This is the last post in which I will be newly, or at least, relatively newly, Indonesian. Maybe I’ll be able to send a lack-of-sleep-addled update from Hong Kong. Maybe I’ll have just finished careening with the tip of my plane wing over a blown-up volcanic island full of skyscrapers. Maybe. I’ve heard that, in Hong Kong, this is how it happens. 28 hours of flying, but this time, alone. I’ll have to climb over two strangers to use the bathroom instead of one stranger and a rather less obliging Nick. We’re separating, but most of you already know this.

I leave the Hong Kong airport on Tuesday, 11:36 a.m. I get into Chicago O’Hare on Tuesday, 11:45 a.m. My flight takes nine minutes. I will see the sun streak at double speed overhead, as opposed to landing in Taipei, when we chased it, and it took hours to rise. Literally hours.

Goodbye:
riding on the left front side of cars without driving
spatters of red spit everywhere from betel-nut-chewers, looking like people have been slaughtering cows in the road
the immediate threat of bird flu
filthy, beautiful, distanced presence of the ocean
11-year-old students who have crushes on me
being called 'mister'
MSG in everything
14 dollar blocks of Kraft-quality cheese
grumpy photocopy ladies
driving a motorcycle at what feels like 80 miles an hour, but is actually only about 30
random requests for money for everything from sitting on a hill to picking up a letter at the post office
taxis with pictures of Britney Spears on the seats
people who can't comprehend not having a religion
strangers nervously whispering 'good evening' to me at 10 a.m.
red rambutan, yellow rambutan, brown rambutan, green rambutan, and the man who sells it
having absurd roleplays with supremely religious students in which they have to pretend to be cheating on their wife/husband
students saying 'God damn it' and, when questioned, explaining that in English this is a more polite way of saying 'oh no'
mango trees