Welcome back, Mr. Lo.
It was still dark when we left our little pad in the UWS, our bellies fulla heart attack sammies.
With my awful back, I was dreading the 16-hour trip but my buddy Ricky suggested that I get this blow-up seat cushion and god did it help; it, plus using my jacket as a lumbar pillow helped tremendously.
I’ve not slept on a plane in 44 years.
Every time I get on one, I think: This time will be it.
I took one-and-a-half pills of Ambien, one pot gummy, two OTC sleep meds and…nuthin. Was awake for the entire 16 hours it took to get Korea.
In fact, I was awake since the morning the Firecracker and I got hitched: 45.5 hours in total.
So, I was feeling dull and vicious when we arrived but that too is a story for another day.
Her: You’re not making any sense!
Me: OK, that happens after 35 hours. (turning to my son) From now on, ignore what I say and listen to her. I’m not thinking straight.
The plane ride was, thankfully, uneventful.
Whenever I travel internationally, I try to have an extended layover; this time, it was in Korea.
I’d never been.
So, after the Firecracker navigated us out – because I was completely nonfunctional – we crashed overnight in a huge hotel room in the boonies where I finally got some sleep after 45.5 hours.
Some, being the operative word here.
Right before I left town, I dropped my old German tutor and buddy KG Betty a line and she said she would love to meet up.
So, bright and early on Saturday morning, she picked us up outside the Seoul station and brought us to the Gyeongbokgung Palace, which the Firecracker was dying to see.
We just happened to make the changing of the guard.
The kids were only so interested.
Afterward, we went to try to get noodles at the knife-cut noodle lady’s stall at Gwangjang Market, Seoul from the Netflix series but it was – of course – closed that day.
It was still super cool, and packed for an early Saturday morning.
She brought us to a local joint where we had some authentic Korean food before she gave the Uber driver some clear directions to get us back to the airport in time to head to Taiwan to continue our journey.
But not before giving me a hug and a little gift because she knows me so well.
After the 16-hour flight from NYC to Seoul, the trip from Seoul to Taipei seemed like nuthin.
When we arrived in Taiwan, I walked out of the airport customs area in the Arrivals Hall – something I’d done a dozen times in my youth – I was just overwhelmed with emotions.
It was the smell and sight of the place that took me back to the very first time I’d arrived there as a little kid.
I had a memory – real or imagined, I’m not sure – of my grandmother and youngest uncle, rushing to give my mother a hug.
It felt real.
And there was a little part of me that kept thinking that maybe my grandmother might possibly show up, the fevered dream of sleep-deprived old man.
My son started asking me all of these inane questions and I barked at him.
Not my finest moment (I later apologized).
The Firecracker took him away and left me alone with my thoughts.
I literally stood there for the first time in 25 years and wept.
Thought of all those people I loved and lost and would never see again except in pictures and in my cloudy head.
And I have so many, from the memorable to the mundane, they all mattered to me in one way or another.
Like when my uncle brought me out a night market to have a sizzling plate of steak and the wonderment of all the game and clothes hawkers.
So many random memories came at me, one after another.
Everyone was quiet while we waited for our car to arrive and my son was the first to break the silence.
Papa. I’ve never seen you cry before.
It’s funny.
I cry all the time because that grief button’s always being hit.
Suppose I hid it well up until then.
It was just too much to take at that moment, I guess.
I was just slamming that goddamn button.
I couldn’t handle the cacophony in my head.
Too many old ghosts came rushing up to greet me all at once, but after a bit, I realized the car’d arrived, so we all piled in and were on our way.
The driver spoke to me in broken in English and I turned to him and all this Chinese started coming out, as if I were a fat 10-year-old kid again.
Chatted with him the whole ride to the AirBnb.
Me: (in Chinese) I’ve not been here in 25 years.
Cab driver: 25 years! Why so long?
Me: (thinking) Lots of things. Life. I don’t recognize this place anymore.
Him: (nodding) A lot’s changed in 25 years. This place was all empty 25 years ago. The city’s grown, the population’s shrunk.
Me: Shrunk? I would have thought the opposite.
Him: (shaking head) No. (laughs) People are getting married later. They don’t want to have kids.
Me: Yeah, it’s like that in a lotta places.
Him: (tells me more about Taipei and Taiwan in general, I translate for the Firecracker and the kids as best I can) Here we are, Mr. Lo. (exits the car and starts taking the luggage out) It’s NT$1650 but just give me NT$1,600.
Me: What? Why?
Him: It’s 25 years! Welcome back. (smiles, holds out his hand to shake mine) Welcome back, Mr. Lo.
Location: back in rainy NYC
Mood: crazy jetlagged
Music: Memories come rushing up to meet me now (Spotify)
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