Guns

I was walking to the market today with my nose buried in my phone screen. I suddenly looked up and found myself two feet away from a man holding a giant long black gun, staring at me. I immediately put together that he was only there to guard the money being put into a bank next door, but my initial reaction was to smile at the man and stare directly back. How strange.

Clouds

Before I had ever visited China, several people who had been had mentioned to me how one of the strangest things was the sky. How -- if you really looked closely, you could tell that it was a different shade of blue than we were used to. But I found myself walking slowly through town today and staring, squinting at the sky.. and it reminded me exactly of the same sky I've always know. Same exact blue. I had a flashback of laying on the itchy grass in my front yard when I was very little, and making animals and messages out of the clouds. They are still the same as I remember them, in China or America. And, in the midst of my homesickness, that commonality is extremely comforting.