I read about this concept called: "Topophilia" today.

It's defined as the affective bond with one's environment-a person's mental, emotional, and cognitive ties to a place, and environment.

In other words, it is the warm feelings you get from a place. It is a vivid, emotional, and personal experience, and it leads to unexplainable affections.

Another piece of quote from the article: "If the smell of a fresh-cooked pie, the sound of a train whistle at night, or the feeling of a crisp autumn wind evokes a visceral memory of a particular place, you are experiencing a synesthetic tendency."

Today, 3 days before visiting my family and Xi'an, the city I spent 8 years in. I found myself looking up the weather on my arrival day and imagining myself walking in the neighborhood that I lived and went to schools in;
Talking to the shop owners in the dialect that I just can't resist being affected by however hard I try to speak standard mandarin;
Taking crowded early morning bus and going underneath one of the gates in our city wall with students in school uniforms that I could probably even recognize;
Breathing the dry air that had always caused me flu at least once every winter....

It's no longer home, but it's probably my "Topophilia" place and where the "synesthetic tendency" happens

Oh and I probably do miss the noodles a lot, who doesn't love our noodles!

Very often I can't distinguish well between the feelings of missing a place, missing some people there, missing my time there in the past, fear of missing out on what that place has to offer in the future, or simply my younger self in the past?