American freed by North Korea thanks U.S., wants pizza

SEATTLE – Rest, food and family are on the top of Kenneth Bae’s list since arriving home last weekend after years of imprisonment in North Korea.

His sister said he hasn’t spoken about his ordeal yet.

Family and friends reconnected late Saturday night over pizza.

“Our family loves food so we talked a lot about food,” said Terri Chung. They didn’t ask him a lot of questions. “We mostly wanted to hear from him.”

She said he had one stipulation for his first meal back home: no Korean food.

“He said, ‘I don’t want Korean food, that’s all I’ve been eating for the last two years,’ ” Chung said Sunday outside her Seattle church.

Bae and Matthew Miller, another American who had been held captive in North Korea, landed Saturday night at Joint Base-Lewis-McChord after a top U.S. intelligence official secured their release.

“It’s been an amazing two years, I learned a lot, I grew a lot, I lost a lot of weight,” Bae, a Korean-American missionary with health problems, said Saturday night. Asked how he was feeling, he said, “I’m recovering at this time.”

Bae, surrounded by family members, spoke briefly to the media after the plane carrying him and Miller landed. He thanked President Barack Obama and the people who supported him and his family. He also thanked the North Korean government for releasing him.

His family has said he suffers from diabetes, an enlarged heart, liver problems and back pain.

Chung said Bae was in better shape when he arrived than his family expected. She said he had spent about six weeks in a North Korean hospital before he returned.

His plans for the near future include rest and food and reconnecting with friends and family. Neither his wife nor his children could make it to Seattle in time for Bae’s homecoming, his sister said.

They plan to gather the whole family together for Thanksgiving, she said.

Members of Bae’s family, who live near the sprawling military base south of Seattle, had met him when he landed. His mother hugged him after he got off the plane.

U.S. officials said Miller, of Bakersfield, California, and Bae, of Lynnwood, Washington, flew back with James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. Clapper was the highest-ranking American to visit Pyongyang in more than a decade.

Bae and Miller were the last two Americans held captive by the reclusive communist country.

Speaking Sunday, Chung said her brother was staying with family and enjoyed visiting with his loved ones upon his return.

“He was cut off from all of that for two years,” she said. “His only contacts were his guard, and maybe doctors and a handful of times the Swedish embassy.”

Chung said her brother “bears no ill will” over his ordeal.