wadashino@Taipei

Although my weak heart is physically reacting to the second-hand smoke piped out from Taipei younsters immersed in their vitual world created by a Internet Cafe situated in Dunhua, downtown Taipei, my mind is pretty relaxed enjoying the laid-back mood in the best getaway spot for me - a half-Taiwanese who live in Hong Kong. I am away from my demanding, controlling parents, away from friends, my job, my obsessions, troubles, bad memories, even away from my Taiwanese relatives right here. I am travelling alone. There is something good about travelling alone. I requested it with a reason to ''explore the real Taipei by myself. My hospitbale relatives apparently agreed upon my theory and haven't called me for my whereabouts. I went to the entrances of two closed musuems, took a couple of pictures of the president house that I have seen on TV a thousand times. I spent two hours of in a bookstore, during which I was reading serveral books while sipping the iced mocha in front of the bamboo curtains blocking the late Spring heat. Well, can't I do the same in Hong Kong? It is different. While it is a different place, what you do feels different. Wandering at back alleys with my five-kilogram backpack, I did have a feel of travelling I like travelling alone. No schedules, no being considerate and no waiting. I talked to whoever I like. I entered to a condom shop under the close watch by the female staff before I walked off without any purchase but a smile. I met the real Taiwanese people. I met the real Taiwanese culture. Just three days ago, I was missing Korea. Sitting on the first-class seat in a airport limosine equipped probably with the best facilities in the world, I was listening to Korean music with my iPod while the bus strode through the dimly-lit Taoyuan suburb. Memories kept flashing back. Friends' faces were no less vivid in my brain than those in the pictures that I was also looking at. The buses' radio was beaming local pop-songs, apparently trying to outsound my iPod and my accumulated happiness flowing around my soul - It failed. Three days, and the reality is here for me to accept. Time rules. As I remember the smoke-free Korean PC bang in Shinchon where I read the International Herald Tribune for an hour and wrote my diary, a 19 year-old-like kid is now playing internet game. He just picked up a lit cigarette right next to me.