Time Travel

After a sleepless night concerning the cancelled flight, finishing stuffing my bags, four hours on the phone (thanks, China for repeated dropped Skype calls due to blipping internet), and finally a newly-booked itinerary, the ordeal was pretty much completely remedied. Even improved, in fact! Five hours and a few hundred extra dollars later, we were in a van driving up to Shanghai to catch a flight to Tokyo, for our new-and-improved itinerary on Nippon Airways. Best. International. Flight. Ever. Blessing in disguise. We miraculously didn’t have to pay for any additional or overweight baggage, and even my vegetarian meals were taken care of by the (overly) concerned flight attendants. It was nice to actually remember what customer service was!

We traveled forward in time, and then, crossing the International Date Line, time-traveled back to start July 2^nd over again. We basically only lost a few hours of our Tuesday, July 2. There is something about man’s conception of time that never ceases to boggle the brain.

 

Last time over the Hangzhou Bay Bridge; sunrise at 5am
heading to Shanghai to catch our plane. 

Flying into Tokyo, Japan.

Enjoying Asian snacks; last pocky sticks and milk tea for a while?

Stateside. Reunited.

The Dog Moms and Ayi Clara, all reunited Stateside!
First time all together since November.

Arriving back to the US, it was lovely to be reunited with my China family: Kari, Kate, and Jett, who all arrived at the airport to pick up me, Dad, and all of our (mostly my) free-checked baggage.

People often ask what it’s like to be back in the US after being abroad. Well, in the last five days, especially having spent a few of those days with Kari (and a couple with Kate as well), we’ve come up with a list, continually growing of course, of the strange feelings we’ve experienced (I’ll limit my somewhat snarky and possibly condescending stereotypical observations to keep the list under 10):

1. Putting toilet paper IN the toilet, not the wastebasket (this is #1 for a reason).
2. No need for VPN to surf the WWW. I can open Facebook and search YouTube and BBC/CNN news sources, all without having to open the IP address rerouting program?! 
3. Racial diversity and English EVERYWHERE!
4. Walking barefoot doesn’t run the risk of Hepatitis, Tetanus, or HIV.
5. Helpful strangers and customer service (what is this novelty?!).
6. Driving. So. Different. Every time I’m on the road here, I feel as if I’m going to get in a wreck, or tick someone off and have a gun pulled on me. Too many rules.
7. Less smoking
8. Less construction
9. I’d say less fireworks, but we came back just in time for the Fourth of July.

A respectful reflection of my growth and lessons learned during my time in China/Asian travels will be forthcoming. Being Stateside again does bring a flood of insecurities and often overwhelming amount of obvious observations and realizations. But I just wanted to post this update for now! I'm having fun seeing and catching up with familiar faces, spending time with dear friends and family, and just relaxing!