We took advantage of a pretty day to head downtown and do a bit of exploring.  Our primary target was the Arndale shopping mall, but we also wanted to look around and get our bearings.  It is a 10 minute walk to the bus stop, then a 40 minute ride to the heart of Manchester.  An all-day bus fare is about $6.45 each.  Busses run every 5-10 minutes, so it’s never a long wait.

For our Houston friends, Arndale reminds us a lot of the Galleria.  It has three levels and plenty of stores.  We looped each level, checking out a few stores and doing a lot of people watching.  Many stores are the same as what we have in the States and others reminded us of similar stores.  Honestly, if we were somehow transported into that mall, not knowing where we were we’d think we were in any of the hundreds of upscale malls in the USA.  Of course, when we saw that all the prices were in pounds we’d figure out that we weren’t “in Kansas anymore.”

Just for fun we decided to eat at a strange hamburger place called “Five Guys.”  It was that or another British place called “KFC” or another called “Taco Bell.”  Seriously, there were some restaurants that were new to us, but we thought it would be interesting to compare the UK version of “Five Guys” with the American one.  The result: no difference.  Again, had we not paid in pounds we could have been anywhere in the USA.  As usual, good burger and great fries – which, by the way, were called “fries” and not “chips.”

One thing that was different was the size of the crowds.  On this Tuesday early afternoon the streets were packed with people.  Every step we took outside included dodging people who were busy dodging everyone else.  In one store that reminds us of JC Penny, it looked like the Friday after Thanksgiving – people everywhere – I have no idea why it was so crowded.

Walking back to our bus stop took us through Piccadilly Gardens, an open, grassy area right in the heart of the city.  It was full of people who were sitting or lying on the grass soaking up the sun.  By the way, we are more tanned than any of these sun worshippers.  In Texas we get more sun by accident than they get on purpose!

We got a bit more walking than we intended – in part because of our laps around Arndale and also in part because I got turned around and had a hard time finding our bus stop.  Finding that stop was harder than you would think because there are probably 50 different stops in a five block radius.  Dozens of different bus lines converge at Piccadilly Gardens.  By the way, just for future reference, in Manchester Piccadilly Gardens is not the same as Piccadilly Station.  The Gardens is in the heart of the shopping district of Manchester and just about every city bus ends up there sooner or later.  The Station is the train station which is a 10 minute walk away.

The Adventure continues.