American freed by DPRK asked for pizza

Kenneth Bae and his mother Myung Hee Bae embrace as they reunite after he landed aboard a US Air Force jet at McChord Field at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington November 8, 2014. DRPK freed two Americans, Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller, from prison and they returned to the United States on Saturday. [Photo/Agencies]

SEATTLE - Kenneth Bae arrived home after two years of imprisonment in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), expressing his gratitude to the US government for securing his release and revealing that his time there offered lessons.

And his sister said that 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,'" Terri Chung said Sunday outside her Seattle church. "We had a late night eating pizza."

Bae and Matthew Miller, another American who had been held captive in DPRK, landed Saturday night at a Washington state military base after a top US 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 at Joint Base-Lewis-McChord 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.

"I just want to say thank you all for supporting me and standing by me," Bae said. 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.

"That helped. As you know, he had gone back and forth between the labor camp and hospital," she said.

She said he was checked out by a doctor on the flight back to the United States.

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 back to Seattle in time for Bae's homecoming, his sister said.

They plan to gather the whole family together for the Thanksgiving holiday in late November, 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. Miller stepped off the US government aircraft a short time later and also was greeted with hugs.

US officials said Miller of Bakersfield, California, and Bae of Lynnwood, Washington state, 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 was serving a 15-year sentence for alleged anti-government activities. He was detained in 2012 while leading a tour group to a DPRK economic zone.

Last month, DPRK released Jeffrey Fowle of Miamisburg, Ohio, who was held for nearly six months. He had left a Bible in a nightclub in the hope that it would reach DRPK's underground Christian community.

Speaking Sunday, Chung said her brother was staying with family members, 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 she was thrilled to have her brother home, and that "he bears no ill will" over his ordeal.