Get on the Bus

In addition to the numerous orientation meetings we have had with our residential director Jeremy, our main assignment these past two days has been to familiarize ourselves with the city of Hangzhou, by way of its bus system. Though I can easily maneuver my way through the subway systems in most major cities, I have never set foot on a public bus without someone who knew where we were going. I’m apprehensive about buses in English, so this seemed like a suitable if scary challenge for us, and I was excited to do it, since I really hope to spend a lot of time away from the university campus.

The map Jeremy gave us is actually quite useful, though it’s taking me a while to get used to reading it. It features an almost illegible map of the city with various areas of interest highlighted in boxes, with logos that are color coded for the stop from which we can get there (our campus is close to four different bus stops). The areas are then blown up next to the map, with landmarks, bus stop names, line numbers and other relevant information. This is less overwhelming than a big diagram of bus lines and stops I am unlikely to use, but I’m having trouble changing this network of nodes and arbitrary bus numbers into a mental picture of where things are in the city.

Yesterday we mostly failed in our mission of practicing using the buses. Instead, five of us set out with three roommates to take care of some banking business and buy cell phones, a major order of business as apparently cell phones are vital for integration into Chinese youth culture, and text messages are more common than emails. Buying five cell phones proved more difficult than one might expect: the first store we went to had many models available, but didn’t seem to have any phones that were actually for sale. The second place had sold out of the cheapest model, and had only one of our next choice, which Xueqin bought (I’m going to use Chinese names on this, if you really want to know who these people are you can ask). Finally we found a place with four acceptable phones, and spent a ridiculous amount of time processing the paperwork to buy them. A phone is not complete, however, without a SIM card plan and phone number, which is bought at a China Mobile store. By the time we got back to campus, the stores were closing, so we had to go out again today to finish the task. We again spent lots of time today buying a plan that would work, but eventually got our phones up and running. If only we’d had the relatively calm experience of a few of our classmates, who found these things easily, and were handed a six-pack of beer upon purchase of their phone plans.

Since we let the roommates tell us when to get on and off the buses yesterday, today we picked a suitable destination and set off. The harder part was, of course, finding a suitable return bus after we’d wandered from our original destination. Xueqin and I, the only ones who had not turned back earlier, checked maybe three different bus stops before (figures) finding the one we used to get back yesterday. In such a big city, we’ve managed to walk the same one stretch along the West Lake twice in two days.In the end, though, I’ve learned that it’s really easy to get to interesting places on the bus, and only slightly harder to get back, as long as you don’t mind searching a bit.