An Appetite for Adventure

After 16-hours of door-to-door travel, a not-so-bad two flights on China Eastern airlines, one viewing of Stallone classic Demolition Man and 200-pages of Foreign Babes in Beijing, the fiance and I made it back unscathed to our country of origin. We currently rest our weary bones and decompress just south of Los Angeles, cozily welcomed by Sean’s family. Although we’ve only been back just shy of 30 hours, We’ve already compiled a list of American things for which we’re grateful and Chinese things which we miss (in no particular order).

What I already miss about China:

• Great cell phone reception for less than $10 a month (not to mention no contracts)
• $0.25 bottles of soda
• My electric bicycle
• Being able to eat a feast for $3 or less
• The exchange rate
• Cheap subway rides ($0.25) on clean modern subways
• The fact that a 35-minute taxi ride costs less than $10
• Cheap rent
• Chuanr
• My best friend, Emily
• All my other friends still in China
• The little baby girl growing up right next door to us
• Crazy Dogs
• The Wudaokou Beer Garden
• Cheap bootleg DVDs
• REAL Chinese food (esp. Peking duck)
• Coitus Maximus
• The fact that I’m missing the Great Wall Beach Party
• My Chinese class
• Sundays on Top with Patrick Yu
• That you can usually haggle a better price for anything
• Not getting to practice Chinese on a daily basis

What’s awesome about being back in America:

• No squatting toilets!!!!!!!!!
• Not having to carry around your own toilet paper with you everywhere
• Voicemail
• That spitting is considered disgusting and unhygienic
• Avocados
• In-n-Out burgers (ok, this is just one thing that rocks about being in Cali)
• No time difference hassle when I want to call people
• Uncensored movies
• More than 12 TV stations (with only one in English)
• People not staring at me like I’m a curiosity
• Sour patch kids
• Pollution levels nowhere near as bad as Beijing (even in LA)
• Subway rides without cell phone service (people screaming into their phones)
• Not always worrying you are getting ripped off
• Wine and cheese
• Seeing much missed fam and friends
• Being able to have a conversation with someone about anything without having to grasp for vocabulary (also known as: Everyone speaks English!)
• People saying “excuse me” and just generally being polite

The best thing about being back in the USA: MY BLOG IS ACCESSIBLE!

I’ll have some more up on our last few days in China over the next week. Stay tuned!