I have lived and have worked in Pusan for seven months and have used its No. 96 bus service almost every day. This latter bus has greater creature comforts, usually negated by carrying the same load of passengers as its larger companion. Many of you reading this article will have experienced the Pusan Bus Service. I never realized what it would be like without that special form of daily public transportation in a city of more than a thousand schools. Every part of my anatomy is exercised by a journey on a No. 96 bus.
Every soft part is probed, indented, or stepped on by fellow travelers.
The smaller the adjacent body, the more pain it can inflict on contact. To be between one of these and the exit door of the bus, when she has just woken up to the fact that it has just halted at her stop and the door is about to close, is an experience never to be forgotten. There is rarely a seat available on these buses. They are mostly occupied by slumbering teenagers, at the time I use this bus, who enjoy one or more round-trips of blissful unconsciousness before falling out of the bus at the entrance to their schools or institutes. So it becomes another bout of strap or bar hanging or clutching.