maxiewawa

Aika and I went to a Japanese meeting last night. We had dinner at a pizza place, and afterwards retired to a bar (we call them “pubs” here).

At about 10:30 we left, and made our way down to the bus stop at Circular Quay. But just as we turned the corner, we saw our bus, not stopped at the bus stop waiting for us, but coming down the street towards us.

Public transport in Sydney is terrible, particularly bad on Sundays, and horrible on Sunday nights. If one misses a bus on a Sunday night, there’s every chance that there won’t be another one for an hour or so. And taxis are approximately 200 times the price of those in Shanghai.

We hurriedly said goodbye to our new friends and sprinted back the way we had come, towards the next bus stop. I frantically waved my hat at the bus driver, hoping to get his attention, and praying that he’d understand that we wanted to catch the bus at the next stop.

He stopped at that stop, and opened the door. We were still about 10 meters away and gaining fast, but I was worried that he’d pull out without waiting, but wait he did, and we were able to get on, luckily. We both thanked him, paid and sat down.

On a cold Sydney night (yes, they do get quite chilly I admit) when one’s funds are running low and needs to get home, and at a time of the week when public transport is hard to find, a bus driver who does something kindly like that deserves to be thanked. I didn’t think that the frantic thanks we gave him as we got on were enough, so I thought I’d write this post to say thanks more properly. I doubt that that specific guy is reading, but if by some chance you’re a bus driver that does stop for people running for the bus, on behalf of all your passengers, thank you.

Oh, and here’s a photo. It’s of the Sydney Opera House. People who live in Sydney usually don’t see what the all the fuss about it is (it loses the appeal when you see it often), but I had been away for so long that when I saw it last night, I was struck by how beautiful it looked. My crappy camera phone doesn’t really do it justice, but then again no camera can really capture the feeling of standing on under the Sydney Harbour Bridge on a clear night and looking across the Quay at the Opera House at that peculiar building.