Last Saturday evening Gina and I took a casual cruise at Shida night-market before doing dinner together with Ivy. Usually the surroundings would be automatically switched to a muted mode when Gina and I hanged out together. Because our laughter, banter and oral reports of new developments of our recent life often became earplugs to block the rest of the sounds. But that evening, the voice from a radio programme from a small hair & beauty shop carried some powerful wind to blow away Gina's earplugs and thrust both of us into our own memory lane.
The radio programme might be called a Taiwanese version of Jeremy Vine's show on BBC Radio 2, which also talks about some hot topics of recent news . "Oh my God, I haven't listened to this programme since I came back. I think it's around 10 am in the UK right now" said Gina.
I have no idea how much an overseas phone call from the UK to my cell phone might cost, but according to the frequency Gina called me in 2007 during her last four months in the UK, I'll say it's pretty cheap. She was extremely suffering from homesick then. And the Taiwanese radio programme was her antibiotics to keep her temporarily healthy enough to count down her remaining days in the UK.
"Do you still remember the day we met at the coach station in Leeds? You know, your eyes couldn't look any smaller then," teasingly said Gina. "But seriously, even though we only spent three days together in the UK, you have no idea how glad I was to see you then." "I thought my eyes couldn't look any bigger! Since barely got any sleep on the plane and on the coach and met you at 5 am, it should be able to create double eyelids for me." I jokingly defended and repaid her a moved smile.
For the following three hours, my memory lane was clogged when having dinner with Ivy and Gina. But on my way home, it became smooth again. This time I walked into the scene of the opening night of demonstrating my pajamas to the UK. With a unique way to come on the stage, I was grinding my teeth in Gina's bed and sleeping with a letter "K" pose.
Due to my jet lag and lack of enough sleep, in the first formal evening in the UK I went to bed very early to review the beauty and hospitality of York that Gina and I discovered earlier that day. The mummy was well fixed in the "K" pose until Gina woke me up at about midnight. And I could tell from her serious face that it couldn't be about me invading her half of the bed or the noise my teeth had made.
"I only got two days left before going back to Taiwan and I found there were still soooooo many things to do before I leave. I even haven't collocated enough materials to bring back to Taiwan to complete my dissertation. Therefore, do you think tomorrow you can go to Manchester without me?" asked Gina. As a thoughtful, considerate and VERY sleepy friend, I told her "sure, of course" and then immediately and unconsciously back to my "K" pose.
The next day when I woke up in the early morning, I didn't know how to wake Gina up and told her I had been a somniloquist when I said yes to her last night. It would not be fine with me to go to Manchester by myself since I prepared nothing but relied on her to show me the city as we had discussed.
But, before I plowed a trench with my indecisive steps back and forth in Gina's room, I told myself that things couldn't be more frustrating and boring to wait until Gina wakes up or to find myself doing nothing in the end of my second day in the UK. Hence, "I am going to Manchester now. Let's have dinner together in the evening. E"- the note of me taking an adventure was stuck on Gina's laptop.
Follow the trail of my memory breadcrumbs of how Gina took me to York the day before and with some helps from a police officer, I got myself safely and smoothly to Manchester. That morning, outside of Manchester Piccadilly Station, the sky was painted with my mood - a widely spread of uneasy damp grey and a few gentle brushes of exciting white.
Not like my rest of well-planned days in the UK, Gina's sudden absence made me become duckweed and had no choice but drifted forward with the tide of the crowds. Don't know if it has anything to do with being a Law School student for many years. I was trained and used to put things into order or an organized plan. But at that time I even found the map from the Information Centre at the railway station was useless since three people I had asked all couldn't point out where I was and they included a guard from Primark. Time just couldn't crawl any slower then.
But strangely, the more I breathed in the slightly chilly air of the day, the more relaxed I became. And the air also brought my previous expectations about the whole journey back to me. Wasn't this just a part of what I had hoped for - to take a rest and have a cup of tea whenever and wherever I want and have time to watch how people walk, drink and laugh in this country!
I started to realize how rare the chance might be for me to quietly monopolize the view from a small cabin of the big wheel behind Manchester Arndale. And sometimes maybe being lonely is the beginning of being not lonely. Because as I was alone visiting Manchester Cathedral, a warm old British lady unexpectedly approached me and offered me a free guide about the cathedral. That afternoon I was taught a new point of view of getting lost and how to get along with a sense of feeling disoriented.
Even though I missed the announcement of the platform's changing and took the wrong train, back to Leeds I was still early enough to catch the dinner with Gina. Gina told me we were invited by her friends to have some simple dinner together at their flat.
The pizzas and the roasted chicken were well served with my story happened at the coach station at the airport. Gina's friends were amazed by my experience that the British old man sat next to me on the plane bought me a cookie and a cup of tea and left me with his business card for emergent help and also some coins to make phone calls to make sure I would be picked up in Leeds.
Chewing my pizza at the same time with their jealous exclamations of why they had never had this kind of luckiness during the past year in the UK, my focus and my mind were contentedly zooming out to the rainbow hanging outside of the window. I think the journey was destined to be beautiful and memorable.
