The Crash

First, a little background.  Our driver in Huainan, Mr. Liu, was a crazy driver.  He always seemed like he was in a rush to get us to and from work.  At times it was nice because we got home nice and fast as long as traffic wasn’t too bad.  But there were times when I genuinely feared for our safety with some of the moves he pulled.  But, nothing ever happened.  And after experiencing amazing driving by a tour bus driver in Spain, I tend to trust professional drivers.  Well, our relocation company wasn’t able to find a driver that was willing to take Adam to work and back in Rui’an because it’s a long drive and the driver would have to just hang out in Taoshan Town all day until 5:00.  Pretty boring.  But somehow, Mr. Liu agreed to relocate and continue to be our driver.  That’s dedication!  He started on Tuesday and I noticed the difference right away.  It used to take Adam about an hour to get home when he took a taxi.  Now it takes him 45 minutes. 

Today Mr. Liu drove us to Shanghai so we could renew our visas and residence permits.  We needed to drive because we don’t have a dog sitter yet so Smudgie needed to come with us.  We were about an hour into the drive when… Mr. Liu rear-ended someone pretty hard.  Shortly after that, we were rear-ended more lightly by the car behind us.  I didn’t see how it happened because I was busy trying to take a picture of what looked like a Christian church.  Smudgie was sitting on my lap looking out the window.  I was just about to take the picture when all of a sudden, my head was slamming into the back of the driver’s seat.  First I checked to see if Smudgie was ok.  He was on my lap so he didn’t have far to go.  If he’d been sitting on his pillow in between me and Adam, he might have flown into the front of the car.  Luckily Smudgie wasn’t hurt.  He was, however, freaked out.  And in his fright, he let out a rather juicy fart which stunk up the car for quite some time.

Then I noticed my camera was broken:

Arrrrggggg!  I thought it was completely broken but after messing with it tonight I discovered it was just the lens that broke.  So we’re going to try to find a new lens in Shanghai.

We decided it was safer outside the car than in, just in case more people decided to get in on this miniature pile up.  So we got out and Adam took a couple pictures with his phone:

 

We were damaged way more than the people we hit, but Mr. Liu eventually ended up giving them 500 RMB and they were on their way.  That’s it, no exchanging of insurance or anything.  We’re extremely lucky the car could still run because I don’t know what would have happened if we’d needed a tow truck.  I don’t know how long we would have had to wait, or if the tow truck would have had room for all of us and our luggage.  So I’m just super thankful because we were in the middle of NOWHERE.  Here’s a picture of the church:

We were in a “remote” location to say the least.  And we were on a bridge.  Here is the extent of my injuries; one blood blister:

 

We're safe and sound in Shanghai now and Smudgie is fast asleep already.

 

 

Even with the setback, we made it to Shanghai in record time.  Hopefully I can get my camera fixed soon because I don't like having to borrow Adam's phone.