“Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you don‘t know and trusting them with your life.” ~ Paul Theroux

During my travels, I seemed to have an affinity with elderly folks, or perhaps it’s the other way round. Somehow, they could sniff me out and surprise me with acts of kindness. Like the big-hearted old man who caught me unaware by giving me a ticket to watch a New York Philharmonic concert in Manhattan.

There was another incident which happened when I was exploring the Poblenou neighbourhood in Barcelona. A man, perhaps in his 50s or 60s, saw me taking photos in a small alley and started speaking to me in Spanish non-stop. I shook my head to indicate that I couldn’t understand a word but I was pretty amused. He kept pointing at an apartment above us. After some time, it dawned upon me that he was trying to tell me a photographer was living at the same block where we were standing at.

He then made a hand gesture, seemingly asking me to wait, and disappeared into his own house. He reappeared with a book in his hand. It was a book about the Poblenou neighbourhood. The man handed me the book and indicated that it was a gift for me. I was touched.

It was a sweet moment, shared between two strangers who had conversed without a common verbal language.

May 21st, 2017

Why a Workers' Party rally makes me feel Singaporean

db Bistro by Daniel Boulud

May 21^st, 2017