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That is until I looked up to take a sip of tea and caught his eye. We ended up in a discussion about teaching English abroad, how he lived in Japan, China and Korea over a period of a year doing just that. He said, “Hey, want to come with me to get a drink upstairs?” It was a good conversation and I had no plans so I shrugged, abandoned my stack of magazines, and followed him toward the escalator. After sitting in a corner near the Learn-French-in-15-Minutes-a Day books, he read my palm and he taught me how to read his. Then there I was sitting on the floor in the language section in a giant bookshop with a stranger, his hand wrapped warmly around the back of mine, his index finger tracing the tiny lines in my palm.
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We went to an awesome little Korean restaurant called Arirang on Poland Street. The interior was lovely with massive mirrors lining the walls of the basement area where we were seated at a shiny red table. I ordered the beef bulgogi that came with a bowl of sticky rice and a bowl of egg soup which was the most unusual soup I’ve ever seen – basically a thin broth with little flaky bits of egg whites floating around. It sounds horrible but it was actually quite tasty. A small Korean woman served us jasmine tea in handle-less mugs with Chinese writing on the sides. Around us, mainly Asian languages floated through the air and we picked away at our meals with chopsticks actually made out of silverware material rather than the typical disposable wooden ones.
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Our conversation over dinner was all about cultures, traditions of people living in other countries, places we want to go, what the world is coming to, and so on. It was nice to have a conversation like that with a stranger. It was gone 11, but the Tattershall Castle – the boat pub across from the London Eye – was calling. The upper deck was absolutely abandoned, and down the dock away from the street and crowds, floating gently on the water under a bright white moon was bliss. We could even pick out a few stars. The Eye was lit up in green. Muted music from the club below us sounded like it floated along the river from a distant party. We sat there chatting, watching the small waves of passing ships rock up against the side of the boat. It was chilly, but a refreshing, crisp Autumn kind of chilly. Clocks ticked slowly past last train times.
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I hate the night bus – full of drunken people, screeching people, puking people, violent people, smelly people, etc. I usually take a different one, but decided to wait for the N52 for a change. Around Hyde Park just before Knightsbridge, I watched a drunk guy cycling in the street steer himself into the curb and fly off his bike into a lamp post. He sat on the ground, his bike still lying in the street with wheels spinning, and he cracked open a can of beer that was in his pocket - playing it cool..
Around my stop, I met two Australian guys looking for directions. After a bit of conversation, we ended up at Paradise down the road. That’s Paradise in Kensal Green, the pub. Later, N walked me home. We walked slowly, even stopping to admire the way the clouds broke into a grid like pattern in the nearly blue night time sky, stars peaking through the cracks, twinkling. Not a soul passed by once we turned off of Chamberlayne Road.
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We exchanged numbers and decided to catch a gig in Camden Saturday night. I went inside at 4am thinking about how, when I left work, my plan was to wander around Oxford Circus and then take a sandwich and some tea down to the river to write on the docks for a while and have an early night home. I love this city when strangers collide like this.
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