So I’m home now. Jet-laggy and culture shocked. I’ll write about that in a bit, but I first want to write about my last few days in Lin’an.
With just six days left after my Hangzhou bash, I had finally reached the center of my onion. I had been peeling the layers down closer and closer to home, and now I had arrived at the heart of it all.
Then came my last little party. There is a cafe/bar in Lin’an that we have been going to for years. We call it Ping’s (after the owner) and it seemed only fitting that we had one more late night party there. So after dinner, my co-workes and I walk over. School was over and the students were gone, but several of “my babies,” are living and working in Lin’an so they were coming too.
Only, when we got to the door, it was locked and the place was dark. During the summer most shops close, but I didn’t think our beloved Ping’s would close! Luckily, like I said we are regulars and friends with everyone that works there, so we called one of them up and she came to open it just for us. We had to plug everything back in, and she actually had to go to another bar to get us drinks, but we helped cleaned up and overpaid at the end of the night, and anyway, she’s more of a friend so I hope she wasn’t too annoyed.
You probably think that I was getting sadder and sadder as the days went by. But I’m a traveler by nature and once I pack my bags I’m ready and eager to move on. Plus, at this point I had been saying goodbye for almost a month, and I just didn’t have it in me to keep up this sustained sense of sadness. Call me cold-hearted, but I was ready to move on.
And that was that. I woke up at 3am, for a ride to the airport and 24 hours later I was landing in New York City, jet-lagged and exhausted (can’t sleep on the plane.)
After five years my Lin’an adventure is officially over. It was unexpected (I came for only 6-months, not intending to make a life in china) and it has changed me forever. It is a great place. But the road is calling and a new adventure awaits.
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