FOREVER!!!

Sooooo.....I know I haven't written forever and a day. I'm terrible! I have a ton of pictures to put up, but between moving and doing end of year coursework for university, I just haven't had any time :(
So, here is what I'm going to do....Josh's parents are coming over to visit in a couple of weeks and we can't wait!!! Since this will be their first time here, I'm sure we are going to go and see a ton of stuff, so I figure I'll wait for a big update after they have been - that way I will have a ton of stuff to upload and a lot of time to do it all in!
Till then, if you want something to look at, feel free to visit my other blog which I had to do as part of my degree http://fourgreensquirrels.blogspot.com/

See you all soon :D

Shad Thames

 Ok, so some of you may have heard me express my love for Shad Thames, and if you haven't you're about to!
Josh and I quite literally stumbled upon the area by accident a little while ago. We had gone to look at a property in Canada Water and after being disappointed by that (tends to be a common theme with our apartment hunt) we decided to hop on the bus and go to Shoreditch. Why you may ask! Well, our dream property is a warehouse conversion - the full works with exposed brick and beams and wood floors. We had seen some previously for rent in Shoredicth on the web so we decided to go check it out. Well, while on the bus we went through the Shad Thames/London Bridge area and after a few minutes of going "wow" and "this looks awesome", we couldn't come up with a good reason we were going to Shoreditch and decided to get off at London Bridge. And we are so glad we did!
London Bridge is about a 10 min walk (five if you haul ass) from Shad Thames, but it's a really nice walk to get to it. I took a few pictures when we went originally, however I had to go to the area this Tuesday just gone as I had a class trip to the Design Museum to see the fashion illustration exhibit. I decided to take advantage of my time there to get a few more pictures, so now I have quite a few to show!

So, like I said, it's a few minutes to get to Shad Thames, however you pass a few interesting things on your way. the first being Hays Galleria.

It's a cool "little" courtyard with some stores around the sides of it, but what is most interesting is this huge working sculpture set in the middle of it. It's called the Navigators, by David Kemp and was made in 1987;

the paddles move!

You can find out more information about the galleria, which dates back to 1651, here; http://www.haysgalleria.co.uk/pages/history_of_the_galleria.html

Moving on from the galleria, you pass by some huge glass buildings/offices, a tree sculpture and a very randomly placed weird looking coffee shops;

You then pass by the Imperial War museum set on the HMS Belfast - a huge light cruiser that was used in the second world war; 

It's open every day and admission is £13.50. You can find out more here: http://hmsbelfast.iwm.org.uk/

The last few things you pass to get to Shad Thames is Tower Bridge (commonly mistaken for London Bridge). As well as admiring it from the outside, you can go inside for the Tower Bridge exhibition; http://www.towerbridge.org.uk/TBE/EN/

Here are a few pictures taken both in day and night, as well as one taken from London Bridge looking towards the entire area;

And that ends us at Shad Thames...Now, if any of you have seen the film "Oliver" starring Oliver Reed and Mark Lester, you may recognize a little of Shad Thames. It was were Charles Dickens based the story and subsequently where some of that movies was filmed. The building New Concordia Wharf is also  where the apartment in "A Fish Called Wanda" is located.

80% of the buildings in Shad Thames are converted warehouses and mills, so you can see why we fell in love with it. There are also quite a few restaurants, a cool organic food store, a tea store along with a few other stores along the street. And whilst we may not be able to move there at present time, it is where we are gunning for in the future;

These were originally used the roll barrels of spices from one building to the other - they have now been partitioned in the middle and have been made in to balconies for their respective apartments!! How awesome?!

As you probably have already noticed (unless you're reading with your eyes closed?!) it is right next to the water, and the other side of this street is the river Thames. Again, there are restaurants that line the ground level of the apartments of the buildings along with a steamboat!!

And so that brings me to end of my overdue update...for now!

     

Chelsea

Chelsea...part of the Kensington and Chelsea borough of London and apparently the most expensive place to live in England - Victoria road in particular where the average house cost is £6.4 million. Now, unfortunately this a little out of mine and Josh's budget...ok, a hell of a lot out of our budget, however it didn't stop me from enjoying the beautiful houses from the outside. I went a wandering while Josh went to check out an insanely pricey gym in the area (when a gym has it's own champagne bar you know it isn't going to be cheap!) and I happened to come across a street that caught my eye, mainly due to the variation in house fronts just along this small street;

It could be yours for a mere £1,850,000 - bargain!!

So away from the cute (and expensive houses), I went on to a cute street with equally expensive stores! Well, maybe not as expensive, but if Chanel is around the corner you know we're not talking pocket change for most!! I saw a few interesting stores, along with some that just looked like over priced gaudy things, but what I liked the most was again, the look of the street and the outside of the buildings - reminds me a little of Robertson Blvd. in LA;

I knew I would only have a little more time before Josh was done, so I made my way back towards a building we had passed on our way in to the area - Bibendum. Bibendum is a restaurant set within the the Michelin building. This was commissioned by the Michelin tire company as the first UK Headquarters in 1909 - the building was complete in 1911 and will therefore be celebrating it's 100th birthday this year. It's an amazing building to look at and whilst the restaurant makes up part of it, the other part is made up of the Conran Store. I only managed to get one picture of the outside (for now);

I'll admit, it doesn't do it justice, but you can get a general idea of it. Here's a link to the restaurant which give a brief history of the building along with some better picture!! http://www.bibendum.co.uk/the-building.html

    

Camden (not South Jersey!!)

Soooo....it's been a while since I updated. I've been to a few places in this time however I just haven't had the time to update the blog. So to make up for it, I have 3 updates. I'll do then separately or else there will be way too much to trawl through on one post, plus this way I can separate them out by places...
To kick this baby off, let's start with Camden. I love Camden - it's one of those truly unique eccentric places. There is always so much going on and it's really vibrant with so much to see.

Arm in arm with Josh, my ditch and run accomplice (long story), we headed in to the area. One of the first things you notice when you get there are the buildings along the main strip. For the most part, the facades are uniquely decorated. They seem to be the independent ones that tend to do this the most. And whilst some may not be store I would necessarily want to shop in, they certainly make for some really interesting viewing...

After the high street we wandered off down a few other little streets, and after a very rude encounter with a coffee shop employee (won't say which coffee shop, but I'm sure you could guess and with that knowledge know that I have a very high expectation), we actually came across the Camden Coffee Shop. It is an insanely small little store that sells whole been coffee, however, what's nice about it is that they actually roast the beans in the store!! Granted the roaster looks like it's about 300 years old (it very well may be), but it's still pretty cool..

The thing that looks like a mangle is the roaster

After this, we headed over towards the Camden lock area. This is my favourite area in Camden as it's got the whole warehouse/old building feel to it and it just seems really cosy...it's full of stalls and little shops and they are all in really close proximity to each other which I think is what gives it the cosy feel. The pavement is somewhat cobbled and there is just an array of different food vendors - anything from japanese to Mexican! And randomly there is even a security "office" converted from old telephone boxes!!

So that was Camden! I'm sure there are more parts to explore, but as seems the case with most of my exploration adventures I only seem to be in the places for a short amount of time - my aim is to expand on these places as time goes on, but for now short snippets are what you'll get :D

Greenwich town...briefly

So, I haven't really been anywhere the past couple of days - well, that's not 100% true. I was in the Kensington area on Thursday, but it was very briefly and by the time I thought about taking pictures we were making our way to  leave it! We also went to Chingford...there is not one thing that is even worth writing about concerning there! I did however go to Greenwich on Friday. I initially went for a meeting in the morning, however, it was a relatively nice day and although I didn't have a lot of time to walk around, I did manage to explore a little bit, so this can be Greenwich part 1!

Greenwich...the place where time began...seriously!  Greenwich is the birth place of Greenwich Mean Time which is the baseline of world time. There is a huge sundial in the town center which gives a brief history of it...

My meeting was at one end of the park, so I when I was done I had a quick meander through the greenwich observatory. I will definitely go back when I have more time as it seems really interesting in there and it has a ton of things to see both relating to time and astronomy. There is a also a planetarium next to the observatory which I also want to go to at some point.

In the grounds of the observatory there is part of what was a huge telescope built in 1789 for William Herschel, who discovered the planet Uranus. Also in the grounds, is the prime meridian line. This does actually run along the ground and if you stand either side of it, you are standing on 2 different hemispheres! Unfortunately, I  didn't get a picture of the line as there where so many people standing on it, but I will try for next time!

After the observatory, I went back in the town center. Near the sundial, there is the parish church of St Alfege. Apparently, there has been a church on the same site since 1012!! St Alfege was the Archbishop of Canterbury who was taken hostage and murdered by viking raiders. The site of the church is the traditional site of the martyrdom of St Alfage. 

The church has it's own website which gives a much more detailed history of it if anybody is interested : http://www.st-alfege.org/pages/intro.php

A little further on is Greenwich Market. It's a pretty small market, however there are quite a few different vendors in there and it has nice vibe about it. You can pick up lots of different handmade crafts and jewellery as well as some different types of food ranging from dim sum to Brazilian churro's!! There are also a few little actual stores set in the sides of the market walls. One of which includes an awesome little spanish deli with a really nice seating area inside.

I made my way back home after this, however I did pass a couple of interesting buildings on my way back and also managed to stumble across a little deli next to a grocers, florist, butchers and fishmonger - I will certainly be going back to these at some point. The fishmonger even had Sashimi Tuna - perfect for the next time I make sushi :)

I've got a pretty full week coming up, so I'm not sure where I'll be able to squeeze in any exploring, but hopefully I will as I'm really enjoying it!