It was on a winter afternoon, during a stroll through the aesthetic architecture that Copenhagen is known for, that an impulse to cultivate myself with knowledge about an alien cult struck me. Gold typography that read Scientologi Kirken Danmark (Church of Scientology Denmark) glistened before my eyes. I stepped in to look.
Before me unfolded…
Clack, Clack, Clack. I press my teeth together as I sit on a stool in the tiny, five-person bar. The edges of my vision blur as I stare vacantly at her angelic face, stretching and tightening, as she mouths voiceless words. Is she speaking Japanese? I don’t even know at this point. Wish I had…
Enormous clouds cling to the peaks of snow-capped mountains. Winking prickly pears and violet wildflowers greet us on either side of a path that looks as if it were opened up by the gods. It’s early afternoon, the sun is low in the sky, and our bellies are full to the brim with Peruvian avocados,…
When I boarded my flight to Bali as a naïve, 19-year-old solo traveller, the last thing my mum said to me was “always wear a helmet and please, just don’t do mushies”.
The world of party drugs was entirely new to me, and the thought of them kind of scared me. My first overseas trip…
It’s six women lined up like ducks along the brim of a rice paddy. Squatting in a row with eyes screwed shut and milk-white bums bared at the Himalayas. No one is game enough to break the silence and everyone is laughing over our military-style piss procession, and how it feels to have frost snatch…
I decided to visit South Korea on a whim. Besides their fascination with cheesy boy bands and an apparent aptitude for fried chicken, I knew absolutely nothing about the country, but I was starting in Japan and finishing in Vietnam with plenty of time to kill in between so, geographically speaking, it was the logical…
Our conversation switches from jovial to awkward in an instant. His words come out staunchly. Like there’s nothing you could say or do that would convince him otherwise.
"People in small houses aren’t happy."
I splutter on my lukewarm Earl Grey. Alfie is the closest thing I have to a best friend in England. We…
Shit. What’s the Italian word for ‘help’?
I frantically wracked my 10-year-old brain and attentively scanned the room for something I could use to pick the lock, or at least draw attention to my current situation.
To my left sat a sink; to my right, a basket full of paper towels. Directly behind me, a…
“Quiet now, Samantha has something she’s going to share with us”.
Every eye in the room turns toward me: the outsider lurking in the entrance.
Standing in this doorway, looking out over a tightly packed room of musicians and appreciators, I realise how much I’ve been taught to be overly modest and not share my…
It’s midday and I’m standing in a parking lot across the road from Warner Bros. Studio. Around me I can see families, couples, groups of middle-aged women, and the occasional man. I overhear that a family has flown in from Seattle “just to be here”, another have travelled from East Coast, a couple have been…
It was 2PM in Osaka, and I was staring a pair of socks to death from the window of a shop in Tsuruhashi.
This was rare for me, as usually whenever I would come down from my friend’s apartment to the shopping alley, I would buy whatever foods tempted me and bring back a whole…
“Fate has brought us together for a reason, so I need you to listen and take note. It is your call whether you want to fuck up your life though.”
*
My late teens left me in a state of constant wander about what the universe had in store for me. Instead of following my…