Bus Ride

I stand up to get some water to wash down my lunch and I feel a bit dizzy and not for the first time in that day. I've had a bit of a cold and a Beijing smog fueled cough and I'm thinking now I might really be coming down with something. That and I was up at 3:45am to watch the 49ers NFC Championship Game. So I decide it is time to go home for the day and put the quarters into the machine again tomorrow.

I walk to the subway and take it to the Sanyuanchao exit. Normally I have my bicycle there but on this day I walked to the subway after a trip to the US embassy to renew Aidan and Elisa's passports. I wasn't in much shape to ride home anyway so it was just as well that I didn't have it. I walk over to the bus stop and past the line of taxis. I don't avoid the taxis because of expense—the 10 minute ride would cost about $2 USD – but because the taxi drivers won't take me for such a short ride. There are maybe 10 different bus lines that will be me close to home but I can only remember one at the moment, the 918 which I notice is just pulling out of the stop. So I wait a bit and the wait isn't long, less than 10 minutes.

I hop on the 918, pleased to finally have a seat, and my body collapses as the bus churns forward. I've taken this particular bus maybe five times and I get off of the first stop which is a short five minute walk home. In my slumber, I notice the bus is turning which is weird because the road to my stop is dead straight. I look up and we are on the onramp for the Airport Expressway. I look at the bus number again. It is 918. There is a character next to the 918 and I start to think this might be some kind of 918 express bus. I figure we'd get off the expressway at the exit past my home and I could walk or take a taxi home. But the bus keeps going. And going. All 15 miles to the airport. It approaches Terminal 2 and passes it without stopping. Terminal 1 is just and animal in a zoo as we bounce past. 10 minutes later the small woman who sits at the middle of the bus and is the conductor announces that a stop is coming. My Chinese is so bad that I don't know that she actually announced a stop but there is no other reason for her to be speaking. I get up immediately and like and amateur stand by the exit door a good minute before it stops. I hop out and then…

Well, that is the question. I start walking in the direction of the airport thinking I could catch a bus or a taxi or the subway back to town when it dawns on me that I could just cross the street and take the bus in the opposite direction. The street is really a four land boulevard and I as move across in my dizziness I realize the cars are going really fast. I stand on the middle stripe as cars wiz by thinking this would be a perfect way for me to die in China – on a dusty road, in the middle of winter, alone. But I do make it across and a few minutes later bus 915 arrives. I ask the driver if it goes to Sanyuanchao and he says yes and by some miracle it eventually does get back to Sanyuanchao. I cross the street again, wait for another bus, and this time am sure to ask "Going to Lido Hotel?" When the driver says "Yes" I hop on and make it home 15 minutes later.

My three hour journey complete, I walk through the door and say hi to the kids with them probably wondering why I am home so early; if it even crossed their mind at all.