Kenneth Bae (right) had been held in North Korea since 2012. (Associated Press photo)
Kenneth Bae arrived home after two years of imprisonment in North Korea, expressing his gratitude to the U.S. 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 on Sunday outside her Seattle church. "We had a late night eating pizza."
Mr Bae and Matthew Miller, another American who had been held captive in North Korea, landed on Saturday night at a Washington state military base 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 at Joint Base-Lewis-McChord Saturday night. Asked how he was feeling, he said, "I'm recovering at this time."
Mr 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," Mr Bae said. His family has said he suffers from diabetes, an enlarged heart, liver problems and back pain.
Ms Chung said Mr 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 Mr 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 Mr 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 U.S. government aircraft a short time later and also was greeted with hugs.
U.S. officials said Miller of Bakersfield, California, and Mr Bae of Lynnwood, Washington state, flew back with James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. Mr Clapper was the highest-ranking American to visit Pyongyang in more than a decade.
Their release was the latest twist in the fitful relationship between the Obama administration and the young North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, whose approach to the U.S. has shifted back and forth from defiance to occasional conciliation.
A senior Obama administration official said the president approved the mission last week and U.S. officials spent the next several days planning the trip. Mr Clapper spent roughly a day on the ground and met with North Korean security officials - but not with Mr Kim, the official said aboard Air Force One as Obama prepared to head to Beijing.
Mr Clapper went with the sole purpose of bringing home the two detainees, although the U.S. anticipated that other issues of concern to the North would come up during Clapper's discussions, the official said.
"It was not to pursue any other diplomatic opening," said the official, who wasn't authorized to comment by name and demanded anonymity.
The U.S. had considered sending someone from outside the government to retrieve the detainees, the official said, but suggested Mr Clapper after the North Koreans indicated in recent weeks that they would release the detainees if the U.S. sent a high-level official from Obama's administration.
Analysts who study North Korea said the decision to free Mr Bae and Miller now from long prison terms probably was a bid to ease pressure in connection with its human rights record. A recent U.N. report documented rape, torture, executions and forced labor in the North's network of prison camps, accusing the government of "widespread, systematic and gross" human rights violations.
North Korea seems worried that Mr Kim could be accused in the International Criminal Court, said Sue Mi Terry, a former senior intelligence analyst now at Columbia University.
Mr Bae was serving a 15-year sentence for alleged anti-government activities. He was detained in 2012 while leading a tour group to a North Korea economic zone.
Mr Miller was serving a six-year jail term on charges of espionage after he allegedly ripped up his tourist visa at Pyongyang's airport in April and demanded asylum. North Korea said Miller had wanted to experience prison life so he could secretly investigate the country's human rights situation.
Mr Bae and Mr Miller were the last two Americans held captive by the reclusive Communist country.
Last month, North Korea 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 North Korea's underground Christian community.
Speaking on Sunday, Ms 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."
Ms Chung said she was thrilled to have her brother home, and that "he bears no ill will" over his ordeal.