Although we are not looking forward to more than 16 hours of traveling, several interesting things happened on our way home. Hong Kong airport is huge, and a delight to go through—well marked, very organized, clean, etc. We had no problems with the process of getting the first leg of our journey started to Tokyo (JAL airlines). Like Beijing and Shanghai the only delay was waiting on the runway as there are hundreds of planes.

In the airport lounge in Tokyo, Jim found some Shiatsu massage chairs. These were way better than anything we’ve sat in at Brookstone or the former Sharper image. I want one to bring home!! Besides really massaging your back, neck, head and shoulders, it also constantly massaged your calves and legs—a welcome relief from all the walking and hard work our legs did on this trip. Ah, oo, ah, oo...

A very long 13 hour trip later was made just a bit longer by the fact that when we arrived at Logan, it took 30 minutes to attach the jetway to the plane. Must have been an intern on his first day at the job or something.

Everything is fine at home (except an empty refrigerator). After all the unpacking, laundry, food shopping, answering emails, etc. we are looking forward to putting some final thoughts into this blog and processing this incredible trip. It was quite unbelievable how much we covered, traveled through the country and especially how much we learned about the history, culture and people of China.