Keelung, Taiwan
Louis is drinking milk tea from an orange box. The straw is thin and transparent, and I am familiar with the shape and utility. The rounded side for the top, the pointed side to stab, mercilessly, to puncture the air seal. Louis is drinking this milk tea as an extension of my recommendation yesterday. Louis, Yoyo, Mila and I were scrunching over damp pavement and concrete on the way back from the completion of a fish market tour. This is Keelung, where everything is under an umbrella. Where there are duplicate bridges and hidden covered store and stalls of goods – so many fish!
Yoyo, Mila and I are hard-charging beer from tallboys we bought at 7-11. The fish market tour ended at 2:30. It’s 3:30. Louis reminds us he has to get up early to welcome the new Airbnb guest, and also that he doesn’t like bubbles. We found out about the bubbles earlier when Yoyo and I gifted him with a can of Breer – green tea just like beer, as advertised – and it wasn’t something he would intentionally drink again. So I suggested the classic orange box of milk tea. The section where this is sold is always near the beer.
I heard about the milk tea from the orange box from Jamie, a half-dozen lifetimes ago. She was the physical therapist I went to in the quest to figure out what was wrong with my hip – I met her at the horseriding trip where there wasn’t much horseriding – too many people and not enough horses or time. This hip issue has become a bugbear, with my new Tai Chi masters looking at me with narrowed eyes saying no no no, sink and twist! I am doing modified pistol squats, and my knees and thigh muscles are giving out and giving up, surrendering, but my attitude is shiny, like virgin coins at a night market in a rainy universe full of fried squid and cold chicken feet – the nails are still on the ends if you look. Louis, Yoyo and I have found the world’s best sandwiches at this market that we’re at. They are inexplicable, like ambrosia that would feed the angels.
Louis had gone to the third floor to sleep and dream about abandoned forts while Yoyo and I were up until 5am talking philosophy. It was wonderful. We checked sunrise. 5:05am. Soon. The frosted windows were getting lighter, even. We passed each other in the living room after putting the beer cans to rest, in the kitchen past the bathroom door – inside of which sits the drying machine which does not dry. We’ve clocked it at 3.5 hours on high to get a load of clothes from damp to dry-ish.
High five between me and Yoyo, ships passing in the early morning. This was her last night. Her new adventure starts tomorrow. A bus, a train, an airplane, new sights sounds and smells. But for now we are enjoying her easy smile. We are travelers, we are traveling.
At the night market, the fish were staring. A gentleman was telling us about auctions. About supple fish flesh, and the texture of water vs. the characteristic of being sticky. This is very dense material. Mila went to grab a small red fish and bring it back to him, and the man demonstrated – this is how you find value. There are secret handshakes underneath pieces of fabric, the fingers underneath counting numbers and agreeing on terms. This is how you find value!
Back into the crashing waves of every color of seafood in the universe, on ice, packed by professionals with dark circles under their eyes, but the bright lights make the shadows even more distinct.
On to the bar – the next leg of the tour! For a drink and a sit-down session, and a bartender with a slick emo haircut dropping energy juice and local branded alcohol into thin-chopped ice while the owner tells a history lesson. The group, classmates from a school, are listening and laughing. I’m meditating, listening to the rhythm of staccato Chinese syllables that don’t register meaning, but instead simply convey emotional routines.
Asleep at 5:07am, I wake up at 7. Then 9. This is typical. I get a glass of water and open the refrigerator door. I remember that I bought a different kind of milk tea to try. It was on sale. Two for one. I already drank one, but it wasn’t the same as the original orange box version. This nostalgia was missing. Even though this one, too, was in an orange box. Too sweet for me.
I’ll have Louis try it tomorrow.
