Million Miles Away

Dad's garden

I haven’t spent that much of time in my hometown lately. I only come back maybe once a month to visit my parents and say ‘hello’ to my childhood bedroom. I like the kind of relationship that I have with my hometown right now. I live in this city, breathe the smoke-filled air, walk along the dirty pavements, yell at the rude commuters and eat greasy restaurant food but every time I feel like I had enough of all these things, I get on the train and head back home. Home where the air is fresher, my dad’s flowers in the garden are in full bloom and 3 home-cooked meals are waiting on the table for me..

Entrance to the old palace and view from a hill

Old shophouses

But it was not until a month ago that I started to appreciate this new kind of bond that I have with my hometown. The only reason I waited so long before taking another trip back to my hometown was because of work and all these ‘fun stuff’ that I knew would give me much more pleasure than staying up late and watch TV.

I have a friend who's always seems eager to know about different culture and tradition. He’s also the one who managed to adopt the lifestyle of a foreign land very well that sometimes he really amazes me. He's a European in Asia who eats ‘durian’ for dinner and remembers the facts and figures about temples in Yangon, Myanmar. Well, I guess he might be the only one.

Rain outside the window

So at any given opportunity, I’ll snap photos for him using my Blackberry so we can share things that I saw and experienced here in this city where I live in.

And back to where I started

When I finally decided to go back to my hometown last week and spent the whole weekend there, I knew I had to take a lot of photos and let him see my quiet, little hometown. I looked like a tourist in my own hometown but it was surprisingly fun. I noticed the beauty that I have never even bother to give a second glance at before. Like the buildings, the pigeons on the street, the bright exotic plants in my dad’s garden, the old palace that I have only visited once and the view through stained glass window after the rain stopped.

It’s funny how it took someone from a million miles away to open my eyes and make me see all this beauty right in front of me.

And with that I have to thank you.

All photos are taken by yours truly from the inside of moving vehicles using a Blackberry phone camera