stop and think

I'm usually one who raves about HK public transportation. It's efficient and convenient, and then of course, it makes environmental sense. But then there are times like this past Monday for instance, when all of these attributes are but a distant memory. On Monday I waited for 45 minutes for my bus. Forty-five minutes! I didn't get in line at the bus stop expecting to wait that long. It's usually just a five to ten minute wait. I made no I-will-wait-for-45-minutes-and-no-longer decisions, but somehow managed to put in that much time. At the 15 minute mark, I found myself slightly irritated. We approached 30 minutes, and slowly but surely, my annoyance tuned into fascination. How long could this bus possibly take? And then with each extra minute that I waited, the more certain I became that 1. the bus was just around the corner, and 2. if I left and attempted to take some other conveyance, I would look up just in time to see the bus speed by.

But the longer-than-usual wait did allow me some time for some bus stop photography. I snapped the photo above just minutes before the bus actually came. I like the way everything but the bus stop sign is blurry. And no, that effect was not intentional.

And here's a picture I'd been wanting to take for a long time. It's from the "stop and think" campaign (i.e. stop and think before you get a pet because they're a big responsibility, and they shouldn't be abandoned just because their cuteness has worn off). Whoever had the idea for the time-out-signaling cats and dogs was a genius.