I’m writing this from a comfortable seat, coffee in hand, high-speed wifi buzzing ON A BULLET TRAIN. Let me just say, I love trains!
I’m heading to Seoul, some 400 kilometers away. Going to see some friends, do some things, visit a city that was my home for 5 years.
In Canada, this trip would take all day. I’m not kidding. But here, just a couple of hours of smooth riding through picturesque Korean countryside. It’s amazing, this world we live in. I wrote last time about this “then and now”. This train ride puts that in perspective.
I love trains! Am I repeating myself? So be it, it deserves saying again and again. When I was young, forget those hot wheels and monster dump trucks - give me a train set! As I got older, always enjoyed my train rides. Trains allow you to sink into your displacement, dream away, be part of a wider world as you are swept along.
I’ve ridden the train across Canada several times. It’s an amazing (but slow) trip. Sit in the glass dome car and have a view every which way. It’s almost a week trip and the only true way to experience the whole of the Great White North. I’ve always dreamed of doing the trans-siberian trip and once headed out on it. However, on my way to Moscow, got off in Kyiv and loved the city so much (and got involved in some shenanigans) that I never did start that trip. Still out there waiting for me.
Trains have a romanticism about them that inspires discovery, hope, the new. Migrants jumping onto trains, hobos and the homeless train hopping. Whenever you are on a train, it isn’t business, just going from A to B. Nope, a train ride, it’s an adventure. A train takes you places a plane never could - you are part of the journey, not just a trinket along for the ride.
Then there is the pleasure of trainspotting. Looking at trains like a birdwatcher, seeing all their unique characteristics. It’s a real cult group that does this and I fully sympathize with their addiction and passionate love of trains.
I’ll end this with a song from a man close to my heart - Fred Eaglesmith. He’s another story I’ll tell sometime here on Naked and Alive.