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Originally uploaded by Justin Masterson.

I am writing this from the comfort of my living room, back here in the good ol' US-of-A.

(I feel like I should give my best Toby Keith sneer when I say "US-of-A." And then maybe there should be beer).

My trip to China was incredible. I lived as a minority in a city older than my own language. I ate food that my culture would eschew as dangerous, or gross or pets. I got to spend time in the homes of very kind and very polite people with deep spiritual convictions, intense dedication to family values, and a household yearly income lower than my monthly salary. I walked the streets and talked with the people and bought a handbag for my wife. I loved my time there as a tourist, as an outsider, and as a curious observer.

One thing I learned is that getting into China is much, much easier than getting out of China. Do you remember how they tell you to get to the airport 3 hours before an international flight, and how you always wonder why when you get through customs and security and still have 2 hours and 45 minutes left to wait?

Apparently, China is the reason they made that rule.

Greg and I got there 2.5 hours before our flight. We spent the first 20 minutes or so being misdirected to several locations in the huge Pudong airport by airport-staff who meant well, but who had apparently been hired some time that morning. Once finding the proper check-in site, we were able to breeze up to the front of the line in about ten minutes. Upon getting to the front of the line, we were greeted by a very smiley and very polite Korean Air woman, who, while very kind, wasn't really in a great position to do business with a couple of Americans trying to get back home.

(Please don't hear this as me being angry at her...we are the Americans who don't speak her language...and she tried very hard to speak ours. She worked very hard to make it work, but it didn't).

After she had called over another woman and checked in our bags to make sure they would follow us to Seoul, then Los Angeles, then Laguardia, then finally to Cincinnati, we began the process of explaining that we were not, in fact, going to LAX or Laguardia, which began a good 15-minute conversation on how Chicago and New York are not the same place, and that CVG (Cincinnati's airport) and PVG (Seoul's airport), despite having similar 3-letter-codes, have several important geographical differences.

I'm still not sure where she got the Los Angeles part from.

After we had sorted out the bag-destination piece, she sent me to the counter where I was meant to pay for the baggage-shipping. This counter was manned by one very very old lady and five teenagers who, it can be presumed, were there as some sort of detention. I waited in line until I got to the front, where I watched a very nervous-looking girl try unsuccessfully to fill out the required baggage paperwork. Several times. Nine, actually. Nine times. She tried nine times. I counted. Nine. There were no computers, so when I say "paperwork," I mean ancient-looking Chinese-government forms which must be filled out in triplicate in Chinese. She would work through each set of three forms all the way before deciding something about them wasn't working for her, then crumple and throw away and start over. Nine times. 30 minutes. Watching her fill out one form.

When she finally had filled it out to her satisfaction, she passed it to the very old woman, who I gather was a cashier. The old woman looked at the ticket and handed it back to the girl, muttering something in Chinese.

The girl threw the form away and started over.

She must have gotten it right on the tenth try, because the old woman took the form, read it over, and pulled out an abacus. As in, "welcome to the museum of natural history, please take a moment to look at this abacus and marvel at its ancientness. Now, on to the stalactite collection..." I'll give you, she was a whiz at the abacus, but still. She wrote out my receipt in Chinese and sent me on my way.

I returned to the counter, where they promptly sent me to security to verify that my electric toothbrush was not a bomb. It was, in fact, not.

We jumped on the plane and went to Seoul. It was a great flight, and very relaxing. Somewhere around midnight, we got off the plane in Seoul and headed out the gate to the "Transit Hotel" which is a hotel cleverly built into the airport, intended to allow international travelers who are simply laying over in Seoul to a place to rest without having to collect their bags and go through customs and immigration.

Aaah, the best laid plans of mice and men...

Apparently, when they built the transit hotel into the Incheon International Airport, they neglected to tell the staff of the Incheon International Airport that they had built the transit hotel. The woman whose job it was to make sure we got directed to the right place had actually never heard of the transit hotel, which was weird because it was her job to send people there. She even had a list of people who had reserved rooms in the hotel in her hand, which ended up becoming the focal point of a very confusing debate between us and her as to whether or not the hotel exists. (She maintains no).

She sent us through immigration (despite a letter in my hand from the hotel which says "DO NOT GO THROUGH IMMIGRATION OR CUSTOMS") and out to Customs before we finally got fed up enough to find someone else to help us. By the fourth person we asked about the hotel, we finally found someone who had heard of it. As it turns out, it's right next to the gate. Aaaaah. Damn sneaky hotel. 90 minutes after beginning our quest to get to our "easy and convenient" hotel, we were able to convince the one employee left in the airport at 1:30 in the morning to allow us through to the hotel. I tried to sleep that night...but honestly, I was pissed enough that I didn't sleep. I did, however, watch the movie "Honey," with Jessica Alba, which, mercifully, had all of its dialogue over-dubbed in Korean.

The rest of the trip home was relatively peaceful, with another magnficent flight on Korean Air. I was sick for the last few days of my visit, and knocked myself out with cold medicine for most of the flight, but my few waking hours were spent munching on great Korean food and playing Tetris with Greg. (He came out the big winner...won twice as many as I did in the end). I got home somewhere around 3:30 on Friday, exhausted and very, very grateful for my trip.

As wonderful as the trip was, though, I will tell you that I'm very, very happy to be home. Upon my return, I got home, fired off a couple of quick emails, and joyously waited for Stacy to get home. She had cleaned the entire house, and made me my very favorite dinner, which was entirely meat-and-potatoes, and undeniably American. She made my favorite dessert and even lit candles. It was magic. I hit the couch immediately afterward, and have slept for 26 of the last 44 hours.

I will upload the final pics Greg and I took (mostly Greg, he has the nice camera) to the ol' Flickr account shortly, and hopefully share a couple more stories. Thanks for prayers and interest throughout my trip...it was really great knowing that my friends back here in the States were following the journey; it made home feel close, and that was very good. I look forward to having slideshows, and catching up on what's going on here. A week's not a long time to be gone...but I was very far away, and really out of touch with American media...so you'll have to let me know if anything really crazy happened.

It's been a fun journey. Thanks for being a part of it. I may head back in April for some follow-up work...I'll keep you posted.

Peace,
Justin