That certainly wasn’t true this morning, but I still wished the bus would go faster. I wasn’t concerned for myself, but there was a couple on the bus with their son who was obviously very ill. I was reminded of J.D. and Jenny traveling across Beijing in a taxi with Elijah in their arms. When J.D. and I discussed this at lunch he reminded me that at least in Qindao there is a hospital.
The other interesting sight this morning appeared at the intersection near the park. Several women in bright yellow vests stood on every corner with little flags. There was also an officer in the intersection directing traffic. They were all there to make sure that people and cars flowed smoothly through the intersection. Later in the day we found out that this was all part of a competition between cities. The inspector was in town today so jay walking was definitely discouraged.
The pictures are from lunch. We took a taxi to another food court where they served Turkish food. It was easy to find a seat because the manager of the restaurant had 4 tables reserved just for his customers and Turkish food doesn’t appear to be a big hit with the Chinese. Like most places the menu was graphic. The food was delicious and a nice break from stir fry eaten with chopsticks.
The trip home was much more interesting and frustrating. The bus was almost empty by Chinese standards when I got on and I thought I would be standing around at the boy’s school waiting for them to get out. Forty-five minutes later we were still in downtown and I was calling Shirley to ask her to pick up the boys. The good news is that this is the coolest day we’ve had since we’ve been here and she could do that.
The first scene is really hard to describe. Traffic is stopped in both directions. A gap opens and a whole series of cars from the other direction begin to make left-hand turns into a side street. There is no light at this point. Once they establish that flow the cars and buses begin to flow out of the side street turning right into the lane our bus is in. We aren’t moving at all. I can tell the driver is very frustrated. Our forward progress depends on someone in a little red car who must force his way into the stream and stop it. Eventually there is a gap and we begin to move. It probably took another 15 minutes to make it through the light and we finally saw what the problem was. There was a bus stalled in the left hand lane.
The next scene is easy to describe, and hard to understand. A young man on crutches with one leg much shorter than the other knocked on the bus door and asked to get on. The driver refused to open the door. To the young man’s credit he didn’t get angry and headed out in the direction of the next bus stop. He easily got there before us. I was grateful that when he got on the bus someone quickly got up and let him sit down. I was in one of the raised seats and I’m sure he could have made it into it, but a person in one of the few side seats moved first.
I finally made it to the school and met Shirley walking toward me with one of the school teachers holding an umbrella. It was pouring and I had the umbrella. We hadn’t left one with Shirley because we never anticipated that she might pick the boys up. The final challenge was attempting to keep two energetic boys under the umbrella. They kept trying to get under the drips coming off the edge.
