samurai photographer in parallel

sullen fish,
originally uploaded by samuraiphotog.

this monkfish (photo taken last year) looks the way i feel today.

i remember the last time i was in heat like this, and it was in hong kong, about two years ago. it was only one day (hong kong in october is not very hot, but there was one day while i was there when it was about 95 degrees and 80 percent humidity.)

as i walked through the winding streets of the midlevels in this heat, i was enticed into a teahouse (i recognized the kanji from japanese class) where i picked out a drink from the menu. it was almost random, but not totally, because i chose one whose name i could partially read (also in kanji i recognized.)

it turned out to be barley tea (mugi-cha in japanese) with some sort of sweetener, possibly honey. it was just the right thing for this heat.

i decided to try to make myself happy today, so after work i went to chinatown and got one. totally worth the sweat and aggravation.

after my coolness infusion, i walked around the dim streets, the haze cut slightly by the neons in the plate glass of restaurant windows. as far as i was concerned, i was the only person walking here. barely aware of other pedestrians, lost in my time-travel fantasy.

i left my sunglasses on as the sun sank in the west, and pretended i was back in causeway bay, or on hollywood road, or one of the neighborhoods flanking the midlevels escalator, searching for cheap dim sum and maybe a small bar populated by japanese people (so i could practice) or some old chinese men (so i could watch them smoke.)

then, like today, my soundtrack was third eye foundation's "an even harder shade of dark" which is curiously apropos for such wanderings as these.

then, like today, i happened upon a place that just seemed like home, where the food was cheap and perfect, and i drank my fill of sake, and i went home on the subway with third eye foundation on repeat, repeat, repeat...