Some days, life in Beijing is pretty mundane.  Not today!  We’ve had rain intermittently for several days, and as we left the apartment at 7:00 am this morning, a light rain was falling.  I’m going in with Judy to help with the “band instrument” unit.  No taxis were waiting, and there were already a few BISS faculty waiting.  We stood around 15 minutes and had no luck.  A couple of the faculty walked down the street to try to catch a bus.  We walked to the other side of the street hoping to have better luck catching a cab.  Still, we had no luck, after 30 minutes.  We decided to walk to the train.  This is the first time ever Judy hasn’t managed to get a taxi to school.

After a 10-minute walk in the rain, we arrived at the station.   We walked down to the platform and I knew immediately something “funky” was going on.  There were lots of people lined up.  I had never seen lines for the train at Taiyanggong.  We got in a long line with 5 other faculty from BISS.  We stood for 15 minutes waiting for a train.  Trains normally come through every 2-3 minutes.  When a train finally arrived, only a few people got off.  We weren’t able to cram on, but we moved to the front of the line.  7 minutes later a 2^nd train arrived.  Everyone managed to get on but me.  They all had classes to get to, and I was just helping.  I caught the next train that arrived 8 minutes later.

The trains were as crowded as I had ever seen.  Lots of people were waiting for fewer trains than usual.  Every stop, more and more people crammed on.  I finally arrived at the transition station, fought my way out the door, and walked to the next train platform.  The first train that came by was jammed and I couldn’t squeeze on.  The 2^nd train (4 minutes later) didn’t even stop.  It just rolled through the station and kept going.  I got on the 3^rd train, and eventually arrived at the station for BISS.  I walked around to the station exit closest to BISS, but the escalators weren’t working, so I had to climb 9 flights of stairs (17 stairs per flight).  Out of the exit, the walk to BISS was about a quarter of a mile through the light rain.  I finally arrived at the school around 8:35 am, and headed up to help Judy with class.  Needless to say, I was wet from the rain, but sweat was also adding to the misery.  This was the toughest transportation day since we’ve been here.  Not fun, but certainly a vivid memory.

After class, I relaxed a little, then walked over to the neighborhood Chinese restaurant for an early lunch.  After lunch, I taxied home, and began working on school planning.  Judy arrived home around 5:00pm (really early for her).  We put together dinner, and finished off the evening with two episodes of “House of Cards” season 2.