A picture of a really cute dog...

And my recipe for unfamiliarity. Not really a lot to report today. I walked for hours and hours and hours (I think you get the idea…). About halfway through the day I felt a tinge of homesickness. I did what I always do in a place that feels unfamiliar when I want to feel more at home: took myself to the movies. From the noisy projector and re-frozen banana ice cream of the Cook Islands, the Russian dubbed ‘Bridesmaids’ in Siberia, an old armchair and cold beer to watch ‘The Godfather’ in Arizona, or my beloved Cinematheque in Hanoi, were I watched Bergman and became fond of the mildew smell of the seats, cinema is my home from home. So tonight I went to the Lotte cinema, ate salty popcorn, watched ‘Rush’ and succumbed to the womb-like comfort of moving images and a dark room. 

There are a few markers like this for me, things I do in every place I travel: run, swim, secondhand shops, sauna, cinema, bicycle, supermarket, sea or riverside walks. The other week, swimming lengths, I tried to remember all of the swimming pools I’d ever swam in. That’s the beauty of new places, those little bite-sized gifts they give even after you’ve returned home.

Anyway, enough of whatever that was. Here’s a picture of a puppy curled up in it’s food bowl that i took yesterday…