Back inside the wall

Posted Tuesday, February 6, 2007 at 11:16 a.m. by Chris Amico in Roadside Blogging

Sometime after midnight, the Oriental Pearl II steamed across the East Sea, slipping past North Korea while the lights were turned out, and delivered me back into the Middle Kingdom.

My Korean furlough is officially over. For now.

I'm sure I'll be back at some point. I met too many good people and left too much undone, like eating dog and live octopus. And, well, I had fun. Seoul is a remarkable city, wired and electrifying. Time moved too quickly there.

For all my occasional griping about China, I've missed the place. I spent many, too many, late nights on this laptop with my usual daily read of China blogs and China news. Korea kept me busy, but China kept me fascinated.

Dandong greeted us with a blue sky and warm winter weather. I'm staying here tonight catching up with friends who helped get me out of this country a month ago and just enjoying not having anywhere I need to be. I meant to head down to Dalian today, but that can wait. It doesn't sound like anybody's there at the moment, anyway.

Regardless, it's great to be back.

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Comments:

feb 8, 2007 at 4:49 a.m. // 花崗齋雜記 said:

Welcome back to the Motherland, Chris. Please check your lungs at the gate.

feb 8, 2007 at 5:06 a.m. // Chris said:

Thanks man, it was a rough first day on the breathing front. Dalian is definitely cleaner than Dandong, but "cleaner" still isn't what I like to call "clean." And I'm planning to head to Beijing this weekend...what am I thinking?

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