Beautiful tree lined Yuquan Campus, at Zhegiang University is my home for three weeks and I’m beginning to feel settled here. There are many international and local students based here. There are several canteens where a freshly cooked meal rarely costs more then a pound sterling.
I’m eating a lot of rice, meat and veggies and there is plenty to choose from.
The jet lag means that I wake up bright and early at 6am so I often wander around the campus occasionally trying out my bad Chinese on local students and in the shops and supermarket.
Its a safe environment but you have to watch out for the bikes and scooters, silent but deadly: they rarely have lights at night, don’t worry about which side of the road they drive on and if they can use the pavement, so much the better. They all have horns, bells and whistles and like to sound them at the last possible moment when approaching. Great sport.
The local students are fairly relaxed about seeing foreign students but we do get stared at a lot. And at tourist sites people stop and stare and we often get our photographs taken.
I wandered out at 7am to look for the statue of Chairman Mao. The trees were just beginning to put out new leaf and shedding a fine brown dust, and the air was misty and fresh, perfect conditions for taking a few pictures. I saw neatly stacked lines of bicycles along the pavement and the road sweepers were out trying to clear the heavy brown dust that seems to get everywhere.
Under Mao a group of ladies were working their way through a Tai-Jia routine. I joined in but struggled to keep up. They were politely amused by my efforts.
