The barmaid asks:

- What are you up to today Kitty?

- Well, again I will look at rice fields surrounded by the mountains and I will observe how the clouds of steam float over the rainforest. Also I plan to listen to cicadas, the croaking of frogs and birds singing.

- Great! And what sounds does your city make?

- In Warsaw, in the summer time, playing children can be heard in the backyards, sometimes you can hear the sound of passing trams, and from my roof in the evenings you can hear the sounds from the nearby Zoo Park*. At night you can also meet wild boars in the Prague Park. And how is it in New York?

- Depending on the neighborhood, you can hear loud music, car noise and night cats meowing. You can also meet Racoons and possums and one day even a big skunk sneaked into my family house.

- Wonderful! And tell me V., I saw people walking in the rice fields in the rain during the night, shining torches and seeming to collect something. Do you have an idea what’s going on?

-Well… it is possible that after a storm the local people collect cicadas and grasshoppers to feed a rescued owl they now take care of.

Kitty R. looks at the surrounding mountains covered by the rain forests. The extremely hot weather deprives her of any walks or trips to attend more attractions. Actually for Kitty R. the greatest magnificence and at the same time true challenge is to simply sit and have a look at the beauty of nature. It improves her brain work, thoughts and plans are becoming clearer.

From time to time, the dark, dark blue clouds cover the heat, which quickly bring a cosmic downpour. Then the sky breaks, and the thunders give sound effects as if the nearby mountains were falling. Lightning bolts and light around them have a pink-purple colour, and their fast flash migrates to the sky incredibly beautifully like a tree branch. Kitty R. observes all these natural actions with anxiety and fascination at the same time. After the adventure, when the thunderbolt hit the railing just a few meters away from Kitty R., her heart beats its speed much faster during the storms.

- When such a huge storm breaks up, how do the local animals react? - asks Kitty R.

- I spent all my childhood grazing water buffalos - says an Laotian - When the storm was coming, all I wanted was to run home, but the buffalo were feeling just the opposite; in the rain they were revived, they were happy, so it was very difficult to turn them back home. Some of them were even lost by lightning strikes; as well as people who do not stop their work in the fields during storms and are wearing metal ornaments that attract lightning.

In general, Kitty R. is in a truly hypnotic state, because …

There is nothing more pleasant than listening to Dead Can Dance on monsoon nights.

There is nothing more pleasant than listening to Bach’s suites by Yo Yo Ma on scorching days.

There is nothing more pleasant than listening to birds singing, exhortations from the jungle and the buzz of cicadas at dusk.

There is nothing more pleasant to discover your own joy here and now.

Clap! Kitty R. skillfully kills a tiger mosquito; it is larger than a European one, it is black with white stripes and it is said that it is responsible for the spread of dengue. Nothing can destroy Kitty’s personal definition of Zen. Sir Last already grabs mosquitos with his index finger and thumb in flight. Respect!

The problems and battles of the day catch up with her whenever she is in the world, but Asia gave her a good lesson of humility and distance. Humility towards nature, distance from mundane problems. And yet she did not talk to Buddhist monks, nor did she attend spiritual meditations. Was it enough that she only breathed the local air? Kitty R. came to Asia for all this and that’s what she found. Self-consciousness.