Heading Home

Are we home yet?

Well, we've been home for a few days and are slowly getting settled in. It's so nice to be back home, sleeping in our beds and finally getting unpacked! What a trip this was! It's interesting--I suddenly remember a bunch of things about our trip that I'd forgotten in the chaos. I'll interject those throughout our future postings.

One thing that stood out from our trip, especially to China, was how friendly folks were towards America. I never thought we'd be greeted with such open arms as we actually experienced. I've travelled about quite a bit over a few decades and have often noticed a 'not-so-friendly' attitude toward Americans. China and Korea was markedly different. People were so friendly and on many occasions I even heard people saying "we're good friends of America." That almost stopped me in my tracks. Just an interesting thing I noted along the way.

During our flight from Xi'an to Beijing, I sat next to a Swiss gentlemen, actually of Swedish descent. We spoke almost the entire flight and it turns out he was traveling for business, around the world, over 2 weeks! Turns out he's a 'board member' of various international business/pharmaceutical corporations and he was traveling around to attend various board meetings. What a life! I told him how envious I was of his opportunity to travel and he said it was WAY overrated. He was tired of the 'jet-setting' life and just longed to be able to stay home and relax. A glimpse of his schedule (while we were in Xi'an & Beijing) was: New Delhi, Kazakhstan, Xi'an, Beijing, Los Angeles, Chicago, London and Bern. I can't even imagine the jetlag issues!!!