On the very last night of our trip, in between finding our hostel (located in the Mirador Mansions, a building in the mold of, and neighbor to, the infamous Chungking Mansions) and repacking our souvenirs for the airport, we met up with some family and friends for one final Chinese-style banquet. The food was delicious, and everything seemed familiar and nostalgic, even dishes that were new to us, like the delicate little puff pastries filled with tender pork.

The meal, and the expat audience, provided the perfect opportunity to reflect on our experiences. They asked us all the questions we were prepared for (Were we sad to go? Were we happy to be done with the hostels and trains? Yes to both.) and some we weren't (Would New York really satisfy us after seeing the streets of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo? We couldn't be sure, but so far the answer is a resolute yes!). They also asked the most incisive questions about what sort of things we had learned from our travels, what kind of thoughts would we be taking away with us.

While we were talking, I realized that the way our trip had most deeply influenced me was in seeing differences in attitudes towards physical possessions. In many places that we visited, consumer goods are scarce, nothing is considered disposable, and every resource is used and reused to its absolute limit. In others, anything imaginable can be bought, but consumers are reserved in their purchasing habits and tend to prefer owning fewer, more durable items. Still others are more similar to America's own culture of conspicuous consumption and disposable goods. The same held true for edible goods: how about a hand-raised peach, sold for $12 and wrapped in swaths of non-recyclable plastic, compared to chicken feet from a chicken raised in a backyard and used to make stock before being eaten?

I am still looking for the right balance between these attitudes in my own life, so these observations were very valuable to me, even though I still haven't fully absorbed their implications months after returning home.

We continued to linger over our discussion after dinner at Honeymoon Desserts, which specializes in sweet fruit and jelly soups. I had vanilla ice cream in a mango-pomello soup, while Greg had this green tea ice cream in a vanilla soup with something that I suspect is basil seeds. The menu doesn't specify and our friends' theory was tapioca, but either way, they added a pleasant variety of texture to the sweet, refreshing soup.