Just in case you ever foolishly forget; I’m never not thinking of you.

Virginia Woolf, “Selected Diaries”

In this chapter, I…

• Experience my first earthquake in Taiwan
• Visit the Golden Waterfall and Jiufen
• Discover the meaning of love
• Rush to the emergency room on my last day in Taiwan
• Recreate my first night of partying in Taiwan on my last night
• Wrap up dating in Taipei on a high note
• Mark the end of my trip
• Fly to Israel

List of volunteers at the hostel:

• (19yo, Canada) a reserved girl with blonde hair and blue eyes who likes to make bracelets.
• (20yo, the Netherlands) a guy with blond hair and blue eyes who majored in Ancient Greek and Roman history.
• (23yo, South Korea) a pretty girl with doll-like features who studies Chinese in Taipei.
• (27yo, Brazil) a funky guy with an afro, glasses, and tattoos, who likes to read manga.
• (29yo, South Korea) Jeong-Ho, a remote translator with wavy hair, round spectacles, and tanned skin, who drinks coffee and works out religiously.
• Brother Neal, 75, a dubious Taiwanese volunteer who we call Big Brother Neal. Looks and acts like the Taiwanese version of Argus Filch.

3 April 2024

• 11:00-12:30 shift
• 14:25-15:40 Ximen station to elementary school bus number 965
• Golden waterfall (10m)
• Remains of the 13 levels (10m)
• 17:10-17:25 golden waterfall to Jiufen old street bus number 856
• Jiufen old street (1.5h)
• 19:05-20:00 Jiufen police station to Songshan station bus number 1062, 20:05-20:20 Songshan station to Ximen station MRT (Songshan-Xindian line)

A Disasterous Earthquake

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake hit Taiwan at 8:00, the worst in 25 years. Several casualties, dozens of injuries. The MRT was suspended in the morning.

It originated in Hualien, thus roads in Taroko gorge collapsed. My original plan was to hike there today in the early morning, since I’d received a permit for Zhuliu old trail for both April 3 and March 27. Per Jeong-Ho’s suggestion, we’d gone together in March instead.

The national park called to ask if I was still alive. My name appeared on the list of hikers on the cliff in the early morning.

If it wasn’t for Jeong-Ho, I would not be writing this.

Meanwhile, a new volunteer had checked into the hostel two minutes before the disaster. A 20-year-old guy from the Netherlands with blond hair, blue eyes, and dark nail polish. Great way to land in Taiwan.

The number and origin of messages I received asking for my well-being astounded me. It took thick and thin to show who cared about you. Even friends I wasn’t talking to on a regular basis anymore. Erastes included.

The Golden Waterfall

After my shift, I took a long-distance bus to Jiufen. There was a chance of a 7.0 aftershock happening in the next two days. The bus kept reversing on the narrow, winding mountain road, to let other buses pass through.

I walked twenty minutes down the road toward a waterfall. Nets were keeping rocks from falling.

Then I reached the Golden Waterfall, which seemed more brown in today’s overcast weather, but nonetheless pretty. Green stripes were flowing down alongside water.

From there, I continued to an observation pavilion to the Remains of the 13 Levels, an abandoned mining plant overlooking the ocean. It seemed interesting, but not worth coming all this way, which was hard without a car. Plus, it was no longer accessible, nor would I venture into it in case of an aftershock.

Jiufen Old Street

So I took the bus to Jiufen, an old, hilly street famous for its atmospheric red lanterns and street food. An incorrect myth told that it inspired Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. (Matsuyama’s Dogo Onsen had served the actual inspiration.)

I snacked on a peanut ice cream rolled in thin dough with coriander. The dough was thin, the peanut flakes added crunchiness, the ice cream barely hinted at vanilla, and the coriander added freshness, like a bitter mint.

The famous herbal rice cake and taro cake didn’t thrill me, nor did the local specialty, cold taro and sweet potato balls soup. I preferred the sweet red and mung beans inside the soup to those.

The narrow alleys with lanterns were romantic, especially at dusk, yet too crowded and touristy. Evidently, the earthquake had deterred no one. The stone stairs down to Amei teahouse were nearly a standstill, with a long line to snap photos of the famous exterior. As exasperated as I was by this choice of a final attraction on this trip, I ought to admit that the façade glittered beautifully.

A Magnetic Date

At night, I took the MRT to Nanshijao station. I nearly fell asleep after returning from Jiufen, but a local guy from there had been repeating how much he was looking forward to see me. I could never refuse someone who sought my company. So I met him and apologized in case I got sleepy.

His charm woke me at once. He had short hair, a rectangular face, a hint of a beard; large, black eyes, and tanned skin. He reminded me of Brad from February. Both were 36 years old and oozed swag. His perfume was the best I’d ever smelled. I thought he was magnetically handsome, yet he kept voicing this compliment at me.

Last night, I’d gone out on a date where the vibe was so off, that I couldn’t feign the passion the date had been expressing for me. This had happened once or twice since mid-February. I’d feared there was something physically wrong with me.

Now, transfixed in Nanshijao, I realized it was simply a lack of chemistry. Why did I share such mutual attraction with someone seven years my senior, while throughout the past week, with someone seven years younger than me?

I couldn’t understand it. Tonight went so well, that I lost the urge, even the ability, to speak.

To leave a writer speechless – that was a stroke of magic.

Today’s highlights: the Golden Waterfall; peanut ice cream roll; Amei teahouse; the date at night.

4 April 2024

• 11:00-12:30 shift

Shift at the Hostel

Today I taught the new Dutch volunteer at the hostel how to clean. I felt like I was passing the torch after a month and a half here.

Lunch curtesy of the manager included leftovers of my hot pot dinner with the Taiwanese couple, which she’d cooked. She’d also brought sun-dried fish paste, a Keelung specialty. It was the first time I savoured fish paste. The drying process had granted it a soft yet roasted flavour, almost as if grilled.

The manager and I had bonded so much, that a few days ago, she’d taught me how to say “I love you” in Chinese. (And in Taiwanese sign language.) She also asked me to write about my trip in Taiwan and send her photos to share on social media.

Dessert was lemon cake, another Taichung specialty courtesy of Luciano. So delicious – as if I needed one more reason to miss Taiwanese cuisine.

An Awkward Date

At 16:00, I met a 36-year-old local originally from Tainan with whom I’d been texting since my first few days in Taiwan, in late January. I hated leaving without saying hi to him and disappointing someone who had shown a sustained interest in me. He wore a baseball cap, round frames, and stood slightly taller than me.

He treated me to fried popcorn chicken in Ximen, just like the Taiwanese couple’s deli in Nanshijao. The chicken, fried squid, green beans, egg tofu, sweet-not-spicy tempura were all heavenly. This also included my first French fries in Taiwan, which were not as salty as in the West.

I found it a bit challenging to keep the conversation afloat. He was nice and polite, working at the law department in the government. Yet he didn’t seem to share any hobbies with me.

At 18:00, we had drinks at the Red House. My choice of a hot sangria surprised him.

“Hot alcohol?” he asked, having never visited the West.

“I feel like I’m back in Spain,” I said while quaffing my warm, fruity, velvety drink. As always with wine, though, it made me sleepy. Not a good mix with sleep deprivation.

At 20:00, I returned to my hostel. There was a good chance we would meet in Tokyo, which he visited almost every year.

The Meaning of Love

I wrote well into the night, trying to make sense of all my dating in Taipei. If only I had more time here, I sighed internally, as I failed to postpone my flight.

When I lay in bed at dark and stared at my laptop, which was issuing the only source of light, and mulled over everyone I missed, I realized the difference between love and being in love.

Time.

People I had fallen in love with at first sight. It had been months since our full conversation or last encounter. But I kept thinking about them daily, longing for them, waiting for a reunion even in the unforeseeable future – despite the anguish they had brought me. Despite meeting new people who had swept me off my feet. My attachment toward them had grown roots not even time or distance could weather.

They had aggravated me. They had disappointed me. They had lied or played games. We had drifted apart. But my care toward them had not waned.

What did they have in common? I wondered, searching for an equation of love. The variables didn’t include height or face.

Something in our first meeting had given way to confessions and intimacy. I’d felt comfortable enough to trust and open up. Instances like this had led to the most intense bonds of my life.

I tried to recall all my first dates in the past year that had unfolded like this. How many times had I described someone as ‘easy to talk to’? How many times had I spoken softly and candidly for hours with someone I’d just met? It darted through like an arrow to the chest that I hadn’t just fallen in love for the first time in my life on this trip – I had also learned how to love romantically.

I sat up in the capsule of my dormitory. My brain was racing. If I encountered someone with whom I felt at ease from the first moment, could divulge everything, and waited impatiently for our next meeting –

If the only thing on my mind was spending more and more moments together, I was in love.

If I still felt this way after months of anguish, disregard, miscommunication, and quiet, I loved.

Not just romantically. I had also made friends on this trip who fit into this. The only difference was lack of physical attraction.

It was 3 AM, and I was wide awake.

If, upon our initial acquaintance, the conversation didn’t seem to end – if I wanted to talk through the day and into the night, reveal more of myself, and delve into personal matters – if I felt calm and composed, understood, appreciated – if they treated me with patience and respect, as though they had all the time in the world to be with me – if we stared into each other’s eyes as though we’d been doing this for an eternity – if we shared silence like a speech – if words could never be enough to express everything on my lips –

If words were unnecessary…

I closed my eyes, stinging from the laptop’s light, and smiled. This interaction had recurred a dozen times in one year. Two dozen, if I counted both dates and friends. Sometimes on a daily basis.

One year ago today, I’d reached Kyoto for the first time, chased peak cherry blossoms, and vowed to never let anyone hurt me again.

I grew mad at people for being annoying pieces of shit, careless and apathetic, and didn’t wish to talk to anyone – just see pink petals falling and reaching the end of their life, like my trip would sooner or later do, and some day, my existence, too.

I thought about every single person I’d ever met. No one cared, at the end of the day. They acted like they did, but they didn’t. People cared about themselves. We hadn’t reached a state of inter-subjectivity as a species yet.

This wasn’t a new insight, but a disappointment that had left a bitter taste in my mouth ever since childhood; a behaviour I had encountered too often. It simply baffled me every time it happened.

Maybe I’d always been gullible enough to forget it. Maybe I’d been too optimistic to ignore it. People could place sculptures on the edge of cliffs high up in the mountains, but they could also be monsters.

I promised myself to never forget it again. To never invest in someone who wouldn’t invest in me. To never care about those who would never care about me as much I did about them.

I no longer wished to speak to anyone I’d ever known. Nor inhabit a space I’d found familiar […] I didn’t mind losing every person who used to be in my life. It was just matter of time before I lost them anyway.

Then I recalled the wooden floor from Himeji Castle, and changed my mind. I didn’t need a dream house. In fact, I didn’t need a house at all. I didn’t need a fixed dwelling; moving from one place to another, from one continent to another, and writing as I went along, would make me happier than a structure ever could.

It would be hard, but I could live without fixed friendships, too.

I could definitely live without money. I only needed a place to sleep and food to eat. And a socket to charge my electronics, and transportation. I could give up on shops.

But a career in art – that was the one thing I would never be able to give up on. Not in the evenings, following a crappy day job. As a profession. As a vocation. As the fruits of my labour, and the culmination of my existence.

Life was a story, and I wanted to write it for myself.

I wondered if this trip was changing me, or simply awakening dormant parts of myself. I settled on the latter, when it hit me: revival was also a kind of change.

“All Things Go” (4 April 2023)

It staggered me to behold how much I’d changed.

A year of traveling in a part of the world where I felt more at home than in my actual home had proven to me: I could fall in love; I could love; and I could start a new family. One comprised of friends and a partner who, even when thousands of kilometres apart, would be there for me.

Today’s highlight: sun-dried fish paste; lemon cake; fried popcorn chicken; sangria; unravelling the mystery of love.

5 April 2024

• 11:00-12:30 shift

The Garden of Earthly Delights

Over the past few nights, I’d been waking from strange dreams and thinking very clearly: Someday, I will be dead.

So I felt too fidgety after my shift to do anything. Nervous from the end of my trip; incredulous from last night’s epiphany; and excited by my impromptu decision to change my plans for tomorrow.

My original plan was to do nothing and be alone on the last day of my trip. But then Chill, who I’d gone out with on my first night in Taiwan to a techno club in Ximen, suggested going out there tomorrow for my last night. Teddy from Tainan prefecture announced he would come to Taipei tomorrow to see me. Luciano offered several times to accompany me to the airport. Jake from Taichung texted that he was back in town.

Suddenly, I had too much going on.

I spent hours in the lobby on edge. I couldn’t leave the East with things unsaid. Better to fail than live with regret. I hadn’t heard from Erastes since the earthquake, despite my attempts to reconnect with him. I cursed myself for being too late and indirect. At the risk of sounding pathetic, I needed to communicate my feelings. So I told Hope and Heron how much I missed them.

Some people insisted on seeing me before my departure. Others ignored me. I felt both chased and rejected. Burned by fire that I was igniting. Tantalus’s playground had expanded into Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights.

All my life, I’d worried that I was incapable of love. I was certain beyond doubt that I would never get to experience it. That there was something wrong with me. This was how I’d felt in Israel.

Now, there was so much love and yearning in my heart, that my chest hurt. I’d even developed platonic crushes on people I ached to be friends with. I couldn’t calm down or write. I couldn’t focus.

The 3 A.M. Rendezvous

At night, Heron replied. Our first conversation since I’d left Taipei in late February. The narrative I’d formed in my head about his disappearance turned out to be false. There was a huge misunderstanding between us. I’d assumed he hadn’t wished to speak to me again. He turned out to miss me as much as I’d been missing him.

Then, history repeated itself.

Defeated, I returned to my hostel at 23:30 and sat outside on the pavement.

Now what?

Not just tonight. Now what would I do with my life. I still hadn’t figured out my Hokkaido itinerary; fitting everything on my list into one month was an impossible task. If I couldn’t properly see the island in this timeframe, when would I be able to? When would I return here?

I barely had any money. It was now or never.

This was supposed to be a night of partying. A weekend of celebrations. Instead, I grew anxious and afraid on a deserted pavement at night.

I texted Cowboy. He was working the graveyard shift. I fought against my exhaustion and stayed up until 3:00, after which I went to say hi at his hotel. I didn’t want tonight to end with me alone on a pavement.

“Hokkaido Homesick” (16 September 2023)

At 3:00, so tired that I was looking like a zombie, I went to meet Heron in Ximen. I could sleep, or use my last chance to see him.

It was drizzling. His presence warmed my body and woke me. To reunite with someone no longer in your life who you thought about routinely – to discover requited feelings after convincing yourself you were hated by him – what could be more gratifying?

At 5:00, I fell asleep.

Today’s highlights: being loved, being rejected, feeling restless, feeling love; the 3 AM rendezvous.

6 April 2024

Emergency Room on the Final Morning

I woke at 9:30 to meet Teddy. He texted that something had happened, and that he couldn’t make it.

I was as confused as I was relieved by the opportunity to catch up on sleep. Had he changed his mind about coming all this way to meet me?

Then, I ran to the emergency room. Not exactly how I’d intended to spend the last day of my trip.

The doctors assured me I had no cause for concern.

Distraught by this scare and emboldened by last night’s auspicious reunion, I texted Erastes.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Sorry, this holiday I stay mostly with my family and my boyfriend.”

“Oh,” I said, “of course.”

Perfect timing.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude,” I added, afraid to cross a line. “Last time was great, so I just wanted to say hi. Happy holidays.”

“I understand,” he said. “It’s super sweet of you! Thank you.”

That was it.

I didn’t want to leave the East with dead ends. I wanted an open door, the option to stay in touch with the people who had made my trip. I returned to the hostel, and invited Jeong-Ho to lunch.

Letdown at Lunch

After spending my first week back in Taipei together 24/7, growing very close very fast, and hiking Taroko gorge together, something had shifted. If I hadn’t spoken to him, he wouldn’t speak to me. If I’d asked him something, he’d answer tersely and dryly. He had stopped smiling in my presence. We’d gone from endless, intimate conversations, to none.

Now, we looked around Ximen for street food. I didn’t want anything. The area was even busier than usual, with a parade for some kind of a festival. Costumes, dragons, drumming, children handing out free snacks.

Jeong-Ho suggested I ate the dish I would miss the most. Yet eel noodles were a Tainan specialty, while fried water chestnuts were a Fengyuan specialty.

He stuck to his usual 7-11 meal. I picked a truffle and scrambled egg sandwich, like on my first day in Taiwan. I’d reached a point where I didn’t care about food or landmarks; only about my friends. I preferred spending more time with someone special to throwing money on a special dish.

Life came down to the people you loved. Everything else was background noise.

After lunch, I tried to nap. It didn’t work. So I packed my luggage, and hugged the staff at the hostel farewell.

A Baffling Last Night of Partying

Right before midnight, I went to the techno club in Ximen. There was already a line. Tonight’s kinky event had drawn a lot of people wearing leather and revealing fetish outfits. I wished I could join their ranks.

The staff at reception covered my phone cameras with stickers. I took the elevator to the roof as I recalled one of my most memorable bouts of partying.

Being on the ninth and highest floor, the club was singular in featuring both an indoor dance floor and an outdoor rooftop lounge. Shivering uncontrollably on one of the coldest nights of the year, we sprawled on a couple of couches and talked about life.

The Danish girl was leaving Taiwan in three days. She was so sad, that she planned to settle here in the future. Just like me and Japan.

The guys were showing each other dirty videos of themselves while reclining together in an affectionate way.

“They’re very, very good friends,” the girl remarked.

I believed her. The situation seemed nothing more than platonic. In looser Taipei, even friends could act like them.

As witching hour cast its spells, the couches filled up. I sat on Chill while his friend lay his head on me. Cuddling platonically, we discussed drugs again. Half of the crowd was comprised of users and dealers.

“I’m learning so much today,” I said.

The plants and walls on the rooftop lounge were lit neon green, while the sky above us was purple and foggy.

I couldn’t believe how drastically the last few days had changed my circumstances. From straw tatami and obaachans to neon pollution and substance abuse. I recounted my last week to the girl while the guy was showing us nude photos of him. What was this sex-positive land of amity? I found this friend group both enviable and refreshing.

“If a girl is very tight down there,” she said soon after, “it can rip a cord on the guy’s foreskin. He will need a circumcision surgery.”

I burst out laughing. A few days ago, I was volunteering at a temple on an obscure mountain most Japanese people hadn’t heard of, cleaning, stargazing, and napping in the afternoon, for lack of a better activity. Running jokes with Japanese grandmas while cooking in the kitchen. Now, I was at a rooftop techno club in a metropolis, engulfed by neon plants, cigarette smoke, and a lavender haze, talking about a torn foreskin due to tight penetration.

I laughed so much, that I was in hysterics. Life!

Everything about this scene felt so funny and intimate, but at the same time, not a big deal.

“Nihao” (26 January 2024)

My first night of clubbing in Taiwan. I simply had to return here for my last.

Yet midnight was too early for Taipei. Chill was running late. I grew bored.

Then someone approached me.

“Oh my god,” I exclaimed in instant recognition. Chill’s “very, very good” friend.  

I remembered everything about him. He didn’t remember my name and nationality. But he introduced me to his Norwegian friend, clad in a theme-appropriate harness, who I immediately chatted with for an hour that was gone in a blink.

A guy wearing a puppy mask and a latex outfit was being walked on all fours on a leash. I approached an 18-year-old Ukrainian model traveling the world by herself while working. She’d lived in Tokyo for ten months at the same time as me, and gotten free entry to the VIP, models-only clubs in Roppongi.

We talked for half an hour. She seemed calm and confident in her mini skirt, while I was shivering from the cold breeze. I admired her maturity. Then I spotted a familiar face not far from me.

Erastes.

What? Here?

Why was a mellow dentist at a kinky techno club?

He wore grungy designer clothes, monochromatic with heaps of silver jewelry, like a fashion model from Berlin.

My knees grew weak. I tried to focus on the model’s words. But I couldn’t believe it.

I didn’t want to become annoying or clingy, like I had with Jeong-Ho. I’d gone through enough friendship breakups to know that people often got tired of me.

The model left to dance. I sifted through the crowd, searching for the Norwegian guy. Then someone greeted me before I could notice him.

Erastes smiled and hugged me. He spoke softly. I recalled his interesting, Eastern-European like accent. I couldn’t pinpoint it. Never had I heard someone Taiwanese talk like him.

He introduced me to his Paraguayan boyfriend, who looked Middle-Eastern to me. I’d never met someone of his nationality. He had Moroccan and Jewish roots, and said a few sentences in Hebrew to me.

What.

He could read the Hebrew I was typing on my phone. Not fluently, but still.

I quivered on my spot, cold and confused. What was happening?

“My social anxiety was a thing of the past,” I’d written on March 8, after meeting the half-German, half-Palestinian foreign exchange student from Taipei and his group of friends. One of his grandfathers was murdered in Gaza; the other was a nazi. Yet we’d instantly become friends.

“As we finished our civil meal, it occurred to me how much I felt at ease. I’d just met these five guys, and went into delicate subjects with them. Before this trip, I would’ve been too nervous and fidgety to do this.”

For the first time in recent memory, I found myself fidgety. The scene at present was the last thing I’d expected from my final night here.

A drunk, French man approached us and hijacked the conversation. Erastes left with his boyfriend. I stood in a corner and tried to process this. Then someone hugged me.

It was 2:00, and Chill was finally here. We embraced so tightly, that I lifted him off his feet. I’d forgotten how much I’d missed him.

He’d come with a guy he’d been dating. Thus, we acted platonically. I had no problem with this.

I met more friends of Chill’s, such as a sassy Taiwanese girl wearing an incredible leather and handcuffs outfit. To my bewilderment, they all knew who Erastes was: the co-founder of this club.

I hadn’t deemed it possible for tonight to astonish me more than my first time.

He was a dentist who soothed his patients with his speech. The co-owner of a kinky nightclub who partied shirtless. A host who greeted guests graciously. He wore stylish clothes, had thousands of followers on social media, and sounded Eastern European, despite being Taiwanese.

It wasn’t often when someone puzzled me.

At 3:30, it started drizzling. The throng in the lounge petered out. I stood alone on the edge of the roof and let the rain hit me.

Gray buildings filled my view. I recalled the Japanese guy from the second week of my trip, in February 2023. After he’d done all in his power to signal his interest in me – asking to spend more time together, buying me his favourite treats, teaching me how to act Japanese, trying to make concrete plans to meet in Tokyo – I’d feared rejection too much to ask for his contact details. Remorse had pushed me to search for him for half a year.

My efforts had ended in vain. Losing him had become my only regret. I would spend the rest of my life wondering who he was, and what could’ve been.

Now, dazed and shaking, I felt similarly. Sometimes my overthinking truly ruined things.

At 4:00, I entered the dance floor to bid my companions adieu. I stepped outside to the lounge, when Erastes stepped in. He embraced me before I could acknowledge him.

“I’m very happy to see you again,” he grinned.

“Yeah, me too,” I said. “Sorry, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

He went inside to grab an umbrella.

I stood by the entrance and recalled the moment the Japanese guy and I had said goodbye. We would never meet again, I had lamented, as he’d tapped my hand in affection. An intimate gesture unheard of in Japan.

I refused to make the same mistake twice.

“I feel like it’s a crazy coincidence to see you here,” I said, following Erastes inside the club. “And I already know I’ll be back to Taipei someday…”

We stood in the cramped passageway. Neon lights were illuminating the darkness. Loud, electronic beats were blaring in my ears. I felt tranquil.

“And?” he asked.

I asked for his contact details.

“Oh, we didn’t exchange!” he exclaimed in concern, and prompted to do so.

His palm held onto my torst as I squeezed through the mass of bodies to go outside. In the dim light, his face was beaming.

My inability to read some people never ceased to frustrate me. I’d never been able to predict my friendships that had lasted, versus those that had expired.

I said goodbye. Erastes bent over to meet my stature. He was shirtless, and I didn’t want to overstep my bounds. Yet my side hug felt awkward when he responded with a full one.

“Have a good night,” he said.

“晚安,” I said. “Oh, and 再見.”

“That’s right,” he laughed. “See you again.”

I strode toward the elevator and glanced back. His grin stayed on while I cracked a smile. I went to bed at 5:00, feeling at peace by this trip’s last night.

Today’s highlights: every single thing that happened at the club.

7 April 2024

• 9:25-10:20 Ximen to airport bus number 1961A
• Lunch @ Taoyuan airport
• 14:15-17:45 Taoyuan airport (Taiwan) to Suvarnabhumi airport (Thailand) flight

Farewell at the Airport

I woke at 8:00 and left the hostel at 9:00. Jeong-Ho didn’t leave his bed to say goodbye, even when I asked for a hug. I knew I would never hear from him again.

Luciano was waiting for me outside my hostel. I couldn’t believe he’d actually come east all the way from west New Taipei City to take the bus with me westward to the airport. We held hands the entire time.

He gifted me Taiwanese style Mugwort mochi and black sticky rice mochi, deliciously softer than mochi in Japan; and pineapple cake from his family’s bakery in Changhua. His aunt had planted the pineapple tree fifty years ago.

I checked into my flight. Buddhist monks dressed in robes were standing in line. No attendant interrogated me about the contents of my baggage. “Did someone bring you something to deliver? Did you pack everything yourself? Did you leave your luggage unattended? What is the purpose of your trip?” were some of the questions always inquired in Israel. Boarding gates for flights bound there were always situated at the far end of terminals, for reasons of security.

Tomorrow, after exactly fourteen months in the Far East, I would return to this. 8 February 2023 to 8 April 2024. I was parting with safety, convenience, love, and friendship.

When you opened your heart and wallet, there was no limit to the wonders you could experience. If only everyone could afford this luxury.

Luciano and I grabbed lunch at the food court. Boba tea with brown sugar, which granted it a roasted flavour; and oden from 7-11. It was about time I tried it. Tea egg, braised tofu, braised taro ball, daikon, fish cake, instant noodles, and more dishes I didn’t recognize: they were fresher and infinitely tastier than cold onigiri.

I was ravenous. Yet jitters had quelled my appetite. I could barely finish this meal.

At 12:30, we walked to the escalator that led to boarding.

“I don’t want to say goodbye,” I said, growing nauseous.

He chuckled.

“I know.”

Standing by the escalator, I gave him the longest, snuggest bear hug.

“I never expected to meet someone like you who would do all this for me and come with me to the airport,” I said. “No one’s ever done that.”

He smiled.

“I’m happy to do it.”

We embraced. Again. And again. So tightly, that I was blinking back tears.

“I’m gonna go before I start crying,” I said.

I rode the escalator. We watched each other grow smaller. Until his head disappeared under the ceiling, and his legs stepped away from the scene.

As the plane took off, I broke into tears. Soft, silent ones, indicative of defeat.

Life. It all came down to this.

Clouds were engulfing the plane outside my window seat. I pictured myself miserable in Israel. I pictured myself the opposite in the Far East. This part of the Earth marked the first time I had felt happy.

I pictured myself as a published author, as a filmmaker, as an artist. I pictured myself with stable friendships and people who sought my company. I pictured myself in a relationship. It would never happen, I realized; the person I wanted the most didn’t seem to hold the same opinion.

I shut my eyes. Fatigue was making them sting.

For my layover in Bangkok, I wrote on the floor of the airport, instead of traveling to the city. I already missed the Far East for all of its differences from the West and Middle East: the food, the convenience, the mentality. I missed the culture and nature, the landmarks I’d seen, the danger I’d found myself in. I missed my freedom and new identity.

Most of all, I missed the people I had grown to love on this trip.

The vast majority of them and I no longer spoke. I didn’t know if I’d see them again. But we were all out there, on the same planet. I hoped they were okay.

Today’s highlights: everything I ate at the airport; farewell to Luciano.