Bus Insanity

I mentioned in my last post that we had no trouble going up the mountain (waited only 20 minutes or less for a cable car), but going down was an entirely different story. Apparently, there are 2 cable cars in the same area - a new one (which is the one we took on the way up) and an older one. The newer one runs continuously, but the older one comes only 20 minutes or so and can take 30 people. We waited over an hour for the older cable car (there was quite a line). Well, I thought that the line was long for the cable car, but I had no idea what a long line was.... until we got off the cable car and saw this enormous crowd - all waiting for the bus. Just to give you a bit of perspective this is the line we waited in for the cable car to go up the mountain:

And then here is the crowd waiting in front of us for the bus (can you see the buses in the distance?):

And then all the people behind us:

Tori sleeping in the midst of it all!

Amazingly enough, Tori feel asleep while we were waiting in this crush of people. So, I was carrying Tori and trying to stay with Andy as the people around us were all pushing forward to get to the buses. Thankfully, we got to the bus without getting separated and made it safely down the mountain. As I was standing in the midst of the crowd waiting for the bus, a young woman turned to me and said, "Welcome to China!" I think that this might have been one of the few phrases of English that she knew and she just wanted to practice her English, but I found it incredibly ironic. Here I am, standing in the midst of this overwhelming number of people, having viewed nature all day in the midst of a crowd. As she said this, I thought, "Yes this is truly a China experience! A definite TIC moment!"