The Long Trip Home

Wednesday morning we woke up on the train coming back to Shanghai. After a little while running around and shuffling luggage (which we would do for the next 72 hours), Tara, Nora, and I went to one of our favorite restaurants for the last time and had a going-away feast for ourselves. Tara’s plane took of around 7, so at 4 in the afternoon we took her to the airport. As Nora and I had half of our luggage with us and we would be taking the same flight 24 hours later, it felt like sort of a practice run. We saw Tara off and went to Nora’s friend Florbella’s house for the night.

Florbella and her husband Ling live in PuDong, the suburbs of Shanghai. Their house is beautiful and their food is delicious. They are rich. But they don’t have a backyard.

Today, after an amazing European breakfast, we went back to Fudan in the chauffeured Audi, where we were bombarded with reasons to want to stay. We saw friends we had made in our Chinese classes, ate a meal at the Muslim noodle place (no canary today), and had friendly conversations with Chinese people along the way.

To kill time in the afternoon, we had a haircut. When they wash your hair here, they do it for about ten minutes, and massage your scalp. It’s amazing.

Finally, at 4pm, just like yesterday, it was time to go. We had to call a van from the cab company just to fit all of our junk. A final goodbye to our international friends, and we were off. Now, almost 4 hours into a 13 hour flight, the plane is over the Pacific, coming up on the International Date Line. Time to go back to yesterday…

Hours later, but a day earlier, I’m in Chicago. There are fat people everywhere.