Sakura of DOOM

jonquil's been linking to posts on the giant spectacle in London, and stakebait just came back from Hong Kong. rachelmanija has also been going around London and Madrid.

I've always loved Neil Gaiman's short piece on cities, especially as a companion to his "Tale of Two Cities" in World's End; I think it's collected in Smoke and Mirrors. Cities are alive and they grow and they change. They have personalities and forms and shapes.

I love cities. I fell in love with Hong Kong the minute I saw its tall, needly buildings poking out of the rocky green island, the moment we drove across the long bridge connecting the airport to the main island. I still love the narrow streets and the odd contrast between the shiny metal smoothness of Central and the dirty side streets and sidewalk vendors. I miss the winding roads and the hills and the oppressive humidity, the mix of modern and old, the subway system, the mix of Cantonese and British and Chinese cultures.

I miss New York even though I never lived there, the dirty sidewalks and the subway and the grumpy people and the wealth of culture and books and art. I miss the posters plastered over construction sites, metal scaffolding above sidewalks, the numbered streets.

I love getting to know cities and finding all the nooks and crannies and making them mine. I loved eating baguettes in Paris in front of Notre Dame, but I loved looking at the sidewalk cafes even more. I loved the little grocery stores in Florence and how the lady there just let us sample the grapes. I miss Taipei and Hsinchu and the vendors selling food on the street and the six million different small restaurants and side streets.

I'm still getting acquainted with San Francisco, though I've already got a few favorite spots there already. I can tell I'm getting along better with it now that I have certain routines or routes that I go through when I'm there: genre bookstore with cat and then Ethiopian, or Kinokuniya in Japantown, or hole-in-the-wall sushi place and a walk to the dessert place with the giant slices of cake.

What are your favorite cities? What do they feel like? (also, I totally want to make this a meme because I like hearing about cities and I like reading about people's personal experiences of places and the little details that bring it to life)

Sigh. My mom's leaving tonight =(. And while it's sometimes annoying having her here (she talks to me when I am online, keeps telling me how to drive, etc.), it was also quite nice. Plus, kitchen bonding. And she bought me a pretty new pot and knives. And it felt like I was a part of society again because Lin Ah-yi came over more often, etc. Ah well. At least the boy will move back in, and I will not be all by myself.

Will write down other things to distract myself, namely, thoughts on scenery. It's strange sometimes thinking of how different places can feel and look. California, specifically South Bay Area, will always be giant skies of blue, occasionally punctuated by white clouds, all too perfect and large to be true. That and the dry, baking sun, which I adore. The vegetation here is a different color than back at home (it's still not quite home yet, though close) -- it looks dry. The leaves of things are muted, olive greens and greens tinted with brown on hills covered with dirt and shrubs and yellow grass. And it is flat here, although, thankfully, I can see mountains in the distance.

Colorado (Trinidad), where Sarah lives, is a bit like this, the yellow grass that makes me think of prairies, the low cottonwoods, but Trinidad is always shadowed by the mountains. Watching the shadows of clouds playing on the mountain sides is always a picture I'll keep in my mind.

The east coast feels dusky as well, except instead of dry, the trees to me feel more foresty, older somehow, and more mysterious. There's a sense of age on the east coast California doesn't have for me (ahh, my strip malls, heh), and the houses of brick and wood, sometimes run down, are too much out of a book to feel entirely real. Princeton for me is stone buildings and Gothic architecture, cold and wet. Although sometimes I remember the fall days when the sky is bright blue and the trees in front of McCormick have turned a brilliant orange, and the contrast is stunning and the air smells of that ineffable scent of autumn. Princeton is also small stores that have been there for ages, upscale, with little nooks and crannies, wool coats and boots, while California is bright colors, sun, sun, sun, a big bowl of sky above me and the feeling of wanting to lie down outside for forever.

But they still feel similar when compared to Taiwan. I miss Taiwan still. Sometime in my nine years there I forgot that I was first used to the pine trees and Rocky Mountains of Ft. Collins, and I grew accustomed to the almost technicolor greens of the mountains there, mountains that are rounded and which loom everywhere. I remember standing on the fourth floor outside the classroom and looking at the blues and purples of them after the rain. I miss the feeling of plants growing wild, despite the lack of lawns, the look of shrubs and weeds and who knows what else poking through the earth. I miss waxy green leaves tinged with yellow and that bright spring green I can't find here. I miss the mountains. Sometimes I even miss the humidity, even when I love the dry heat here. The weather there -- air so laden with water that everything would be slightly damp, then a sudden darkening of sky and a downpour of rain, warm raindrops so large you could feel them burst like water balloons. Then, five minutes later, the sun would come out, and it would all be over. I miss the howling winds that would rattle the windows while I sat warm inside, the chill that comes from concrete houses and no heaters, tile everywhere. I miss the concrete jungle of the cities.

Hong Kong is a little like that, but I love Hong Kong for itself. It has the verdant greens and the mountains and the island climate of Taiwan, but it's completely different because of the buildings, which spiral up out of the ground, narrow and tall and spindly. Yet they burst out of the mountains of Hong Kong in clusters and are a surprise to the eye, metallic growths in the middle of the jungle. Everything there is so tall and narrow that it made Taiwan feel spacious.

China and Japan are different, I think because they aren't subtropical islands. They don't feel quite as normal to me... China is too large, too many open areas, and too new. The metropolises there are just beginning. Although Shanghai's mix of European turn of the century buildings and concrete architecture is surprising and strangely foreign. I don't remember much of Japan's greenery -- I guess I didn't see that much of it in Kanazawa. Japan is always characterized in my mind with the stores and the shops and the urbanness of it.

Sigh. I miss Taiwan, even though I love California. I think I never quite felt at home on the east coast because of the cold.