selections from old travel journals

two edited down entries i wrote on the osaka-shanghai ferry during the fall of 2004. this is the very beginning of the mongolia trip. after shanghai, i would go on to beijing, and, from there, catch the train to ulan bator.

8.14.2004
(on the osaka->shanghai ferry)

the 2nd day from osaka to shanghai is always the toughest; the ferry heads out of the japanese coast into open seas. even with perfect weather, as we are having today, there are inevitably people barfing all over the place. i woke up to the sound of a cantonese woman dispensing her stomach acids into one of the plastic bags the crew has been nice enough to place everywhere.

...

so far i've spend most of time catching up on sleep, meditating, and soaking in the bath. i'll go out again tonight and soak in the desk as i did last night.

something gut-wrenchingly beautiful about dusk; it literally takes the heartstrings and uses them to garrote wire the innards into knots of vague allusions to ephemeral flowers.

...

i've been thinking about what i should do. i am reaching that point when reality and the present is catching up to that imaginary line that demarcates planned time and an amorphous future too wide to fit inside my narrow cranium. everyone has this problem, will have this problem for the rest of their lives. i am not fretting, since i know that it simply wouldn't do every time this line comes near; however, i am not overjoyed either.

8.15.2004
(arriving in shanghai)

woke up this morning to the sound of young stewardesses polishing the windows that look out, presently, at the yellow bay where the river disgorges its silty contents into the sea. everywhere you look it's steel, cranes, boats, huge containers. there is the same sort of glum industrial cloud that hangs over shanghai as there was in the spring. its hot as fuck outside this time though.

...

my skin is all dry from the two long baths i took yesterday