Here are Mizu’s adventures. Find out if she has been to your city…
Visitors from the Past in The City of Seoul
Dedicated to Shyam Hajare Seoul could turn anybody into a tourist, even the most traditional Korean man. People who walked the same street every single day couldn’t predict what happened at a familiar turn. Mizu had spent a good few hours at Hongdae station road, a boba tea in hand, sipping as she glanced from…
A Calm Day in Mombasa City, Africa
On the windy south-east expanse of Mombasa Island, lay an old town with flaky white walls and ancient window sills. It lay brooding and distant like a solitary man looking at the vast sea in contemplation, and its inmates spent their lives with a cool calm flair, as if they lived inside its brain. Mizu…
Noontime Dumplings in Beijing
A city in which everything real existed in the backstreets. Food was wok-tossed into the air and sesame, soy, and mustard hit the brain before making it to the belly. People weary from their day jobs sat down on rickety stools to have the meal of their lives. Roasted duck: an addiction. Everything seemed like…
The Sea Shell Collector of Baia: a Trip to an Underwater City
– dedicated to Vandana Lohia With her gaze fixed on the swirling shell of Tyrrhenian Sea, Mizu was confounded by the secrets of the old city that had crept into her ears without warning. What began as an underwater tour of a 2000 year old Roman party city, turned into an expose on the private…
La Comida in Mexico City
The one thing Mizu would remember from her stay in Mexico City was the comida. She liked to say the word ever so often to remember how she felt. A comida was an extended lunch in Mexico city that started at 2:00 pm and went on until the end of work hours. Nobody cared much…
Barrow, the City of the 1:00 am Sun
– Dedicated to Kimberley Remedios Barrow is America’s northernmost city and also the boon of nature’s misery. Here, the sun doesn’t rise for two months in winter, and in summer, the sun inhabits the sky for 80 long days and nights. It confounds everything known about time, it suspends it into this vast eternity of…
Wearing a Bamboo Hat around Hanoi, Vietnam
~dedicated to Prerna Mukherjee Mizu was getting used to Hanoi’s streets. It wasn’t long until she realized the lack of street-crossing rules. She had waited for a good fifteen minutes before she took a step, and then another, dodged a big Hanoi cyclo and scurried across the road. She didn’t dare look up to see…
Hot coffee in burning city – Centralia, Pennsylvania
Mizu is in the city of Centralia. Only five city dwellers live here because the place is literally on fire. It can perish anytime, even as you read this story. A realization of sorts had dawned upon Mizu. She was sipping on a cup of coffee, with a 77-year-old man, in a wooden cottage in…
Evenings in Kowloon City – Part 2
Mizu and Zelda walked into the upscale Ozone bar that had swanky blue lights and foggy glass windows. At its far end, they met a group of Chinese and Japanese men and women that were hurdled together, deep in conversation. Among the troop, one woman stood out. She had her hair tied up like the…
Evenings in Kowloon City, Hong Kong
Mizu had been in Hong Kong only for three days and Kowloon City had already begun to feel like that painting in a posh household that was passed down through generations. Its crooked frame hung in the halls of Hong Kong in an enigmatic and familiar air and Mizu spent hours gazing at the city,…
Victoria, Seychelles – The City of the Forbidden Fruit
Mizu stood under the cool shade of the coco-de-mer trees whose palms stretched over her to block the whole sky. A little sea breeze notoriously rattled its giant fruits and a loud “dud dud dud” crossed the seas and entered the nook of Victoria city. Mizu was on the Praslin, one of Seychelles’ islands far…
Barcelona – the City of Circles
Mizu had walked past seven Spanish Fruterias in Barcelona when she finally decided to enter one on La Rambla street. The fruit shop was so tiny that she had to take care not to tip over the fruits that were stacked up on either side. An old Spanish vendor was squatting by the fruits trying…
Less than a day in Adelaide
The train came to a screeching halt at the Adelaide Parklands Terminal and a few restless passengers got off in a hurry. They were instructed that they only had ten hours in Adelaide, at the end of which the train would take off to Perth. Mizu and the young man had got off too and…
The Great Pacific Train Journey
Day 1 Mizu boarded the Indian Pacific at Sydney and navigated her suitcase through the narrow corridors of the train. She found her seat besides a square window inside a compact twin cabin. There, two vacant bunkers lay waiting to be occupied by two strangers. After placing her suitcase beneath the bunker and sitting by…
Mizu lands in the “city of bones”
Beneath the runway, a million bones lay waiting to stir. At touch down, a loud rattle struck the entire airplane and the man beside Mizu almost jumped off his seat. “You heard the bones then?”, asked Mizu, making sure she wasn’t dreaming as she had in the past. “I think seat belts were made only…
Farewell Tokyo!
Mizu stood by the peculiar love-hotel and looked up at its two signs, “shukuhaku” and “kyukei” which meant stay and rest. She had received none of the two. This 2000 yen-per-hour hotel was her makeshift service apartment for a month. Now, she stood by it with her new compact suitcase and had resolutely given up…
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Mizu City 