Posts tagged with "night"

moments between cities

The dri­ve home is always eas­i­er. Not because I’m leav­ing, but because it’s when I can catch my breath after some relent­less debauch­ery I excuse as being for a spe­cial occa­sion.

I’m at an age where my body will feel this over the next two days, spent recov­er­ing phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. Luckily, exhaus­tion numbs the sens­es, and makes the time pass quick­er on those long stretch­es where dis­tance is mea­sured in hours.

driving at night sepia

Cousins, British humour, heart­break, shots, glut­tony, rum­ble strips, but nev­er enough time.

The 401 is the kind of high­way that Springsteen used to write about on his heart­land folk albums, the only ones I ever liked. The songs were nev­er about a road itself, but about all the lust and hate and change that hap­pened between two peo­ple when they trav­elled along that road.

In the same way, dri­ving the 401 has always been when I have a chance to find myself. It often leaves me feel­ing like a dif­fer­ent per­son when I get to where I’m going.

Burning Twice As Bright

I seem to be writ­ing about only one thing late­ly.

In the day, there are rush­es of con­tent­ment amidst moments of clar­i­ty. Little things, like dri­ving on the high­way, feel­ing the wind ruf­fle my hair. Waking up to the fresh, cool morn­ing air that sig­nals the oncom­ing autumn. It all feels great, and for a moment, I can think of noth­ing else but how won­der­ful it all is.

The night is anoth­er sto­ry. The sky draws it’s cur­tains, leav­ing me with only haunt­ing mem­o­ries that turn vivid when the sun no longer wash­es them out. The dark­ness is only a reminder of the void she once filled with the very vibran­cy of her soul, and with­out her pres­ence to intox­i­cate me, I’m left feel­ing numb.

Jesus christ, I could go on and on.

I won­der why any­one would read all these ram­blings about love and loss. Isn’t it just the same shit over and over again? But love is the only thing I do well. Love is the only thing I know, and I can only write that which I know.

In time, I’ll have just as much to say in cel­e­bra­tion, but for now, I need to get every­thing else out of my sys­tem, stok­ing the fires of grief until I run out of fuel.

Praise The Night

Oh, and lis­ten to this.

Sometimes you wish your friends lived far away so you could dri­ve home for­ev­er, and sing off-key into the dark­ness.

But at some point you have to come home and undress, you have to stop the pres­sure of the water run­ning down your back and step out of the show­er, you have to go to bed for the sake of your colon, you have to put aside your thoughts for anoth­er day.

There was some­thing about his expres­sion that made you believe that you’re bet­ter now. You’re safer. Maybe the real­iza­tion that your mis­takes are your own to make. That you’re stronger now than you ever were, and that peo­ple care about you, enough to tell you the truth when it’s the last thing you want to hear.

Praise the night, for this would­n’t be pos­si­ble any oth­er time.

Restless Night

Starbucks Coffee

On nights like this, when I’ve been in the house by myself all day, I have a crav­ing for some­thing. Not just for a taste, but an expe­ri­ence, among the lights and the shad­ows.

A while ago, I found the right place with the right ambiance. A place with­out the dis­trac­tions of my house. Where I can write with­out think­ing of what oth­er work I should be doing.

I always tell myself that I’ll go tomor­row. It’s always tomor­row (the same day that most diets start). So I force myself to get in the car and dri­ve.

When I walk in, I have to remem­ber the nomen­cla­ture. Tall means small, grande means medi­um, ven­ti means large.

Along with this crav­ing comes a thirst for some­thing sweet and warm to drink, hark­ing to the days I lived unem­ployed, and my favourite thing to do was drink all sorts of strong cof­fees and teas. My stom­ach will pay for this lat­er.

The cups always feel nice in the hand. Maybe I’m a suck­er for good design — the pure white, the clean lines, the tex­tured insu­lat­ing sleeve with promi­nent cor­po­rate logo.

Sometimes, I need to go out to be alone. A warm drink is com­pa­ny enough.

Hong Kong: Nights

Tung Choi Street (or Ladies’ Market), as seen in my Hong Kong: Markets video as the area cov­ered with blue tarp, is for the ladies, and opened all day.

Temple Street, on the oth­er hand, only starts to come alive at night, and is also known as Men’s Street. There are no stalls out dur­ing the day. This is the street that one of my favourite Stephen Chow movies, God of Cookery, is based on, so it was awe­some to be able to see it in per­son.

Instead of hand­bags, clothes, and posters sold in Ladies’ Market, they sell cheap men-ori­ent­ed trin­kets like bat­ter­ies, lighters, base­ball caps, elec­tron­ics, cam­era gear, and sex toys. There’s also a sec­tion with rows of stalls for for­tune telling (at 2:12), offered in both Chinese and English lan­guages, and European (tarot) and Asian (face, palm read­ing) flavours.

Temple street is also known for it’s road­side din­ing, where you can order pots stuffed with meat or deep fried del­i­ca­cies. I was warned not to eat any­thing on tem­ple street though, as the stan­dards are too low now1. One might get away with an upset stom­ach at best, and end up with a trip to the hos­pi­tal at worst.

Since Temple Street is noto­ri­ous­ly shady, where there’s more open pros­ti­tu­tion, drug deal­ings, and oth­er unsavoury activ­i­ties, I lim­it­ed my film­ing on the off-chance that I may have cap­tured some­thing I should­n’t2. Can you spot the two hook­ers?

  1. Even my dad won’t eat there any­more, which is say­ing some­thing. [↩]
  2. During the walk through the stalls, I was yelled at once by a ven­dor to put my cam­era away. [↩]