In a FIX...rescued by ET ! ( Yichang )

The passengers in our coach had all disembarked in the middle of nowhere. The whole city was cordoned off for the Olympic Torch Run. No vehicles were allowed into the city centre where we needed to go. And the location where we were dropped off was not near any bus depot...just a fringe road on the perimeter of the city.
All over Yichang city were performers such as this drumming band waiting for their turn to add to the morning's historic occasion. So, it was to be a day of merriment especially that day, Sunday 1st June 2008 ,


also happens to be CHILDREN'S DAY in China! Our own such day is always celebrated yearly on the 1st of October.
How did we get out of this unplanned problem? I remember D2 asking me quietly " what should we do NOW ? "
My reply to her, " NOTHING . Just relax lah ! " [ Just instinct at work].
We had Shirley as our personal paid guide. So just leave it to her ingenuity to solve this problem. My hunch was correct. Though, there were hardly any taxis plying the road, she crossed over to the other side which led out of the city....and waited.


In less than 10 minutes, she stopped a passing blue taxi with Reg Number
ET 1446...and explained our predicament to the driver. His was the only taxi that passed by! He too was in his own predicament. He had to return the taxi to the city centre area but was faced with the same cordon off. The driver ( standing next to Shirley in photo ) was extremely helpful. After learning that we intended to take the Yichang -Wuhan coach , he used his mobile phone to contact a friend of his who happened to be a driver of the public bus on this same route. Call it luck, good fortune or coincidence or whatever...as soon as he made contact with this personal friend, we were told that his friend was actually driving out of the city on a bus that still had some vacant seats left! But that bus driver/friend had to make a short detour to pick us up, due to all the road blocks. Our "ET" friend from the blue then drove us to the park with the Suspension Bridge over the Yangtze River to await his friend's arrival. In less than 10 minutes the Non-aircon bus arrived. We thanked "ET" profusely and paid him. But he refused our tip! !
Maybe, just maybe, he must have held a mighty respect for Zhuge Liang.
Huh, where is Zhuge Liang in the picture..you ask?
Don't you know, the great man was always carrying a big white fan made of crane feathers...same as the one I was fanning myself with in the picture!
I was carrying Zhuge's fan...the embodiment of high respect even among Chinese clans today.
The # 1 person or man in the clan or organisation is somtimes referred to as "White Fan"!