Taipei | October 2019

“I awoke before the sun and made my way to the deserted city streets. The heat and humidity languidly crept across the pavement, eager to overtake the city. I’ve spent hundreds of mornings just like this. These early hours in foreign countries belong to me and the street sweepers as we wait for the world to wake around us. Soft yellow light. Bird songs not yet drowned out by traffic or tour groups. The hopeful, optimistic promise of a new day. Taiwan marks the thirtieth country I’ve visited. Thirty countries. Thirty places where my lungs have tasted the air and my feet have felt the soil. Thirty lives lived across cities and small towns. Thirty times falling in love with the oceans and the architecture and the small dogs and children that play at my feet. More than thirty cuisines that nourished my body and kept my heart beating. Thirty sources of water that quenched my soul, ensuring I would not drown.”

-Tess Thomas, The Laughing Diet; “Sānshí”