Trip to the East End

Sunday, August 31, 2008

We all woke up late today. I had to pry myself out of bed in order to get breakfast. I don’t really feel like skipping breakfast, seeing as it’s the only free meal I get all day. Lounged about for a while, writing journals and IMing people. Then housekeeping came by, and we figured we should probably leave the room.

Leah and I went out to the East End, to Spitafields Market. We were starving, so our first mission was to find a cheap place for lunch. I figured this would be easy, and got excited for cheap Indian food. After reading Brick Lane and Salaam Brick Lane, I assumed we would come across something. No such luck. After wandering for a good twenty minutes, we finally settled on this little café and bought jacket potatoes. Since they were less expensive for take away, we got them to go. Of course, they didn’t give us any plastic forks, so we ended up sitting on a curb eating them with our hands. I don’t recommend it. We walked around Petticoat Lane Market for a while and I bought two Pashminas for ₤5. Not bad.

The stark contrast between the Spitafields and Petticoat Lane Markets was really interesting. Spitafields Market is in a very nice shopping center, in a covered marketplace like Covent Gardens. Many of the stalls are clothing, but it’s all very artisan and boutique-y. Nothing was under ₤20 that I saw. The people there varied in ethnicity and age, but everyone seemed to be relatively well dressed and posh-looking. Petticoat Lane couldn’t have been more different. Less than a ten minute walk from Spitafields Market is this side road crammed with tables and stalls selling a jumble of second-hand and overstocked clothes, shoes, scarves, electronics, and jewelry. Things were pretty cheap, certainly more so than at Spitafields. More interesting, though, is, as Leah noted, we were the minority there. Most of the people at this market were South Asian or African or…not of European descent. The area of the market was decidedly different from the upscale shopping center of Spitafields, too. A rather dirty, cramped side road in a bit of a run-down neighborhood. This was more of how I imagined the East End, based on the books I had read. I can only assume that this reflects the class differences between immigrants and the more upscale reconstructed part of the East End. Personally, I think I’ll take Petticoat Lane over Spitafields. I can afford it.