More rainy day fun

So my daily trip to work starts off with a mile or so walk to the bus stop where I take the company bus into the factory.  I leave the house at 7am, and usually get to work around 8:15.  The walk is very interesting, every day I see tai chi, people carrying their pet birds, walking their dogs, or just other people on their way to work.  It is on this walk that I get to see some of my most interesting things.  It is here I saw the three pigs on a motor bike, and I see entire families riding on one moped.  Well, last week, I get to our building door and realize it is POURING rain.  This means my plans have to change.  So I get out my umbrella and walk to the nearest public bus stop.  This bus will take me relatively close to my company bus stop.  I still have to walk about 200 yards in the rain, but it is better than the full mile.  So I make the trip, the whole way getting absolutely soaked (it rained so much that my umbrella was saturated and started dripping through).  But, I did make it safely.  My bus stop is under a bridge, and is at the intersection of two major Beijing roads.  The road I walk along, and the one our apartment is on, is the East 4th ring road (dong si huan), this is a very busy road, especially in the morning when everyone is trying to get to work.  It is three lanes accross and usually has one lane filled with moped and electric bikes.  Today however, with the rain, all of the moped and bikes decided to stop under the bridge.  In doing so, they had completely blocked two lanes, leaving only one lane for traffic.  There were probably 150 mopeds/bikes.  Most of the owners had stopped to wait out the rain and have a smoke break.  This was good for them, but left about a 10 mile wake of traffic behind them.  I couldn't believe it.  Every car and bus that passed was honking and yelling, but the moped drivers didn't even seem to care, they were just chilling under the bridge.  Even a cop went by with his lights on and no one even noticed.  Finally, my bus came and I made my way through the crowd and headed to work.  I can't wait to see what winter and snow brings me!