Typical Towns in England

English towns are very identical in nature. The town would have a railway station to which a bus station would be provided close by or there would be frequent city bus service taking to the bus station. Very close to the railway station there would be a central marketplace which is called a town centre in UK. In the US they call it a downtown. The towncentre would have the same shops across UK. The famous chains of retails stores are

Sainsbury – It is good for food and drink primarily. Have huge variety of wines and alcohol. They also have some really good value for money fast foods with a lot of variety
Tesco – It is supposed to be the cheapest overall. Cheap cosmetics are generally bought here. It is generally good for many day-today products. Most of the smokers buy their cigarettes from here as it is cheaper than the rest places.
Boots – This is the biggest chain of pharmacy/beauty products stores. Here one would find amazing variety of shavers, lotions and lots of other stuff.
Iceland – This is a very good shop for buying frozen foods. Amazing variety. Lot of Indian variety too. Beers generally have good offers.
Pound Shops – Almost all the major towns have these one pound shops. It is something similar to our 49 & 99 stores across India. All items are placed at one pound. People generally buy umbrellas, cosmetics – soap, deodorants, brush, paste, mints, chewing gum etc. We even get a watch for one pound. But as expected you get only sundar, sasta and ghatiya products here. Few Indians also buy some really cheap chocolates here.
Wilkinson – It is the biggest chain of hardware shops. You get all the carpentry, electrical, plumbing, construction, gardening equipment here.
Jessops – They are primarily into sale of electronic items. The point is that it is better to buy electronic items in UK online as there are some awesome discounts there. We can use these shops to do some window shopping.
Marks & Spencer – It is as most of now the biggest cloth store chain. They have some amazing collection of clothes but a tad expensive than the general merchandise. They primarily provide discounts only around Christmas. The clothes overall are of better value for money in India. Well people with taste for brands can definitely shop here.
H&M – Cloth shop. Never been there
Pizza Shops – Papa Jones, Pizza Hut, Dominoes – the preference hierarchy
Burger Shops – Subway(Provide some personal customizations), Burger King and McDonalds. McDonalds sometimes don’t provide any vegetarian items.
ATMs – Almost all the major banks will have their ATMs in the town centre. HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays seem to be the most popular ones here.
Café’s – There will be quite a few café’s which would be Italian kinds with an odd Indian/Chinese/Others types. Starbucks is the only one heard about still need to go there.
Others – There are various other shops like Beauty shops, cake and pastry, clothe stores, toy shops, gift shops etc. which are generally out of scope right now for me.

The town centres would have parking spaces allocated in the basement or in the top floor of the the place depending on the design.

Just next to the town centre would be a few streets where you will have some additional outlets. Majority of these would be pubs, restaurants, takeaways, clubs, real estate agents, banks, Post Office, flower shops etc. The car showrooms would be spread across the town as they require more space. Apart from this you have very few shops scattered across. A majority of those would be attached to the petrol pumps. Just like in India we have the weekly markets, UK has them too. The local farmers come along with their stuff which they typically sell in stalls. In Karnataka-India we call it the santi or weekly market. Loads of people buy the stuff from here. Most of the big retail chains provide vegetables but they seem to be a bit stale as they are brought through the route of freezing. The only other way to buy vegetables is to buy some frozen cut vegetables which is definitely good for the bachelor folks. Majority of the big towns have a theatre called the Haymarket here where plays are staged at least once a week. Majority of the people flocking these would be as expected old folks and many middle-aged people accompanying them.

The big expanse of London is totally different from the ones mentioned for a smaller town. We can read the London section for more details.

The whole town is generally built surrounding these town centers (Or maybe it is the other way around). Majority of the temporary workforce either stay in hotels or in apartments or bungalows closer to the town centre. Indians and Chinese/Koreans generally prefer this as they do not want to buy/hire cars and hence need to be in the vicinity of the town centre which is well connected by public transport. In UK all roads (& rails) lead to London (instead of Rome). Most of the towns are well connected to London. I would also be writing on the transport in UK shortly with links to helpful hyperlinks.

The city centre (market) in England is called a towncentre and apart from this place we hardly get any other shop. The adjoining areas of the towncentre is generally the commercial district and the re would be lot of shops, agencies, restaurants, offices, bus stations, train stations etc placed around it. Few minutes walk around the towncentre and one would be in the residential areas of the city. The only other things which could be found away from the towncentre are a few hotels, restaurants, petrol stations

UK versus England

United Kingdom is made up of 4 countries - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. UK minus N. Ireland is Great Britain. All these four countries are united for many things and independent on others. The language and culture of all the 4 provinces are different. One gets only a VISA of UK and not as England or Britain. England and Wales combine for Cricket, Scotland is a separate team. For Football they have different teams for all. They used to play hockey under the GB banner a few years back.

UK Flag (UNION JACK)

England Flag

Scotland Flag

Wales Flag

Northern Ireland Flag (Unofficial)

The UK flag is made after combining all these flags. Hence it is always referred to as the Union Jack. The reason why when there is mention of England we have a red plus sign in a white background and not the union jack. I never happened to notice it so far in my life and so would have quite a few people like me.