East vs West

I’ve had a lovely couple days in London – turns out, this city has a lot to offer. Who knew?

Yesterday’s big activity was a food tour of African and Caribbean food in Brixton with Obi. I found him through Airbnb Experiences, but his website has all his offerings. I was drawn to this tour because most of the British music I listen to comes out of the African and Caribbean diasporas in London, and Brixton is the where many of those immigrants first landed after World War II. (Brixton is also where Bowie was born, in the same time period, when Brixton was bombed out and partial abandoned, but this wasn’t a Bowie tour) Obi grew up in Brixton, and his father was an early immigrant from Nigeria, landing in the neighborhood as part of the British need for labor to rebuild the country after the war.

Though the tour was nominally focused on food, it really gave a deep understanding of the history and Obi was a fantastic guide – half the neighborhood seemed to know him, and he was giving constant fist bumps as we walked around. When Obi grew up in the 80s, the neighborhood had been long neglected by the government and was rough and dangerous. Now, it’s being gentrified and many of the African and Caribbean residents have left or are leaving – as he said, “when you started seeing food stalls in shipping containers show up, you knew the rents would be going up.” As in many places, the large covered markets are now shifting towards hipster food counters and away from vegetable and fruit sellers. Oh, and a Texan billionaire has bought up most of the market space to redevelop it, because .. of course.

The tour group was super fun – all Americans except for one Australian, including a group of five friends who knew each other through college or family connections and now travel together. A few of them were of Liberian heritage, so when we stopped for (Nigerian) jollof rice there was a spirited argument about who does it best. We wrapped things up with a family style meal at one of the few remaining Jamaican restaurants.

After parting ways with the group, I caught the tube over to the Tate Modern, which I’d not been to before. If I’m honest, it didn’t blow me away – a lot of spaces are closed ahead of some exhibits opening this fall, and I didn’t connect with a lot of what was on display. I think I’ve always imagined that the Tate retained more of its power plant heritage too, which it really doesn’t. I was imagining something more like the art exhibit in the old Soviet coal plant we went to in Vilnius.

Leaving the Tate, I did a long loop past St. Paul’s Cathedral, over towards Covent Garden, then back up to my hotel in Shoreditch. I got some Korean fried chicken at Boxpark in Shoreditch – Boxpark is a local chain of food-hall-in-shipping-containers (ahem, Obi). The format makes it easy for a solo traveler to grab dinner.

Today, I kicked things off by walking across town to St. James Park to visit the Churchill War Rooms. This was high on my list after reading Kingmaker, a book about Pamela Harriman, which recounted her history with the Churchills during the war. The war rooms did not disappoint – a fantastic experience, delivered via a well designed audio guide, plus great materials to dive deeper. Many of the spaces were essentially sealed in 1945, so you’re seeing them as they were when the war ended. Quite a powerful experience.

From the war rooms, I walked across to the south bank, and got lunch at Borough Market. It was bedlam, with huge crowds and big lines, but I got a lovely wild mushroom risotto and a cookie.

To fill out my afternoon, I headed out to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. This hadn’t been on my list, but my friend Alex (who lives in the UK) put together a list of activities which included going to see the prime meridian. That seemed like a pretty nerdy thing to do, so I jumped at the chance.

The Royal Observatory, Flamsteed House, and Prime Meridian are on the top of a hill in Greenwich park. The exhibits are focused on the astronomy that as conducted on the site, and the process for determining longitude using highly accurate and sea-worthy clocks. The main novelty is being able to jump between east and west.

Wandering down the hill from the observatory, I popped in the National Maritime Museum to check out their special exhibit on Pirates – mostly geared towards pirate-obsessed 9 year olds (Huxley!), they did a nice job covering piracy elsewhere in the world beyond just the swashbuckling Caribbean.

On a whim, I also decided to visit the Cutty Sark, a sailing ship which was built to transport tea back from China in the latter half of the 19th century. It hadn’t been on my todo, but it was near an ice cream truck. It was actually really fun – well crafted exhibits, good storytelling, and the freedom to explore the ship inside and out.

To wrap up my day, I crossed under the Thames via the slightly sketchy Greenwich Foot Tunnel, then took the train back out west to catch up on some work in Hyde park. Dinner was at yet another food hall – the Mercato Mayfair. Mercato Metropolitano is another chain of food halls, and the Mayfair location is in a deconsecrated church. I had some lovely Indian food and enjoyed the very cool surroundings. Then it was back home to catch up on my blog. Tomorrow, the trip flips from “history nerd” to “car nerd” so buckle up.