fresh n juicy chunks of oyster :: RTW travel blog

It's raining outside but maybe tomorrow it will get better.
The beauty of the London summer is that you never know when it is going to end. In its impermanance and unpredictability it is much like travelling - in fact it is much like life.
Maybe that's why I've been having difficulties drawing a line between the two.

Life in the past few weeks has been as incomprehensible to me as ever. There was no culture shock, no hard cut-off point, no gentle let-down even. Strangely enough it feels not much different to when I was on other continents a short while ago.

London may indeed be the least different place I've been to this year: it seems like the whole world has left its mark here and even though this is the English people's natural, if not optimal, habitat it is decidedly less English than say Khao Sarn Road.

On the tube the other day I saw an office lady in exile reading a manga while hanging from the ceiling-grip. In London, every stranger's face I see reminds me why I've longed to be here so long. Maybe it is the icy gaze that Londoners carry like a shield when travelling the Underground - an icy gaze that often melts enough on a sunny day to let you glimpse inside of them for just a minute.

This town feels like it is brimming with possibilities, gritty darkness, pollution and oh-so-many lives, living, drifting and waiting to collide every day and night.

And through the age-old but extensive public transport system everyone becomes a traveller: the late-middle-aged German tourists talk loudly and congenially of irrelevant things; the bird and bloke lie passed out on the last Jubilee-line tube in booze-stained school uniforms, his hairy white legs sticking out of his schoolboy shorts; the suits commute to and fro mostly with apathetic frowns on their faces maybe thinking of how it will all end; hordes of multi-ethnic students mill about, some possibly with higher purpose and enthusiasm on their minds and the crazy prophet in his dirty trenchcoat hurls sermons down the carriage like ball lightning while asking for small change.

No one is a stranger for long in London; everyone becomes a part of the landscape here.

As have I again; London is good at forgiving absences.


[I have no idea why it has taken me so long to post the final entry - maybe I was afraid that once I do post it this trip will be truly over and the reality of it all will hit.
Maybe it will hit tomorrow when I start a full-time job though...
In case this will be the last post I also want to thank everyone who has kept in touch with me throughout this year and everyone who has checked in on this blog every so often. It's been a pleasure to write (mostly) and has kept me entertained during many a lonely hour - I hope it has done the same for some of you. I also hope that some of the pictures may have brought back memories of places or encouraged some of you to hit the road.
Safe travels.]