Of buses and rain

The last blog post dealt with the issues of traffic. This one will be a bit related, as it is dealing with buses.

In Sochi back in 2014, I remember being incredibly impressed with how the buses managed to navigate the narrow mountain roads that led to the venues and in both Sochi and PyeongChang I was impressed by how the buses maintained a very consistent schedule, leaving on time and usually arriving on time as well.

Here in Tokyo, it has been hit and miss with that whole timing thing. The buses leave the venues and the Main Transport Mall right on time. There is no doubt that they strive to be on time. However, the traffic has proven to be a problem in a lot of ways, as the buses almost never arrive on time and in some cases, like this morning, they don’t arrive at all.

This morning, after checking the bus schedule, I left the hotel in the rain to go to the bus stop around the corner. The media bus was scheduled to arrive at 7:08 a.m. A group of us waited and waited with no luck. However, around 7:30 a.m., a bus did arrive. We got on and proceeded to drive around in circles for about half an hour, before finally getting out of the neighborhood and on our way to the main transport mall. It seems that many of the drivers who drive the buses, at least to our hotel area, don’t really know the area or the route they’re supposed to take.

However, much like in Sochi, I do have to admire the way that they are able to navigate the very narrow streets around my hotel and also navigate their way into many of the venues, which in many cases, are locations not usually meant to have large buses driving in and out of them. The beach volleyball venue was on my way to triathlon yesterday morning and I couldn’t believe how little space we had to get in and out of there.

While today didn’t start out great on the bus front and with the rain, I was able to get out to rugby for a few hours and as I write this I am in the Tokyo Aquatics Center ready for Dover’s Jessica Parrotto to go in the women’s synchronized 10m platform finals. So, the day hasn’t been a waste.

It was a rainy (and long) wait for the bus this morning near the hotel.