The city. [contd.]
having moved to Henry's place has given me a bigger picture of the city and its ways. His place is a farther from the university so I have to take 2 buses and this means more time to learn about the city.

I learnt that Hangzhou is the capital city of the Zhejiang province and Henry took me around the provincial government building here. (like the state govt HQ in indian terms eg. vidhan soudha)
It is a nice imposing building with lots of small yellow sweet smelling flowers gardened around it.

Also hangzhou is not as small as I thought it to be. The traffic is considerably high too. Previously when i was staying with div it was a more calmer corner of the city residential kind of place. Henry's place is more on the upmarket busier areas of hangzhou. There is a loooooot of traffic that I come across here.
In Hangzhou, bike means bicycle.Actually that is what it mean here in China. Half the city rides on bicycles. It is especially convenient for students but I have sees even working executives riding them. The centre of the street is meant for 4 wheelers like cars, taxis, buses too and there is partitioned region between the centre of the road and the sidewalk meant for bicycles. pretty cool ha

There is a lot of digging going on in the city. either they are widening the roads or rebuilding the sidewalks or something else that i would not know as all signboards and notices are in chinese.
But there is some turbulence in some area on my home that causes congestion of traffic.

buses: they announce stop names at every stop but in chinese. they also give instructions like 'obey traffic rules' , 'bus is taking a turn' etc but all again in chinese. it took me 2 weeks to figure this out ;) (i had to ask henry! )
They crowded in the rush office hours but they are frequent. so you can take the luxury of not taking a bus if it is too crowded.

shops: there are some really amusing stores i came across
gilian shoe cleaning shop!
and
zhejiang electric power book store!
and
beau grooming store

the first one cleans shoes???
and the second one??? what does one do in the secnd store? wondering!!!
the third one? i dont even want to think ;)

There are loads of beauty salons and dressing botiques. The girls are very style concious so if you are a girl and have a lot of qa-ching(money!) come to china to shop for clothes.

the city does not sleep till late. university and even high school classes go on till 9pm and bus service is on till midnight. There are loads of women bus drivers and i must say they do a darn good job.