…And We’re Back!

Well, we made it back safe and sound in Ya’an after a fantastic visit with family and friends back home. It was so hard to keep our visit a secret, but so worth it to experience everyone’s reactions. And Texas provided me with a much-needed dosage of sunshine, Mexican food, and Western toilets, which was just wonderful.

As far as the actual travel went, I spent our 14-and-a-half hour flight wishing we had the means to fly first class and wondering what it must be like not to sit in a middle seat for 14 hours. When we landed in Tokyo, we had barely enough time to clear the super-long line at the entry customs (or whatever that’s called). We made our flight, though, thanks to the nice lady from the airline (who we spotted because of her sign with our flight number on it) who ran with us all the way to the gate while telling the people in the walkie-talkie not to leave us. And that was the beginning of the best flying experience I’ve ever had.

Seriously, All Nippon Airways (ANA) is awesome. If I ever manage to visit Japan, which I totally want to now, I will fly with them. First of all, the flight wasn’t full, which is a rare and wonderful thing in itself. Our flight from Chengdu to Tokyo wasn’t full, either, so I’m really surprised they run it at all, since it can’t be terribly profitable… But I digress. Shortly after takeoff, we received a hot towel, which was incredibly refreshing considering that we’d just hopped off a 14-hour flight. The in-flight meal was excellent. It didn’t taste or look like something you’d get on an airplane at all. It was served bento-style, which I love the idea of, since it provides a lot of variety while preventing overeating. For the main course, I got this crab and egg sushi thing, which sounded pretty weird, but was actually awesome. It was real crab, too, not that krab stuff. There was also a shrimp and seaweed salad, steamed veggies in light soy sauce, a piece of smoked salmon sushi, and fresh kiwi and pineapple. The meal was finished off with a little marzipan dessert and green tea. Yum! Oh! And we got actual metal silverware to eat with, which I thought was really cool. The flight attendants were really nice and they made small talk with me (in English), and the other patrons on the flight seemed to be in good spirits, too. All of that made that seven-hour flight really enjoyable. So after I spent the previous 14 hours wishing for a first-class flying experience, I got one, but in economy class! Yay

Now, as I mentioned earlier, I really want to go to Japan. On our way to Texas, we got to run around in the airport for a little while, and it was actually really fun. I realize it’s an airport, which is not a reflection of the rest of the country, but hey, it’s all I know (for now…). Also, if Japanese airplane food is as awesome as what I had, I’m stoked to try real Japanese food! I don’t know when we’ll be able to make it to Japan, but hopefully we can do that while we’re living on this side of the world. I’ll start saving now.

So, aside from having my first truly enjoyable travel experience, we’ve just been doing a lot of hanging out in Ya’an. We found a good deal on tickets to Shanghai for Chinese New Year, so we took a spontaneous trip there. That deserves its own post, though, so I’ll have to get on that after I put the pictures and videos (from my new, super-awesome ultraportable video camera which was a Christmas gift from my (super-awesome) mother-in-law) on the computer. I also have some pictures from the wedding we went to today. It was pretty much just like a Western wedding, but with WAY more food. It was six hours ago and I am nowhere near hungry. I love Sichuan food. And on Monday, we leave for In-Service Training (IST) with the Peace Corps in Chengdu for two weeks. I’m looking forward to doing the tourist thing in Chengdu since we didn’t get to do that too much during PST. After that, we’ll start getting ready for the Spring Semester, which starts on February 27th, so I should have a lot to write about in the next few weeks. Let’s hope I’m more diligent about blogging than I have been lately!