Finally I am feeling normal a few weeks after I came back home.

Before I left Mountain View I kept telling people that I would be absolutely fine when I got back to the place where I have stayed for over 20 years. I was wrong though. I got sick even before I disembarked the plane and was almost quaranteened as a SARS suspect in HK. Then I went back to my hometown in the southwest but I was so allergic to the air full of construction dust and unburned gas that I fell sick the next day and my nose was on and off for over a week. I could only comfort myself by saying that by the time I go back to CA I will be immuned to virtually anything.

For someone with over two decades of experience the humidity still rules: I feel exhausted without air conditioning, so does my wife. I had respiratory problems at younger ages and I thought I was cured, but I could definately feel the same thing during the first few days. No wonder my father is showing some simptoms of my childhood disease. Industrial pollution from local factories is much less after these years, but since the entire city is under construction thanks to the improved finacing, the air is unbelievable. When the plane was descending and approaching the airport, I could not see anything for about 5 minutes and then realized all of a sudden that we are only 300 meters above the ground @@.