Home

I am home at last.

I just wandered shanghai for my last day of travel. Bought some stuff and ate some stuff. Stupid annoying pushy shanghai salespeople, some would actually grab my arm and pull me towards their shop.

I can never deny how amazing Chinese food is. I will miss it. Now I must search for an equal quality version in Edmonton.

A view from the sky on the descent to Edmonton. Canada is so beautiful in summer.

Homecoming Canadian meal! Maybe not a world class food, but I will never tire of homemade burgers and corn.

Biking around St Albert (my real hometown) I am shocked at its calm beauty after being in these busy Asian cities for so long. I think it's called reverse culture shock

Now it's time to reintegrate into Canada, find a job and such. You can stop reading here if you want, I will just say some philosophical stuff about what I learned. Hope you enjoyed my email blog! I might summarize it and post it to a website or something

People always say how I'm lucky to live here, but it's never been more clear to me than now. We don't always appreciate how wealthy we are here. To quote a German fellow I met in Malaysia: "we are from wealthy countries, even if the government raises taxes by 5-10% we will still be wealthy, we don't have to worry about the government killing us for saying the wrong things." Being Canadian, I can travel to nearly any country in the world and be welcomed, and afford to visit the country. Which is really special compared to a place like the Philippines, where even working very hard for years may not save enough money to travel for more than a couple weeks in a western country, and that's if you can even get approved(let alone afford) a visa.

Health and safety wise, here I don't have to worry about malaria or dengue fever when I get a mosquito bite, I don't have to worry about earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis, only the occasional flood or tornado or extreme cold. And the water is safe to drink :)

And lastly here is my favorite quote that I saw these months: "traveling is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer"

Bye

Brendan