Roger Davies

Busy People on Market Street - I firstfound the pace of Manchester hard to handle

Having moved to the city a little over a year ago, I finally feel like I’ve settled in and been accepted as a resident of this wonderful city and wanted to offer my review. As a large, multicultural city I first found Manchester to be widely accepting of such a diverse range of people. At first the whole experience felt like an assault on the senses! But I soon found myself adapting to life in the city.

I grew up in Southport – a smaller seaside town where it is difficult to be a stranger – particularly if you are different in some way that others don’t understand. But I’ve always been fortunate in being surrounded by some of the most lovely friends.

Living in the south has given me an appetite for Donna Kebabs and Gulab Jaman ( گلاب جامن; ) that now form a regular part of my diet (though not both together!). Rusholm (otherwise known as ‘curry mile’ ) is home to a myriad of wonderful restaurants and takeaways that will never leave you short of an interesting places to eat. Manchester also has a sizable Chinese community with plenty of great Chinese restaurants in the city centre. Many of these smaller Chinese supermarkets will stock Japanese and Korean brands, so I’m able to buy my Pocari Sweat and Poky Sticks yey! While I firstfound the culture in Manchester to be quite a shock, I soon grew quite comfortable – even dependant – on the wonderful choice on offer.

Manchester Free Bus System

The other great thing about Manchester is how accessible everything is! There is a major international airport and a train station with connections to just about anywhere in the UK. It’s perhaps ironic that I have met many wonderful people through the Internet on all sorts of crazy adventures around the world – and now I live here, I haven’t needed to use the airport at all! And – although often unreliable – there are frequent buses to most places, including the Metroshuttle, a free bus service I firstfound useful when finding my way around Manchester in the early days.

But most of all – like Liverpool – you feel able to talk with people you meet and don’t feel alienated from people around you, like I sometimes feel in places like London. And oddly, you can never help but run into someone you know here. All in all, Manchester is a really great place to be.