Torrential Rain on Saturday

The rainy season is here.

I left home last Saturday at 7:30 am as usual for catching the early train to XinZhu. I was told the weather was not so good that it might downpour left and right all day in northern Taiwan. Actually, I did not really want to run into any troubles on my way down, but who could fight the power of the mother nature?

I was a little out of luck soon after the train departed. As it stopped at XinFong station, the conductor of the train made an announcement via the broadcast system that the train couldn't proceed its journey for the time being-- there was some area ahead flooded by the heavy rainfall. "Oh my God. This can't be right", I told myself. And I wished it were not happening again, because I used to suffer from such a bad weather long time ago. I still remembered I was stuck on the highway due to the typhoon's strike. For that matter, it delayed my arrival to XinZhu for about 1 1/2 hours. I was definitely late for the class. "Is it gonna happen to me one more time ?" I mourned.

Well, the train finally moved again. I was rest assured but not for too long-- it stopped again at ZhuBei station! And this time it seemed like the conductor was playing for real. He warned those who were in a hurry for business should find alternatives themselves because there was no sign the flood would go away. As a result the trained will be halted here for an unknown period of time.

I couldn't wait to die. I decided to get out of the train station. Before I left there, I asked the worker in the train station where I could catch the local bus to XinZhu. I know this city was just a jump from my destination. I followed the directions given from them, turned right at the traffic light, but didn't find any bus stop. I decided to asked for help again.

I approached a beverage store asking the clerk which direction I should headed to. His reaction was funny. "Bus stop? Why is everyone asking for that?" I assumed that he might have been bothered many times answering the same question. Poor him, but I was miserable too. He told me just to go little further down and I couldn't miss it. I finally found it, but it was 10:25, 5 minutes before the class began.

I tried calling the cram school explaining everything happening. I was asked to take a taxi there. Well, the train station worker ever told me it would charge me for 200 NT for taxi ride. Now I was really between a rock and a hard place. Just before I hailed a taxi, the bus came. Thank God, I saved 200 bucks now. When getting to the school, I had been 20 minutes late.

Not too bad, I thought. At least I finally made it there. Just one hour and 20 minutes late.