Helpful people

We were returning from the capital city this morning and after an early walk at the lake side, we waved down a taxi and went to the south bus station. We could have taken the subway/metro but our back packs were already starting heavier than when we left on Friday and we had only purchased a couple of things. A taxi would deliver us right outside whereas the subway would require several minutes of walking.

Purchased the tickets, even though we were only going to the next smaller city, fifty minutes away, we had to show both of our passports and then again when we went into the waiting area as well as having our bags scanned and a body scan like at the International airports. Warren had a bottle of mango juice with him and had to take a drink from it to show that it was alright, after he had drunk some he was able to go ahead.

Very few on the bus and we made good time, pulling into the guest/long distance bus station just under the fifty minutes. We headed for the smaller buses to catch one to school. Darn, the no 30 bus shut his doors when we were 20 metres away but I had seen a 63 when we were pulling jn and yes, he was still there and we were able to get on that with a couple of minutes to spare.

There were two women already on the bus and they both had what looked to be very big fish in large plastic bags. I caught their eye and asked by means kf some Chinese and some sign language, were they fish? And got confimation that they were indeed fish.
A conversation started and between us and them and the bus driver it was established that we were Shaoxingren, living here and yes we were english teachers and where we were teaching.  When they got off, we got a cheery wave and then we could see that the fish was dried and had been stretched out, they would be preparing for big feasts for Chinese new year in a few weeks.

Travelling along, the bus stopped at the west gate of the school and when we didnt make a move to get off tge driver looked around and told us in Chinese that it was our stop, we wanted to get off at the next one, near the south gate. By then several people were urging us to get off there. Our Chinese doesnt run to saying No we want the next stop so we thanked everyone and got off. It meant that we had a walk of about 1400 metres as opposed to an 800 metre walk but we knew they were trying to be helpful.fish