May Day Holiday Hell

I have had the misfortune of being out and about Wuxi on the May Day Holiday.

 

Saturday evening, April 30, Jenny needed to buy Tony formula, and so the K Family went to the Carrefour at Baoli.  The lineups at the checkouts were thirty or forty people long.  It took us over an hour to get our little bit of shopping done.  Getting home was a chore because all the buses were standing room only, and no taxis could be readily hired.  We had to wait fifteen minutes before we could catch a cab -- a least hundred occupied taxis drove past us.

 

Sunday, I was up early to do a cooking gig for Siemens.  I was at my local  bus stop at six a.m.  Already, there was a bunch of people also waiting to catch an early bus.  I let a few buses go by in hopes of getting a seat.  But it quickly came apparently that everyone wanted to go downtown and there was no way I was going to seat.  I caught the next bus, and had to stand elbow-to-elbow for 45 minutes.

 

And it was the same going back in the afternoon.  The bus seemed packed, and somehow forty more people got on.  This time on the ride back to Casa K, I had to stand elbow-to-elbow in muggy, smoggy conditions for 45 minutes. 

 

"What can't all these people stay home?  Why do they tourture themselbes by trying to go anywhere on a day like this?" I bitterly thought to myself.  But as some students have told me, everyone goes out on these days because these are their only possible chances to go to parks or shopping -- they aren't as fortunate as me to have days off during the week.