The Comedown

So after being home for almost 4 days now, life is slowly getting back to where they left off in early Nov with daily americanos. I have not done a whole lot, just unpacked and started to sort through the pics and starting to process/play with the photos so they look better.

I have not really been in the mode to deal with so called 'life' just yet. Good thing Jenn has taken care of most of the holiday stuff for us, as I am in no mode to deal with it right now. We had three holiday parties to go to yesterday, which was tough but manageable. The last one thrown by my 70+ year old friend Nathan Louie who Jenn and I met at a MACLA volunteer event. Nathan is a great guy and I was never been able to attend any of his parties. The house and people that were at the part made it pretty interesting. The house was PACKED with everything you can imagine, from animals heads on the wall, to random picture of white guys on the wall, buddhas from a few inches to 3 or 4 feet tall, clocks galore, the bathroom was something else , it was filled with all kinds of blinking lights and wall decorations with bright neon lights...pure craziness and something made me think I was in some sort of movie set. The 50-60 plus crowd of people consisted of older white people and chinese of all ages. Nathan is friends with a lot of the chinese students who come to SJSU to study. So we got to mix and mingle with them. Also met Kurt, who just got back from studying chinese in Beijing for 2 years. It always trips me out when you see white guys speaking fluent mandarin, that was Kurt yesterday speaking with the chinese students. The school sounded interesting and intense, I think one of the only ways I will be able to learn the language.

A few things really tripped me out when I got back home. First trip out of the house was to Ranch 99, in which pretty much everyone there speaks mandarin and some almost look down to you if you don't speak it (which includes me). Reminded me of Thailand and Vietnam, as most people in both of those countries think I am either thai or vietnamese with some chinese background. Cambodians pretty much knew I was not cambodian (most likely cause most are darker than me). Also people tripped out when I say I am from California and don't speak chinese! Something I need to correct here.

Starting on the photos, getting daily updates from Lou on the rest of his trip, and having to deal with the holiday shopping madness makes me wish I stayed just a few weeks longer and makes the comedown from a 5.5 week travel that much tougher. As Sonny said 'he goes through listening to me bitch for about 2 weeks til I am back to normal'. I also think anything from a 4 week to 3 month trip is a good amount of time to fully endulge in a culture. After chatting with some folks that were making the year around the world trip, I am not sure if thats for me anymore. Mentally its got to be tough, maybe when I was a little younger and had less worries.

Starting to make my ways through the photos brings back lots of memories like they were just last week. Getting back into the swing of things will slowly some around, especially with work starting back up tomorrow. For now, I can try to make those life's changes that I think about when abroad and hope I don't fall back into the rut here back at home!