Rain + hole in shoe = disaster. That pretty much sums up my day.
It rained all day for the first time since I arrived in Shanghai. Rain storms aren’t fun in NYC and they’re even less fun here, mostly because it becomes even more hazardous to cross the streets with all those bikes and mopeds. Anyways, I got my first dose of heavy rain when I went out between classes to Trust Mart to get a hiking backpack. It isn’t exactly a short walk out to the front gate where Trust Mart is, so I got soaked. I tried my best to tread through the rain carefully so the water wouldn’t get into my shoes, but it was raining too heavily. Luckily, I did find a hiking backpack. Too bad my luck seemingly ended there…
My luck with the rain didn’t get any better after class. Instead of taking the public bus back to the apartments (which would require a bit of walking through the heavy rain), Jessie, Winnie, and I decided to take a taxi. Rain in Shanghai means it is near impossible to catch a cab. It seems like the rain causes half the taxi drivers to take a day off. Anyways, I almost caught a taxi when this lady grabbed the handle of the taxi just as I was getting to the taxi. How rude…
After getting soaked twice, I didn’t think it would be possible to get soaked a third time. No way. Not. I got soaked a third time and this was the worse yet. After showering and packing, we went out into the rain again to meet the Beijing group on campus. Getting a taxi in this weather was hard enough. Having a lot of luggage meant no one was stopping for us. I’m pretty sure three empty taxis passed us when they saw our luggage. One even stopped half a block down from us and picked up a passenger!
Since no taxi would pick us up, we decided to take a bus. It normally only takes 10-15 minutes for the bus to reach the front gate of ECNU and with traffic, we thought it would take 20-25 minutes. Anything else sounded absurd. It really took… well, can’t really say. It never made it to the stop with us on the bus. Traffic was horrendous and the buses were inching along the road. After awhile, we decided to get off the bus and just walk the rest of the way. No point in standing in a crowded bus when we could walk faster.
We were obviously late, but luckily, Justine was on the very same bus with some other NYU students! That was good, because they couldn’t possibly leave Justine behind =P
We were lucky that there were three buses. The last one was stuck in traffic so it actually got there later than us. It’s also good that we had a lot of time to make it to the train station, so even with traffic, we got there in time.
My plan was not to get my shoes and socks wet again before boarding the train because I was going to sleep. It didn’t quite work out like that though, so I was kind of smelly from the sweating and the rain. However, the bad day ended rather nicely. The train we were on was incredibly nice (the ticket price was 730 RMB for the bottom sleeper). I got the bottom sleeper, which was a huge plus. The train was really smooth and clean and I had a bit of fun walking around and chatting with people until I decided to read a bit of “Wild Swans”, which I still haven’t finished.
Train corridor. Look at how clean it is =O
Strangely enough, I slept really well on the train. The sleeper was decently comfortable, but I guess I was just exhausted from the long day.
By the way, Shen Laoshi rocks. I’m convinced she’s the female version of Chuck Norris.