I turned to the boy and yelled, “No I don’t. Have any of you guys?”

“Sorry Miss, we’re all out.”

I waved.

“Thanks anyway”.

You know what? That was nearly two weeks ago, since that day I have been out and about in Henderson enjoying the parks, bushwalks and shopping, and not once have I been asked for change again. I realise now that for some years in my adult life I was lost inside a far more hostile place than West Auckland; I was at the bottom of a barrel filled with brain-washed capitalist clones who lack in free will or any independent thought. Alas, since the ride on the train I have felt like a part of this community, I now embrace its honesty instead of judging its truths.

Who would have thought a train ride in West Auckland was going to take me home – back to my child inside?

Liya Yao (2008)

2008-09-21T11:17:00.002+12:00

[Photograph: Rodney County Council]

The Colour of the Sea

“Will we take the bus?” I asked.

“No, we cannot. We will set off quite early,” Mysun answered.

I got up in the darkness of New Zealand and went out of my flat to wait for Mysun. I found Auckland was in a serene sleep with the stars twinkling in chilly light. The moon seemed a solitary mother standing faraway gazing at the scattered stars—her children who left home and could never come back easily. What would be my distance from my mother, from my motherland? I did not know whether I should calculate by eleven hours by airplane, or by two diplomas plus one degree, or by the distance between the moon and stars, or by the loneliness of an isolated heart. My first sight of Auckland had been from the airplane window on a quite similar early dark morning. Now instead of looking down from the sky, I was standing on the land I had desired, looking up into the sky. This awakened me to the truth of reality—I had landed, I had landed.

Mysun picked me up in the cold morning and we drove fast on the vacant roads. There were mists loosely coiling around the feet of the hills and some around the bush or on the grass. I had not expected it would be so cold. In a short-sleeved silk shirt I could not feel warm. When we got out of the car Mysun handed her coat to me and smiled.

“But what about you?”

“I’m OK. Have you had your breakfast?”

“Not yet.”

“Yesterday evening I made a lot of soup, sweet, salty. After a while, you may have some.”

“You must be exhausted staying up late making so much soup.”

“It is my duty. Do you want to have a look at the sea? It is still early for our morning prayer.”

I put on Mysun’s coat.

As we got closer and closer to the beach, the smell of the sea like the smell of the soup came into my nostrils and then into my head. For a girl who had grown up on dry land, the sea was far beyond exciting. I had an impulse to plunge into its arms, but I was more fascinated by its colour. I stood still wondering what colour it was—blue, green, the copied color of the sky, or the characterized color of itself? The sea was like a magic mirror alternating between breaking and framing. I felt it was hard to figure out her temper, whether she was wild or mild, violent or silent, whether her waves were petting like pats or banging like pangs. But I knew, I knew the sea is sour and salty, I knew I couldn’t taste the sea like Mysun’s soup.

“We have to come back! The prayers are starting now!”

When we came to the pavilion, there were already about 100 Chinese people. I knew not a single one of them.

“I have to prepare to preach. Are you Ok by yourself?”

“Sure.”

“I will introduce Lily to you, so you can talk with her when I am not here.”

Lily was talkative, but I did not like her.

“You know, I cannot stand living in China now,” Lily complained.

“I love China. It is the only place I can regard as my country.”

“You will change!”

“China is changing too!”

“A country can not change as fast as its people. I mean people cannot wait for their country to change.”

I thought, for Lily, her motherland was just like soil: it had once offered nutrients, but when it was no longer fertile it should be immediately replaced; however, for me, my motherland was my roots.

“Are you a Christian?” I changed the topic.

“Not really.”

“So why are you here?”

“Not everyone here is a Christian. I mean, we need our community, and this kind of get-together is really perfect to make Chinese friends. Maybe you will find a boyfriend!”

“I have one in China.”

“But you are here.”

“I heard many Chinese have partners here.”

“That is true. Even those who have spouses in China have partners here.”

“That is unfair!”

“Who knows? Maybe their spouses have partners too!”

“I do not believe it!”

“You will. I mean, you probably do not know what time and distance mean to people.”

I saw something like a cloud washing over her eyes. It was so fast that I didn’t catch it. A bird over our heads squealed and sped up, so within one blink of my eyes, its shape was already vague. Lily’s eyes were again radiant. She smiled but I knew it was more than a smile.

“Hi guys! Welcome to this Morning Prayer! We all got up so early because today is…”

“Easter!”

“Today is special because we are not in the church but in nature, near the sea…”

The sunshine began to grow stronger as Mysun started the ceremony. I looked around and met another gaze. He smiled; I smiled back, and began to think about time and distance. I had been here for only one month, terribly lonely, and did not know how long the loneliness would last. I guessed that what Lily meant by distance encompassed both the geographical and the psychological. But as for time, I did not know what that might come to mean for me.

“Let us first sing the hymns on our handouts!”

I could hardly hear my voice because every time it comes to singing I just move my lips but don't use my voice. I do not mean to cheat God; I just feel embarrassed when continuously straying away from the right melody to praise Him. But why, why was I hearing such a disagreeable, off-key voice?

“Hi.”

I looked aside. It was a familiar face, somewhat attractive, somewhat aggressive. I smiled and then proceeded to sing my silent song. But his voice was intrusive; it kept reminding me that I had a similar voice no matter how I tried to silence it. I glanced over people’s shoulders and saw the sea. It was shining in unspeakable splendor. The glamour of the sea is that it is the sea. It is so indifferent to people: you may take anything you want from it, but remember, remember you can not take the colour from it, even the slightest colour from it. The sea never gives people a single slight chance to touch its colour.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?”

His voice echoed with the throbs of the tides when all hymns were over. I looked at him realizing he was the boy whose gaze I had encountered before.

“You sang very well.”

“You are the first girl who has praised my singing.”

“It is because…”

“Because you cannot sing well either!”

“That is right.”

“Do you know what I feel here?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The sea.”

“I do not understand.”

“The sea has a special colour.”

“What colour?”

“Indifference.”

“That is only your feeling.”

“Many people have the same feeling.”

“How can you tell?”

“Do you have the same feeling?”

Before I could answer, I heard someone mentioning my name.

“Let us introduce some new friends here! Can we start with Liya?”

Mysun smiled to me, but I was not prepared. I could not say anything except my name.

“Now I remember your name,” he smiled.

“I still do not know yours.”

“Do you want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a piece of paper?”

“What for?”

“I want to write you my name on a piece of paper, so next time when we meet each other and you cannot remember my name, you can say you lost that piece of paper.”

I smiled and handed him my notebook.

“What is the meaning of your name?”

“You will know when you get to know me better.”

Mysun led the preaching of Jesus’ Resurrection and when she said, “Today God has brought us Chinese from different parts together in New Zealand”, he turned his head and looked at me. I did not look at him; I looked at the sea.

“OK. Now let us have our Easter breakfast!” Mysun smiled and pointed to her soup and other food.

“Which one would you like?”

“Sweet, please.”

He handed me the soup and took some salty soup for himself.

“How do you like living here?”

“Lonely.”

“You’ll be fine after three months. It is not because you will not feel lonely but you will get used to it.”

“How many years have you been here?”

“Twelve.”

“People tell me that many Chinese here have partners.”

“If they are lucky, yes.”

“Is it because they are too lonely?”

“Because time changes everything, especially in a foreign country.”

“Including love?”

“There’s something stronger than love.”

“Stronger than marriage?”

“Stronger than anything else.”

I took of my shoes, walking to the sea, and put one hand into the water, then into the sand to see whether it could be buried.

“It is very funny. We all came out of China and tried to set up another Chinese community here!”

“Maybe the next generation will be more adaptable.”

“Maybe in the next generation more Chinese will come.”

“Maybe more will return.”

“Maybe we will return together.”

My face flushed a bit on hearing his ambiguous words.

“Do you feel people’s relationships here are strange?”

“Yes, it is difficult to make friends.”

“Because we do not know whether we will meet each other again.”

“Because we are all struggling to survive here. We do not want to pay anything when being repaid nothing.”

He put one hand into the sand, and asked, “How does it feel?”

“Sandy.”

“No, soft.”

“That’s impossible,” I laughed.

“If you put your hand here, you will find it soft because it bears the shape of my hand.”

“It will wash away.”

“No, if you can feel it, then it will never be washed away.”

Before I could put my hand in his place, I heard someone calling my name. I stood up and felt a little dazed. Maybe it was due to the dazzling sea.

“You are here! The sea is beautiful, but we have to go,” Mysun smiled.

I wanted to hear another voice, the voice which could help me make a decision. But I only heard the sea, the indifferent sea. I took off Mysun’s coat. He said nothing but put his hand again into the sea, into the shape of his hand. I saw the sand in the shape of my hand was left to one side.

“What did you pray for?”

“Does Lily have a boyfriend?” I asked suddenly without answering Mysun’s question.

“Now, no.”

“She had one before?”

“I am not sure when they broke it off.”

“She loved him very much?”

“They planned to marry.”

“But they broke it off.”

“Lily was here for three years; he was in China.”

“Only three years?”

“He told Lily he could not stand the time and distance.”

“Did he get another girl?”

“Yes, someone in China. In his words, more real than Lily.”

“Lily must be brokenhearted.”

“That time she was here struggling so much, but the second day she went back to him, to China.”

“But she did not get him back?”

“She did not dare to tell and visit her parents. For three years she had not came back and now she was back because the boy was breaking it off with her.”

“He must have a stone heart.”

“No, he cried together with Lily. They were together for seven years, they spent their most beautiful days together, they lived together as if they were married.”

“What did he say?”

“He must know his position in Lily’s heart for she immediately came back for him. He said he would not hurt her, he would not break off, he would wait for her.”

“But he broke his word.”

“Lily stayed with him for a week, cooking for him, washing his clothes, doing everything for him…But one evening, he answered a call, went out, and did not come back that night.”

“What happened?”

“Lily knew the call must be from the girl. She waited for him for the whole night but he did not come back. She knew all things she had done were in vain, she could do nothing else, she was going to lose him.”

“Why did not she call him back?”

“She knew if he would be back he would, if he would not he would not.”

“He simply disappeared from that night?”

“No, he came back in the early morning, telling Lily the girl had slit her wrists and he was going to the hospital. He cried.”

“It was too bad, simply too bad.”

“I guess Lily must hate China.”

“So she does not want to go back,” I murmured.

“What would you do in that situation if you were Lily?” Mysun asked.

“I do not know, I simply do not know.”

I did not ask any more questions as we drove fast from the sea. What had happened had already happened. There are some times you simply cannot redeem; there are some distances you simply cannot cross; there are some colours you simply cannot touch.

Andrijana Trajanovska (2008)

2008-09-21T11:15:00.002+12:00

[Photograph: C. Y. Leow]

The Walk

“Is there such a thing as an ‘all-day pass’?” – I asked as soon as I entered the bus, not realising that this question might sound a little bit rude.

“Yes, there is such a thing as an ‘all-day pass’” – the bus driver answered with an air of pride that he had come up with a corresponding reply, and seemingly not offended by my lack of politeness.

He looked like one of those knowledgeable grandfather-like figures, and his big glasses and indigo Gatsby hat added wisdom as an attribute to his look. The ‘newsboy’ hat was truly making him look younger, so it was hard to guess his age, which did not stop me from trying to guess.

I remember thinking “Has to be between 57 and 63, or maybe…” when the driver’s voice interrupted the flow of my thoughts. “So, dear, are you going to take this pass or another one?” Oh, what the heck, this was my first day off work in the last ten months - I might as well spend it doing something different from every other day – doing nothing.

Although I have lived only 30 minutes from downtown Auckland in the past three years, I had visited it no more than five times. It was time to get to know the busiest piece of land in the quiet New Zealand.

“Yeah, give me that ticket” – I answered.

A 20 cent coin felt on the bus floor as I tried to squeeze the change into my wallet.

As I knelt down to pick up the coin, I heard the bus driver’s voice again: “If you don’t want it, just leave it there and I’ll take it.” I looked up, knowing I was supposed to smile…but I did not find it funny, so I only managed a very artificial “Ha-ha”.

Starting to feel embarrassed, I wanted to just continue walking so I can hide behind the tall seats at the back of the bus.

But the driver continued to take interest in me. “Do you know where you are going?” - he asked in a sweet, concerned kind of manner. I pretended not to hear him and just walked away. But, I knew that was the big question. And not just for that day.

Two teenage boys holding their skateboards just managed to get into the bus as it was pulling away. The driver asked them never to skate on a bus stop. “It’s dangerous”, he said to them.

They didn’t reply, but instead just ran towards the long back seats, right behind me.

“How much did you pay?” – asked the boy with the green baseball hat under which untidy blondish hair, quite overdue for a haircut could be seen.

“How about you?” – the short dark haired boy replied. The loud radio music in the bus prevented me from hearing why this question was important but what I managed to hear was a lot of “ays” which were somehow the best ending to each of their sentences. I also heard a lot of “likes”, as in “and then I was like, sleepy”. And I heard so many “sos”, as in “it was soo funny”, that it wasn’t funny at all.

“So they like, built it just for buses?” – the blond boy asked his friend, referring to the new separate bus lines going alongside the motorway connecting North Shore and Auckland centre.

“Yeah, if my dad is really like busy, it is quickly for him this way”- the dark-haired boy replies.

“Oh, my God, what are they teaching you in school?” – I rolled my eyes in disbelief at all of the grammatical errors I’d heard in just one sentence.

Luckily, with the new busway system, the bus journey between Albany-North Shore and Auckland Central is only 15 minutes long, so my bus stop – Britomart came very quickly. Just before getting off the bus – at the lower end of Queen Street, I passed by Insurance New Zealand’s billboard.

“They're Always Stealing Your Stuff New Zealand” accompanied by photos of Pavlova, Phar Lap, spreadable butter… Well, “here is some food for thought, New Zealand” - protect your youth.

I nearly bumped into another billboard just as I stepped out onto the street. It read “Trees eat carbon”. I looked around, and barely any trees were in sight. The carbon must have eaten them in the meantime.

I started walking up Queen Street and was faced with an unfamiliar sight – I’m shocked to find how much has changed in the last year since I was last here. It looks almost like war has been announced on carbon – “bikes and helmets for everybody” – said on a sign next some bicycles chained to a bike stands. “Ride a bike for $3 per hour”, the sign below said. All you have to do is register and call for free. All of the bike stands had their bikes in place. Old habits die hard I guess.

But hey, at least people do walk on this street. The earliest memory which I can recall from when I first strolled through an Auckland suburb was that there are all these beautifully built and maintained sidewalks with manicured lawns, yet so few people were using them. But Queen Street is the opposite.

The sidewalks differ in their width and form from one section of the street to the next, while entrances into shops and their signs often force people to manoeuvre around them. And still rivers of people rumble down both sides of the street, around 300.000 of them any given week (if you believe the radio news).

All sorts of people really. Queen Street is an entire world within one street: native Kiwis, Maori, Asians, Pacific peoples, Africans, Americans… And each has a different story - they are Muslims, Christians, Hare Krishna believers, Prada-wearers, carton-box sleepers, alcohol addicts, Starbucks addicts, tourists, businesspeople, road workers, street-cleaners, street-sellers…

I always find the street sellers interesting, with their little tables on Queen Street. One person standing alone with just a few products in front of them among all the giant corporations’ stores with their names in flashing lights – it is hard to miss. I stopped by one of them who had four vertical boards full with necklaces, bracelets and earrings with traditional Maori symbols made of jade and bone….or white plastic for the cheaper ones.

“Did you make all of these”? - I asked the man selling them.

“Some” – I could barely hear him, he didn’t even turn his face toward me, he just continued rearranging his merchandise.

I wanted to know more about these, for me, exotic objects, so I asked “Are they all hand-made?” “Of course, how else would you make them otherwise?” I didn’t want to ask him anything more.

Surprised by how rude the street salesman was, I instinctively moved a step backwards without looking behind me. I nearly tripped over the kneeling woman who was looking at the products on the lower part of the boards very closely. I said “sorry” and tried to tap her on the shoulder and ask her whether she was alright. She reacted to my attempted touch with more surprise than to my nearly sitting on her. She stretched her body as far as it could go, and putting her hand in front of my face, she gave a ‘who-are-you-to-touch-me’ look and she said “It’s all good”. “What is all good!?” – I wondered, looking into her eyes full of fear and antipathy. I got a more humane interaction even in Queen Street’s Gucci store where employees were reciting the same phrases set out in their customer service manuals.

When thinking back, I do not believe I saw a single shop on Queen Street where things were not operated as if every detail was laid out in a manual. People struggling to pronounce ‘Grande’ when ordering their daily caffeine shot are tricked into thinking that they are buying something with a funky European name and aura, hardly realising that they are buying probably the most standardised product after the Big Mac. After manufacturing and service industry have become totally uniformed, it looks like now it is people’s turn to conform to the norms. So, I watch a young Asian man as he grabs his tall Mocha with “his” name - Peter written on it and says “Thank you” with noticeable Asian accent. Somehow, I can not really blame him for using an ‘English name’.

Unfortunately, in this kind of city not even immigrants changing their native names to an ‘English’ name will mean that they will adapt more easily to the city life and Kiwi mannerisms. Walking around the busiest part of a metropolitan city, one is surrounded by people waiting for the bus and sitting on the seat alongside you, eating their lunch in the same restaurant as you and shopping in the same stores with you. And, yet you feel like the loneliest person in the universe.

Remember those 20 cents which I dropped in the bus? Well, I put them in a box in front of a street performer – a ‘frozen’ actor who only moves when someone donates some money to his cause. The sign in front of him said:

Kia ora.
Move for silver,
Speak for gold.

So, I put ‘silver’ in the box in front of him. He gave me the ‘thumbs up’ and smiled at me. I felt warmth come over me and the smile just lit up my face. It was the first time I sincerely smiled that day…and I had to pay for it.

I went around the corner from where the performer was and an American nearly bumped into me. “What a fool! Doesn’t watch where he is going” – I thought to myself while reading the writing on his t-shirt: ‘I love Michigan’. I suddenly realised - I have never wore an “I love Macedonia” t-shirt.

It was at that moment I realised that I had become what I despised the most when I moved to New Zealand – an individualist, distant, cold and robotic person. My way of life now has become the epitome for the lifestyle I wanted to leave in my home country - the apathetic attitude towards life; the bitterness accumulated through one’s negative experiences in life, not enjoying what is there at the present moment and criticising everything in the environment except for oneself…

A street is rarely given its character by the buildings or sidewalks that are its makeup; it is instead defined by the people who live, work or visit it. Some streets have a pleasant outlook and have an inspirational effect on the people who had been there. And on occasion, what seems like a lifeless street can have such an impact as well.

I have decided - I do not want to hide behind tall chairs anymore, I am taking off the insincere smiles from my face and taking the ‘black thinking hat’ off my head.

The door of the bus leaving the city opened. “Oh, it’s you again, the same girl” – my driver said. “Is it?” – the voice inside replied. I smiled, showed him my all-day-pass and sat on the first seat next to the driver’s one.

“So, how long have you been driving buses for…”