Shanghai'd

We are back home now.

It's strange to call Shanghai 'home'. It sure feels like home, falling into our bed in our immaculately clean house (will I ever have a maid again? or be able to live without one?) Saturday night after a very long trip back, which included three connections - back over the Himalaya (more views of spectacular Everest and surrounding mountains) to Lhasa, then through the fated Chengdu airport before arriving on time in Pudong. Waking up to normal at home breakfast. Running around Century Park. Avoiding Carrefour on Sunday like the plague, and making due with bread store, veg market, and fruit truck stops. A delicious dimsum lunch. But all of this with the backdrop of knowing Shanghai will only be home for the next 4 weeks exactly.

Our tickets are booked, and November 24 is the day, we are flying home home. Austin, TX via Redmond, OR (for T-day with E&E, C&B) on a one-way United flight out of China. It will probably not be the last time we make that flight, at least we like to hope so now. I don't think I could live the rest of my life without xiaolongbao, or naicha, or hotpot. Which is why, starting now, we are on a quest to savour all those favorite things one more time, and store a little memory of them deep inside, to dig out later and overpower the taxi memories and weather memories and air quality memories as we are booking another trip out here sometime in the future.

That next ticket, most likely, will not be one-way. And so, with the knowledge that this is our last time to live here, we start on our list; while we are counting down the seconds until the trip home home, we will try to make every second count.