Real London

I went to London yesterday for a sunny Saturday outing. My day started out in the borough of Kensington to pick up some of my favourite loose tea from Fortnum & Mason, a very posh department store on Piccadilly (the tea and a fudge sample were all I could reasonably acquire from there). I walked onwards, through Green Park and past Buckingham Palace. 

Later in the day, I ended up in Hackney Wick which is an area in the East end of London near the Olympic Park, on the edge of the borough of Hackney. I went there to see a fairly obscure silkscreen print exhibition (lol). I had never really been in the area before, and was surprised to see how close it was to the Olympic stadium. I think my surprise stemmed mostly from the fact that the area has a really dilapidated look to it, and a slight air of foreboding due to the lack of people around. It's not overly accessible to the central London masses so the people that are there are limited to only those who work or live in the area (I had to take the overground to get there, which isn't as accessible as the other lines in the tube system). But it was right next door to the place that the Olympics - a giant pool of fortune - was held just two years ago. I chatted with one of the artists who was watching over the gallery and she told me that the area houses a lot of artists' studios at the moment since it is one of the more affordable areas, but she suspects it will soon become gentrified. 

The buildings are industrial; warehouse and factory spaces all over the place, large and brick with the original company names in giant letters on the top competing with the colourful, hand-style lettering on the bottom. A few of them have little cafes and galleries in them, and seem to be frequented by a thoroughly hip, artsy demographic. I like the area because it feels real. It's gritty. I think it's a better representation of London. It feels truer than what you see in the middle of Trafalgar Square, along Oxford Street or at the Tate Modern - all of which I consider to be a bit of a facade, though there is insight to be found in it all. I feel like Hackney Wick offers a display of a real London art community within the skeletons of a booming industrial spread. It is a good kind of strange place.

This was taken from the window of the gallery I went to. There's a river here with a lot of houseboats.

No. of days graffiti remains (with a bit of comedy in blue):

I checked the last strike to see if it looked fresh - and sure enough, the grass below had paint all over it which probably means the tally-person is still doing it daily.

Most of the houseboats had a nice collection of stuff laid on the roof. I imagine the bed of the river is covered in an interesting mix of objects that have fallen victim to the wind.

Just above this heart was a small sign (with the title, "Wick Wonders") explaining that the site behind the wall is where Bronco, the first perforated toilet paper, was developed.

The above mural can be seen from the ramp leading up to the overground train station. I didn't realize it when I took the photo, but when the Olympics were happening back in 2012, it looked like this:

I like the HW reworked version better.

I headed back towards Liverpool Street and met up with a Canadian friend at The Breakfast Club where, after eating a Late Late Breakfast for supper, we entered a secret speakeasy through a refrigerator.