Just when I was getting used to being in Hoxton, home of the famous Hoxton fin (a variation of the faux hawk made famous and sported by lads in the Hoxton/Shoreditch districts in the early 2000s), I had to move.
Chris was heading to Wales with friends for New Years Eve, so I bid him bye bye and moved from Hoxton over to East London to stay with my very good friend from New York, Michelle and her friends, VyVy and Nathan for the remainder of my trip.
This is Michelle’s first trip to London and I was excited to spend some time with her. It was so very awesome that her friends, who hadn’t even met me, invited me to stay with them also.
Jumping the tube over to nearby Bow Road station and making my way to Fairfield Road was straight forward. I was completely stunned as I approached their place at the Bow Quarter, an urban renewal project of a converted match factory, which is now a modern and beautiful apartment complex.
The 7 acre Bow Quarter also includes an on-site gym, swimming pool, jacuzzi, steam room, sauna, bar, restaurant, convenience store and postal facilities. The different buildings have New York street names too, such as Lexington, Arlington, Manhattan, Staten and Park. I called it a walled city. You literally have everything outside your front door.
Vyvy took us over to Spitalfields Market for lunch at Canteen. Michelle had her first taste of tea, scones, jam and clotted cream the other day and absolutely loved it. We ordered that, as well as, scrambled egg on toast for me and bacon, eggs, bubbles and squeek for her.
The market stalls outside the plaza and nearby, sold mostly handmade, designer originals. We braved the cold weather to ooh and ahh at scarves, dresses, purses and home accessories. The busiest day to go to the Spitalfields market is Sundays, but it’s also the best opportunity to people watch.
There are 3 different sections that you can check out, depending on your flavour. After the touristy section, we made our way over to the grafitti’d alleyway where it was crowded with hipsters and their clothing, scooter and record stores. (love Rough Trade Records)
This hidden alleyway was a gem for taking pictures of a double decker bus which operates as a coffee/tea cafe/takeaway, grafitti of A Clockwork Orange‘s Alex Delarge and other subversive wall art. Overall, I loved Spitalfields (even more than Camden and Portobello Road markets) and I couldn’t believe that I passed on this market up on my last trip. Now I know.
Michelle wanted to check out Neil’s Yard, so we made our way to the Covent Garden area. Neil’s Yard is a blink and you’ll walk right by the narrow entrance that opens up into a courtyard of shops and outdoor dining in the Seven Dials shopping area. The cobble stoned area is so named because it’s where seven streets of retail and boutique shops converge, where we did some damage to the pocketbook.
Continuing on, we checked out the Christmas lights at Covent Garden’s market and piazza, as well as, the Museum of Transport. Despite the weather dipping close to zero, we pushed on through to Leicester Square, which for the holiday season had been gussied up to a bright lights mini winter wonderland carnival, complete with wave swinger, bumper cars, octopus’, tilt a whirls, carousels and other amusement park rides.
There was so much we wanted to show Michelle, but we didn’t want to have her experience sensory overload, (which is so easy to do in London) so after briefly walking a bit of Soho, we ended up having dinner at Golden Harvest restaurant in the main thoroughfare of Chinatown.
I don’t know if it was the hot tea, being able to sit down comfortably after being on our feet all day, or we got there right before the big ass queue started, but it indeed made the dinner of spring rolls, tofu & veggies and egg fried rice that much more tasty.
Best girls day in London ever.
View more photos of my trip on my Flickr album.
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