It's been some weeks since I got around to posting here, but it's been pretty hectic. In the end, I got all my stuff packed up and got home pretty smoothly (with the exception of some time spent with immigration sorting out my visa. There's a symmetry there though. After all the problems I had getting my visa in the first place...) and now I'm back home.
It feels a little weird and for the last few days I've had to hold myself back from saying
Xie Xie instead of Thank You, just out of reflex. And when Ramie asked me if the ice cream truck driving by was my cell phone ringing, I almost told her that it was the garbage truck. I guess some things I got really used to...
People and things are bigger than I remember. 64 oz mugs of coffee and whatnot. But also there are flocks of birds around and migrating geese! Lakes and blue skies and the air doesn't smell like exhaust and smoke from burning ghost money. Even on I-75 coming into Detroit, while driving by the big smoking incinerator
with the windows down I could only detect the slightest hint. That's saying a lot! I adjusted to Taiwan alright. And ah, the weather. 84 degrees, sunny, humid (or that's what people keep telling me anyway...feels dry as a bone to me, my lips are even chapped pretty bad!) but I'm not sweating. For the first time in a few months I'm outside walking in the sun without constantly leaking.
It's beautiful. It's good to be home.
