There was a bout of torrential rain in Beijing last night that started about an hour before work ended. I’m talking super big rain. Rain that caused flash flooding like this:
I did not have to wade in water that deep, and actually I wasn’t even going home. I was going all the way across the city to meet friends for dinner. Auspicious! Let’s count the ways in which I was subverted:
- I splashed through a gigantic puddle up to my ankles that spread from my office building to the bus stop.
- And then because traffic wasn’t moving in that direction, I headed to another bus stop, where the bus never came.
- So I hopped onto a different bus an hour later, which ended up stuck at a single intersection for about half an hour
- to get to the subway station, which was closed. Luckily, it was just that particular entrance that wasn’t letting people in, so I found another entrance.
- Transferred lines, but too many people were waiting to get on and didn’t want to walk three giant Beijing blocks (it’ll take a good 10-15 minutes each) in the pouring rain.
- Hopped on another line and ended up stopping at each station for five minutes because they couldn’t turn them around at the final stop fast enough.
What should have taken roughly an hour turned into a three-hour journey. In the pouring rain. Crammed in with people on the bus and train who were all soaking wet with wet umbrellas making me even more wet. Although, it was a good metaphor for my life right now.
