I’m on American soil once again after my flight from Beijing landed about 90 minutes ago. Going through customs was a relative breeze, though the luggage carousel stalled for about 10 minutes, boosting my blood pressure in the process. By the time I’d gotten my bags the earlier flight to Raleigh had already boarded. Its a good thing I opted in advance to take the 8:50 flight.

The flight was smooth and mostly uneventful. We were 30 minutes outside of Newark when I was absent-mindedly gazing out at the hills of upstate New York. I caught myself thinking – with no explanation – that now if anything happened to the plane at least I’d be on American soil.

The next thing out of my mouth was “oh shit!” The plane had just began banking toward Newark when a small corporate jet passed right in front of us! I’d guess there was less than two miles between us. If it weren’t for altitude separation rules we may have collided. I don’t know if our pilot saw the approaching plane since we were in the middle of a turn.

We took a more westerly route back to America, passing west until Korea before we headed north. Once we had crossed the International Date Line, I popped open the window shade and was treated to a nice surprise. The arora borealis was active on the left side of the plane, painting the dark sky with a glowing green curtain. It was my first ever glimpse of this eerily beautiful phenomenon.

I’ve got an hour before my plane boards so I’ll have some time to check up on email and the like before finally getting home around 11. Yay!