A few weeks ago, a reader asked me why I never get my fat lazy ass go to East London (I'm paraphrasing of course!) and I realized that is a good question, so last Sunday I tubed it over to Old Street to check out the Columbia Road Flower Market. I thought this would be a momentous and overwhelming display of flowers, but turned out to only be about one block. Still nice though:



So after about ten minutes I realized I was stuck with a whole morning on my hands and nothing to do, in a whole different part of town (having never seen Old Street in the light of day) and so I started walking. At first I was just checking out that area, it's definitely more scruffy and funky, which I really like. Neat stuff on walls and all that...



... And way more ethnic, which in my book is a good thing....



...But still wasn't enough and I kept walking...



... And I thought, "well I've never seen that up close," so off I went....






"The gherkin really is one of the coolest modern buildings ever. I should do more London architecture posts, because I think I-- what the hell?"



"Hundreds of people standing around in the pouring rain? Huge TV screens? Red carpet?" I couldn't figure it out at the time, but turns out it was the opening of a new scientology centre in London.



One of them tried to hand me some literature as I pushed through the crowd. "Oh hells no, I'm out of here!!" And I scampered the rest of the way home. Not what was I was planning for the day, but I think it ended up being about four miles. Don't know how much of it was East London, but a good start, no?