Wednesday, April 05, 2006

My trip to Jiangnan China

24/3 was my "frightening" day. I supposed to go to Qi Shu Yan, Changzhou at 1:00pm. I thought it was still early after my breakfast. So there was no hurry. At 10:30am, I was ready to go to catch my train. Only at that time, I found I did not even know how to open his door. After a careful check up, I realized I was locked inside. I was not sure how to unlock it and there was no way to call him, because he had no phone at home. What should I do? I had to wait for him to come back in the evening? Then what about my lunch, nothing to eat, fridge was empty. Oh, my God! Nobody knew I was inside and he was unreachable. How? How? Suddenly I saw a intercom on the wall, I picked it up and made a call to the security guard. He was very helpful. He said he would send someone to help me. I took out my wallet to inform him my cousin's mobile phone number so that he could contact him. He told me it was not necessary because his man would be at my door soon. After a short while, I heard his knocking. Luckily the day before by accident I asked my cousin for his address. Otherwise, these people could not even find my unit. He asked me if I had the key so that he could open the door. That was another problem, because the key I had was only a single key. If I simply followed the man's instruction and throw it downstairs, we might lose it. So I hurried to the kitchen to find some weight to tie together with it, with my wallet in my hand unconsciously. The door was open, and finally I managed to go out. I felt so happy. The man showed me how to open it from inside. It was quite tricky. Anyway I was still on time when I board bus 129 to West Shanghai Railway Station. From there, I supposed to switch to 106 to Shanghai Railway station. But soon after I board this one, I found the second problem. Guess what?......... Yeh, I could not find my wallet. So strange, how come, nobody even went close to my bag and there was no cut on it. How come only this one was missing? I quickly alighted the bus and ran to a public phone trying to contact my cousin. At this time, I remembered I took out somewhere when I made phone call. But where? Where? Cool down, cool down. Another public phone? Which one? Guess already taken by other people. Oh no, it was at home I made call right? Yea, so no worries. Better rush back. After I went home, I quickly set my eye on the table, it was not there. Where could it be? Finally I found my wallet in kitchen. This time was the front gate which gave me problem. No choice, I knocked the neighbours' door and sought help from one old lady. It was too late when I settled these problems. Suddenly one idea flashed in my mind, I asked the conductor to alert me when we reached the nearest stop to the Railway Station and from there I took a taxi, so that saved me the trouble of switching to another bus.

Tickets were fully sold out that day which was quite not normal. I quickly rushed to the platform to board the train. The officer was very nice. Having heard my problem, he(she)? just let me go inside. The train so super crowded and I board it just few minutes before departure. I was happy. Though some unexpected happened, I managed to settle all of them and I was on time to go to my aunt's home. Most important, the train reminded me of my childhood. I was sitting on my suitcase in a corner beside the door with no room even for turning my body. Lucky this side door would never open during the journey. Yellow flowers all over the fields, small stream here and there. Grandma always brought me home by train when I was a little girl. Almost the same setting except grandma is no more with us.

I reached this small town after 2 hours journey. I made a call to my aunt. None of them were at home. This also seldom happened in my memory, because most of the family member are retirees. I waited for about 20 minutes. This time my cousin Yan picked up the phone. She came to me in just few minutes time and brought me home. In the evening, my parents also came back. The booked tickets to Hangzhou for me. So the following day, my father and I would go for a short trip to Hangzhou.


My aunt Jian -- my mother's elder sister who is 80-year-old now

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