Lost in London

The above picture is of 30 St Mary Axe, otherwise known as the Gherkin Building, the second tallest building in London and a famous icon of the financial district in which it is located.  This unique building became a helpful visual landmark as we wandered around lost... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I like to think I have a good sense of direction and that I am decent at reading maps.  Today proved my undoing.  It all began innocently enough - at one point when I couldn't sleep last night I did a little internet research to find an electronics store near the place we are staying. I discovered a couple of things, first - that electronics superstores like Best Buy in Canada are rare in London, and second, that there is no such a thing as a big box store area in central London (or perhaps anywhere in England - this might be a North American phenomena).  I did come across a chain called Currys and found a store just over a mile away from our flat.  So this morning I copied the Google map directions carefully, drew a little map and felt confident that I could get us to this electronics store.


We were looking for an electronics store in order to purchase another travel adapter for the power outlets - we discovered that when five people are wanting to charge their camera batteries at the same time, one adapter is simply not enough.  I also was interested in possibly obtaining some noise reduction headphones (particularly useful in planes and trains), and a headlamp for reading in bed at night (a usual routine for me).  So once everyone managed to get themselves moving this morning the whole family headed out the door for a little shopping and sight-seeing.


Quickly I ran into two problems, one of which I remember from the first time we were in London - I couldn't always locate the street signs. Unlike in Canada, where street signs are placed on the corners of intersections - often on their own signpost, here the street signs are often placed on buildings, and they are not always easy to spot.  Second, I discovered that the streets in London are not set out in a nice north/south east/west grid like Canadian prairie towns - thus it didn't take long and I couldn't tell if we were walking north, south, east or west (and it didn't help that the sun was behind thick clouds all day).


Soon I was throwing up my hands in exasperation, I had to admit that my hand drawn map was useless - we were not finding any of the streets I was expecting - I had to admit I had no clue where we were.  Where we were at that point was right in the heart of the famous Whitechapel Road Market - a street market where a person can buy fruits and vegetables, scarves and dresses, cell phone accessories and electronic gadgets, and much more from street vendors.  I could try to explain more about this unique area of London but instead I will put a link to a web article about Whitechapel Road by Nalini Sivathasan and Katie Gibbons, this article is a brief but informative introduction to the area. It will suffice for me to say at this point that this area of the city has the nickname Banglatown.

Eventually I purchased a map in one of the stores on Whitechapel Road and once I stopped thinking in terms of north and south and instead referred to the map and the various intersections continually, we got to the electronics store.  Actually we ended up going to two different stores, Currys as intended, and then HMV (which stands for Her Majesty's Vinyl apparently) which Joshua wanted to check out - to see how it compared to the Canadian version.

Overall I think we walked over 5 miles (I used Google Maps to determine this distance after we got back).  What was supposed to be an light day, to ease ourselves into this adventure, became a tiring expedition through two very different regions of London: the Tower Hamlets with its incredible multicultural mix of people, and the financial district - with names like Lloyds, Barclays and the London Metal Exchange.  So we saw everything from burkas to power suits, from flimsy street market stands to dominating office buildings (both traditional and modern architecture).  In other words, we saw a lot.  When we got back to the flat late in the afternoon one by one everyone dozed off, tired out by walking all day.  Hopefully with some late supper and a good night's sleep we will be ready to tackle more walking tomorrow.

The picture below is one I took today of the Whitechapel Road looking southwest towards Gherkin building. The mixture of the Whitechapel Road Market with the financial district on the horizon shows the vast diversity in our adventure today.