There's No Place Like Home

Day 21: Hui Jia (Return Home)

Journey's End

It is nice to be back home. A little weird, after 3 weeks of being away, but very nice. As a side note, all told we saw a total of probably 3 western toilets on our trip. Just FYI. If the Chinese can do it, so can foreigners!! (As I told my Dad, learning to use a squatty is pretty much a pass/fail course) The biggest adventure this morning was catching the train. So we figured we would have plenty of time to get there if we left an hour before our train. What we weren't figuring on was the amount of traffic. After a harrowing 50-min. taxi ride to the train station, we got in and booked it to the waiting room with just a few minutes to spare. Goodbyes had to be hasty, unfortunately, but we did make it onto the train. This was Mei's first time in a hard seat so I think she was a little surprised by how crowded everything was. I've seen worse. The ride itself wasn't bad, only about 4 1/2 hours. We got to Jinan and were going to find me a train back to Tai'an from there but I don't think they could've fit many more people into the ticket booking hall if they tried, and this is in China! They were valiantly making an effort at lines, though, so I applaud them for that. We opted instead for a bus, since the "long-distance" (p-shaw) bus station is just across from the train station. So after a little over an hour on the bus, I was finally back in Tai'an!!! It felt so good to be back. The only thing that really irked me was all these people coming up to me saying, "hello! hello!" "Tai Shan?" "Taxi?" Even when I said I didn't want it, they didn't leave me alone. I was getting so fed up with that, having put up with more than normal amounts of it for the past 3 weeks, that I just about lost my temper and started going off on them. Or swinging my suitcase or something. That would've taken them. But I controlled myself, even though I just about starting spouting off in English. I just walked to our little bus station (public transportation....gotta love it) and took the bus back to my apartment. It is really good to be back home.

And thus ends my lovely adventures in Yunnan, China, with a semi-eventful trip back to the cold air of the North. Ahhhhhhhh...... (that was a sigh, not a scream)