East London

May 9, 2011
We are the Eastenders

It was a beautiful day in London. As the British say, there was abundant sun and tempatures in the '70's. Today we explored the east end of London, a part of London we have never visited. We started in Spitalfields. Despite its name, it was a lovely area to visit. There were two hightlights, the Old Spitalfield Market and the Christ Church Spitalfield. The market is actually in a refurbished building that has shops open all week, but on the weekend it becomes a market that we are sure is similar to the Portobello Rd. market we visited Saturday. The Chrish Church Spitalfields has also been refurbished. Originally built in 1729, it was beautiful in its simplicity. Next to the chuch was the Ten Bells Pub. This is famous for being the pub that one of Jack the Rippers prostitues drank her last gin before Jack "done her in". Unfortunately, it was too early in the day to stop in for a drink. From Christ Church, which was across the street from the Old Spitalfields Market, we walked down a wonderful side street to Brick Lane. We are not exactly sure why Brick Lane is important but it was fun to walk down. It is know as "Banglatown" because of the high concentration of Bangledesh restuarants. We looked at some menus and saw little difference between Indian cuisine and Bangladesh cuisine. We're sure a Bangladeshite (?) would beg to differ.
Next we headed for the Docklands. Until the early 1980"s this area was the main shipping area for London, hence the name. In the 1980's the draughts of the boats became too deep for the Thames at that point in the river and the major docks were moved 10 or 20 miles downstream leaving the Docklands a deserted area. A major reclaimation project was instituted and now the area is a major finacial center as well as the hip housing area for young business people. The 2012 Olympics are also being held in the Docklands area. More on that later. We started in the Canary Wharf area of the Docklands. We had a nice lunch at an outdoor restuarant and then toured the Museun of the Docklands. It was a fantastic historical tour of the area from Londons founding to the present. Two highlights, or lowlights depending on your point of view, were the fact that Britain was very involved in slave trade during the late 1700's and early 1800's. The other highlight was the history of the Docklands during World War II. We never knew that a pipeline was laid from England to France to provide fuel for the troops after D-Day. Amazing!
From Canary Wharf we took a train to the site of the 2012 Olympics. Someone in their infinite wisdon built a viewing area for people to come and observe the Olympic site while it is being built. We were very close to the Olympic Stadium. It is a beautiful and graceful edifice. Too bad Americans can't build attractive large athletic stadiums. We could also see the venue for basketball. The interesting thing about the basketball facility is that it is temporary. The stadium will seat 12,000 people but is basically a skin wrapped around a superstructure. We were also very close to the Aquatic Center which is a graceful building given its size.
Today was very tiring day but it was well worth it.