October 1, 2006, when most Chinese people were celebrating our national day, was quite unlucky for me. Usually, people would go on a trip to some famous places. They should have a good time. But I spent the day on my wayhome in a crowded bus.
I had to change buses three times before I got to my hometown. Usually it takes six hours and is acceptable. But I spent nearly thirteen hours that day!
I set out at 7:00 in the morning. When I got to the bus station, there was a queue of people waiting for a bus. I had never seen so many people before waiting for a bus in this small city where I study. The queue was very long. People stood one by one along the station’s wall. It was a big circle. I waited for nearly two hours to get onto a bus. When I got to the East Station in Hangzhou, it was 11:00. To my surprise, again, there were too many people waiting for their buses—nearly no place to stand. I squeezed into the ticket office and was lucky enough to get a ticket. The bus was due to leave at 2:00 pm, which means I had to wait for another 3 hours in this crowded and noisy station.
I needed a seat to sit, but all the seats, balustrade, and steps were full of exhausted passengers—no place to sit. Then a good idea came to me that I might seek to have lunch in a restaurant so as to kill the time, where there are seats. I found a restaurant where dumplings are served. I felt a little lucky, but I get into the restaurant just to find there were so many people inside, too. I should stand in a long queue to pay for dumplings. When I got the dinner ticket, the servant said he would not serve me before I found a seat. But there was no seat! I waited again and glanced around anxiously and hungrily. I hope they could eat quickly but all the people there seemed to have the same thought as mine. They wanted to eat slowly until the time was up. The waiting process was very gnawing. After I finished my dinner, it was 1:00pm.
Then I got into waiting room. To my surprise, there was no time limit—all the passengers got into the waiting room. At the usual time, during holiday rush hours, the station had a rule that people could get into the waiting room only one hour ahead of their schedules. But on that day of the heavy traffic jam, many buses couldn’t come on time. The starting time was delayed for almost an hour. So there was no rule. I got on the bus at 3:30pm! Finally, I got home at 8:00pm.
What an unlucky day it was!
