Day 6 – 7 July 2019, Sunday
After being blessed with five days of bright sunshine and clear skies, it was cold and cloudy today. For our last full day, we headed to East London in the morning to check out some of the weekend markets at Spitalfields. We took the Tube and alighted at Liverpool Street Station, arriving at 9:40am.
After exiting the station, we passed by Petticoat Lane Market, a street market selling cheap and low quality apparel. The traders were in the midst of setting up their stalls on the road, which was closed to traffic. The clothes and apparel on offer didn’t appeal to us so we carried on walking.
At about 9:55am, we arrived at the Old Spitalfields Market (click here). It is an indoor market built in 1876 with 44 retailers and restaurants, 88 market stalls and 25 street food traders under its Victorian market roof. It is open seven days a week but Thursdays are reserved for the Antiques Market, where a community of antiques specialists and dealers bring the best of their vintage stock here to sell. The first and third Fridays of the month are reserved for the Vinyl Market. I was quite bummed that we missed it two days ago.
It was still early so many of the stalls here were also in the midst of being set up. There were not many customers at this hour, so the market appeared quite cold and lifeless and we left after a short while.
When we hit Hanbury Lane, I saw a sign that said “London’s biggest vinyl sale. New stock arriving daily” and I was immediately captivated. We followed the directional arrow and soon arrived at Brick Lane Vintage Market (click here).
The market is located in the basement of a building and it is quite small but in a comfortable space. There are several stalls selling vintage clothes but my attention was directed to the Vintage Vinyl shop, where soulful Motown music was blaring from the speakers. Rubbing my hands in glee, I went to work to unearth some goodies. After about 50 minutes of crate digging, I emerged with a decent haul of three Jackson 5 albums, Suede’s Coming Up album and four 7-inch singles, which were only £1 each.
Right next door to Brick Lane Vintage Market is Backyard Market (click here). At 11:15am, the Sunday morning crowd was really starting to pour in by now, creating a nice atmosphere and adding to the buzz of the area.
Backyard Market is housed in the Old Truman Brewery and it has about 80 stalls featuring arts and crafts by London’s young creative community. The products on offer here are definitely more appealing to the younger generation (like me!) and it is a pleasant place to shop. However, I was distracted once again by a small vinyl record shop. I managed to find a rare copy of Nirvana’s Nevermind on coloured vinyl and Foo Fighters’ Medium Rare album, and I snapped them up dutifully.
I was hungry after all that shopping so we had a quick bite at Mr. Sausage, whose stall was strategically located at the entrance of Backyard Market. The huge sausage was topped with cheese, mustard sauce and lots of fried onions and it was very yummy.
Also located nearby is the Rough Trade East record shop. Rough Trade Records is the legendary independent record label of classic bands like The Smiths and The Strokes and their first store opened in 1976 at Ladbroke Grove. This is their third store in London and it has a small stage here where bands can perform to a crowd of about 200 people. The place reminded me of the old Tower Records at Pacific Plaza, which also sold CDs, vinyls, books and had a small performance area. Oh, how I miss having such record stores in Singapore!
At about 12:30pm, we finished our tour of Spitalfields and it was time for a proper lunch. YS had scoped out a restaurant called Lahore Kebab House (click here) located not too far from here so we slowly made our way over. It turned out to be quite a long walk but it was well worth it. We ordered chicken tikka, mutton curry and garlic naan and they were all delicious.
From there, we took a bus back to the city centre. The bus ride allowed us to do a bit of sightseeing as we passed by landmarks like St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Courts of Justice before alighting at Charring Cross.
We then walked our way back to our hostel, passing by Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery, Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street and Carnaby Street along the way. Here are some snapshots of our little walking tour of the city centre…
After reaching our hostel at about 4pm, we didn’t have much left to do. We had wanted to buy the GO ROGER T-shirt from Uniqlo but discovered that they were all sold out at the outlets in the city centre. YS then decided to head back to Spitalfields, where we had seen them hanging on the racks of a Uniqlo store there earlier this morning.
I then went on my own to do some last-minute window shopping at Oxford Street. I took the opportunity to drop by Reckless Records at Berwick Street. It is a small record shop selling CDs and vinyls but more interestingly, the shop is (kind of) featured on the famous album cover of Oasis’ 1995 masterpiece, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, which was shot at Berwick Street. On the shopfront window of Reckless Records, you will see a blown-up version of the album cover pinpointing Reckless Records’ position. Just a small piece of trivia for music lovers.
At about 7pm, I met up with YS again. He managed to buy the Federer tees from Uniqlo and single-handedly wiped out the store’s stocks (actually there were only about four pieces left), so it was a productive trip. For our last dinner in London, we wanted to have fish and chips so we went to Golden Union (click here) at Poland Street. The restaurant was full but we got our seats after a short queue.
The fish and chips and a can of Fanta cost £19 (S$33) but it was really good. The batter was very light and the fish was soft and fluffy. It was a good meal to end the day. As we left the restaurant, we saw that a long queue had formed. Golden Union is quite popular and we were lucky we went at the right time. With that, it’s the end of Day 6 and almost the end of our trip. Time to pack our bags!