My overland return to Nanjing went about as well as could be expected. My bags were so heavy that the 150RMB cab ride from Pudong to Hengfeng Lu bus station in Shanghai felt worth it. The cold rain and my unfamiliarity with the surroundings even made the 200RMB price of the sleeper bus to Nanjing bearable. I stepped up the stairs, took off my shoes, put them in a little red plastic bag, and took my place in a small bunk, one of I think twenty-four on the bus. Uncomfortably reclining, I heard the ticket man telling a woman that I (the lao wei) had paid 200 kuai…but for her he’d only charge 100. I didn’t care. I was just relieved to catch a ride out of town. As we rode along in the dimly lit darkness of the highway and I looked past the Chow Yun Fat movie playing on the monitor hanging down from the underside of the bunk above me, I watched the driver and his two co-workers, sitting next to him, talk with each other in a relaxed way. As I nodded off into semi-consciousness, they began to sound to me as if they were speaking English, maybe chatting about a ballgame, complaining about the weather. Back in Shanghai, when I’d asked if the bus was going to Nanjing, the ticket man conferred with the driver and then finally said that it was. He mentioned the huochezhan, the train station, and then said, in English, “You take taxi.” Shortly after we entered Nanjing’s city limits, the driver pulled alongside the road. His assistant waved me to the front and hopped off the bus, hailing a cab. I put on my shoes and followed. Outside, he handed over some money to cover my fare, said something, and left. He seemed sheepish, as if he was sorry to be leaving me on the side of the road on a cold, rainy night, and didn’t know what to say. When I gave the cabbie my address, he said that he was only given enough money to go to the train station. “Wo you kuai.” was as close as I could get to saying that I had money. He rubbed his fingers together. I showed him a 100RMB note. Twenty minutes and 28RMB later I was at the West Gate of the university, staggering under my luggage the final five hundred yards or so to my apartment. When I had left Boston, it was 10am on February 13th. Opening my door in Nanjing, it was just after midnight on February 15th. It’s as far as it seems.