How I felt breathing Pac. Northwest air upon exiting the plane from China. Picture credit to opwellness.com.

That first breath of fresh, good smelling air as I stepped off the plane was fantastic.  That glorious fresh air really helped to make it sink in that I had just been in China and that I was home, in the Pacific Northwest.  Noticing the expanse of short houses spread for mile after mile helped release the crowded feeling that the giant concrete skyscrapers and dense crowds of people had instilled in me while in China. No longer were sites blocked by skyscraper after skyscraper but mountains could be seen many miles in the distance.

The 4 hour layover at the airport was spent going through customs, baggage claim, then going back through security and getting a boarding pass to my connecting flight. This process took at least an hour but when I finally made my way to my gate I was so exhausted that I couldn’t keep my eyes open and passed out for about an hour.  Upon boarding that last plane I was excited that the long journey back from China was nearly over and soon I would eat an American meal followed by falling asleep in a comfortable bed in a house, not hotel.

Once I fell asleep that night, I didn’t really wake up until 16 hours later.  It was already 2:00 in the afternoon, which is extremely sleeping in for me, before I crawled out of bed and after only 5 hours of being awake I was ready to go back to sleep.  This pattern of sleeping much more than being awake continued for at least 2 days upon which I realized I was getting sick and continued to sleep more than wake for another 3 days.  Eventually I was able to watch movies all day without taking a nap, finally signifying that I’d caught up on sleep and the cold was receding.   Unfortunately with becoming functional again it meant that I had to go back to work and paying bills (aka reality).

2 weeks after arriving back in the United states I’m finally back to eating American meals, not talking about China continually, sleeping at regular hours of the night and trying to instill those great memories of China into my mind forever. It was a journey of a lifetime. I learned a lot about myself and the world around me and think I’ve become a better person for it.  Life is a journey in improving oneself and I greatly think that a journey out of your home country is an irreplaceable adventure.

An American burger, one of the few foods I craved upon returning to America.