Day 42-Shopping, Shopping & a little more Shopping

Bet you can't guess from the title what I did today...

So yeah, I pretty much spent the entire day roaming the streets of London checking out the retail scene. We started our day at 10am and around 10:40 we were on Middlesex Street looking for the Petticoat Lane Market. It was only last week that I was there last, and the Street Sensation market guide said they would be open, but when we arrived it was a ghost-town. Oh well, Spitalfields is just around the corner so we headed over there.

Friday mornings are a great day to go to the Spitalfields if you want any sort of personal attention from the vendors. Last Sunday when I went there were so many people it just wasn't happening...but today we beat the crowd and it was very nice. All of the vendors, most of which are artist and there selling their creations..whether it be handbags, clothing, jewellery or food, were really very talkative today. I saw a lot of very interesting items that would make great Christmas gifts..if only it were November instead of July. I hope that some of the things I saw today are still around that time of the year.

After the Spitalfields I decided to check out something that was in my Little Moleskin London Book. It's called "Whiteley's Shopping Center". According to the book it was on the edge of the Nottinghill neighborhood. The train ride took nearly 25 minutes which in London Underground terms is pretty long. When we got off the train, I was worried that the place could be difficult to find (because despite the fact that I have a good sense of direction in the US, I often find myself getting turned around in London and going the wrong way to places the first time I have been there) but it was actually well marked and easy. The Whiteley's Shopping Center is a 3 story shopping mall. It's not huge (probably had about 45-50 stores) but it is the closest thing to a mall that I have been to thus far. I did get some leads on a few malls that are nearby which I will check out on some of my upcoming exploring London weekends I intend to have this August. I managed to get a cute shirt and some jeans for 8GBP total. Which was quite a deal even by US standards.

After that we walked down Queensway and check out some tourist shops, visited the Loo in Kensington Gardens (which seems like a great place to hang out on a sunny day...it had the coolest playground complete with a life-sized Pirate Ship shaped jungle-gym) and we headed to Oxford Street. We walked down the street, which was extremely busy at 5pm, and went into a few shops ...had dinner at Pizza Hut and called it a day.

It was a shopping marathon and was a lot of fun.

If any of you guys find your way to London while I am over here and want to repeat this adventure please let me know, although by that time I might have figured out even more fun stuff to do...try me.

So, I hope this blog was ok...it almost didn't happen. It's after 1am and I was feeling a bit lazy after all of the walking around today. Sorry that I didn't take my camera out and snap some pictures but I had my hands full with all the shopping bags.

So, that's what I have for tonight. I am going to Covent Garden tomorrow. Hopefully I'll find something cool to talk about from there.

Take Care,

~Jenn