Your London Guide to Street Markets

I was lucky enough this summer to stay in London for just over 2 months doing some research work and some traveling. Of course I was determined to try all delicious food and get a "taste" of London culture and what better way than to check out all the street markets? I'm not talking just the Borough Market or Camden Market.. I'm talking ALL of them. So here's my little guide for which ones YOU should check out if you're more cut on time.

Before I get started, know that some of these markets can get crowded and with any crowded area in London (or anywhere really), be cautious of pick pockets. Be smart - don't just have your wallet hanging out from your back pocket. Also, always carry around some cash because not all the stalls will accept card (though a fair amount of them do!). And given that it's London weather, a bottle of water and an umbrella never hurt anyone.

1. Borough Market
I'm just going to get the big name ones out of the way. Yes this is the market where there was the shooting (article here if you somehow didn't hear/read about it), but I wouldn't let that deter you from checking this place out - just don't hang around too late at night if you want to stay on the safe side. It's a classic must visit market in London and can get a bit crowded (though not as bad as others) so best to go mid morning. It opens at 10 AM everyday except Saturday (8 AM) and Sunday (closed) and goes until 5 PM (6 PM on Friday). There's tons of little stalls in this underpass market selling mostly food items like cheeses, oils, teas, breads, fruits, and other delicious goods. There's not really any clothing stalls like other markets but there are a few stalls selling little trinkets/goodies/supplies that you can pick up as souvenirs or just for yourself. I'd definitely recommend getting the scotch egg here because it's freshly fried so toasty hot (I'm not a fan of cold scotch eggs) or a doughnut/donut (4-5 different flavors of plump custard/filling filled donuts..delicious!) or SOME sort of baked good from Bread Ahead. Notably, the Roast is also located in the market - this is a slightly upscale restaurant that does (duh) Sunday roast style dishes including roast beef with yorkshire pudding, pork belly (one of their highly rated dishes), and my favorite - sticky toffee pudding (a definite must get if you go here). It's a little pricey so save it for a special occasion if you do plan to go here.

 

 

 

 

 

2. Camden Market
Probably the largest market of them all, this spans several streets, and it's open every day from 10 AM - 7 PM. It gets jam packed with people at all times of the day so I'm really not sure when the best time to go is to avoid the crowds. There's basically everything there - clothing, food, jewelry, trinkets, the goods. Like I said, it's huge with lots of small "alleys" of stalls so it's a bit easy to get lost and be on alert for pick pockets. Lots of the stalls seem to repeat what they sell (ie same clothing items) but it doesn't hurt to take a look around. Personally I didn't find anything appealing to buy. There's a lot of different food varieties to choose from also but I think the halloumi fries are quite popular (again, personally they were just so-so for me but they're worth a try I suppose). They have a nice seating area (spots are hard to come by) that overlooks a river (though the river isn't that nice and very algae infested) where there are some boats that you can pay to go on I believe. Camden Market is definitely one you could spend over an hour at and Camden Town (the area the market is located in) has lots of shops on the highstreet where you can buy brand name clothes and other things so you can really spend half your day in this area.

Two things you should notice: the amount of people and the amount of algae in the lake.

Halloumi fries

 3. Portobello Market
Another very popular and large outdoor street market that gets packed early in the morning so again, not sure when the best time to go is besides early. Lots of antique shops line the streets and even more stalls on the streets themselves. You'll see lots of old gems/stones/jewelry, dining ware/teaware/silverware, and just random old things (age does not make them cheap). There are usually some performers on the street which add to the market feel. You'll walk for a couple of streets until you get to the end where there are most of the food stalls and let me tell you, this is probably one of the largest market food courts. They've got tons of stalls with a huge variety of foods and some will even offer your samples which is nice. They've got a pretty hipster seating area in a sand pit and outdoor loos (aka porta-pottys) that you (horray!) don't need to pay for.

People..and more people. Definitely one of the more crowded markets in London!

 

 

Seating area where you can enjoy your food

 

"Gozleme" for only 5 pounds. Super filling as it came with a heaping serving of hummus and salad. Absolutely delicious!

4. Old Spitafields Market
Nice indoor/covered market with wide variety of clothing shops, random trinkets/goodies, jewelry and hair things, leather belts and bags, etc - as well as a good section of food stalls and actual sit down restaurants on the side. It's open 10 AM - 5 PM everyday except Saturday (opens 11 AM). There's a good variety of things you can buy here and I picked up some cute dresses for a reasonable price (2 for 20 pounds). This market wasn't too crowded when I came by early afternoon which was a definite plus and the food had me drooling. Plus it's near the Peticoat Lane Market - a small outdoor street clothing market selling mostly cheap clothes (cash only) but also some other random household tools for low prices - so you can pop over there when you're done at Old Spitafields.

5. Columbia Flower Market
This Sunday only market specializes in flowers (hurdur) and antiques. It gets PACKED (possibly because it's only open on Sunday; and I mean packed like on par with, if not worse than, Portobello market) so try to go earlier rather than later. It has a huge variety of flowers for a super reasonable price. You're definitely going to see girls taking photos for Instagram here (see the classic feet and flower pose). Flower stalls line the streets but behind them are a few cafes and dozens of antique shops/boutiques selling various trinkets and random homeware goodies - definitely cute things to check out (but not exactly cheap). There's also a few food stalls at the edge/end of the market area and I picked up two vegan goodies (date brownie and banana bread) which were both absolutely deliccious!

6. Greenwich Market
Probably one of my favorite markets out of them all. It's located right off the road near the Cutty Stark (historic boat), the Prime Meridian (7 pound student ticket, 10 for adults - basically to stand over a line..but hey it's worth it if you want to be east and west at the same time right?), and the Queen's House (free! and really quite nice). The market is partly covered under a building (but not exactly indoors because no doors) with some food stalls outdoors as well, and has a really nice variety of stalls selling clothing, hand made things (cards, hair bands, bow ties, etc), homeware (ie metal wire photo holders which you can customize), and of course food! I saw a lot more vegan food options here than most other markets which was cool (not a vegan myself but I can appreciate it) and I tried the vegan donut from Ruby's which was absolute amazingg!

7. Brick Lane Market
Only open Saturday (11 AM - 6 PM) and Sunday (10 AM - 5 PM), this outdoor street market is filled with stalls selling second-hand/second-ware items as well as some clothing stalls. There's an area of the street that has an opening into an old parking lot looking area with more stalls set up in a flea market fashion (random old trinkets lined on tables). You'll also see some stalls selling fresh produce in buckets for 1 pound per bucket like Whitechapel Market (see below). There's lots of surrounding building walls "decorated" in street art which is quite cool (also near Shoreditch which is known for its street art). The streets surrounding the market are filled with hipster cafes (including the notable Cereal Killer cafe and Sloane Bros froyo), the classic famous "beigel" (aka bagel) shop known as Brick Lane Beigel Bake (there's one right next to it also called Beigel Shop which is also rated well but not as many reviews for it on Google so I think it's not the MOST famous lol), and Indian restaurants known to make amazing curry (I have yet to try but the area itself has lots of local Southeast Asians so I wouldn't be surprised if their restaurants were amazing). The two beigel/bagel shops are known for their salt beef bagel but personally I thought the salt beef wasn't anything out of this world (never had it before so not saying it was bad or anything) and for 4 pounds compared to the other fillings (ie cream cheese, smoked salmon and cream cheese, cheese, nutella) which are only 1-2 pounds, it didn't feel quite worth it. But if you're into salt beef or love meat, it doesn't hurt to try it because let's be honest, 4 pounds isn't unreasonably expensive when you consider London prices - and the bagel dough itself is really nice, soft, and fluffy.

 

 

8. Whitechapel Market
This is a street market right next to the Whitechapel tube station. It's not crazy huge or long and doesn't get crowded like the other markets. It's great for cheap ripe produce (and when I say ripe, I mean like eat that day ripe or else it'll go bad). Stalls sell fruit piled in a plastic bucket for 1 pound each and while other markets may have stalls like this as well, Whitechapel's portions (aka fruit per bucket) are the most and best deal. For example, I got 5 large ripe avocados for 1 pound and 9 bananas for 1 pound! There's also lots of clothing stalls selling cheap scarves (1-2 pounds each), dresses, pants, shoes, etc. It's a bit like a market you'd see in Asia but run mostly by Middle Eastern shop owners instead. Definitely a nice place to stop by to get your daily fruit fix. Be mindful that all the stalls are cash only.

9. Brixton Market/Brixton Station Road Market
Nice market with largely Jamaican, African, and Latin American influences so you can try some more authentic foods here. It's not as clean/tidy as some other markets (lots of meat butcher shops) but don't let that stop you from walk on a bit further where you'll find an indoor market area that's cleaner with mostly sit down cafes and restaurants (so many to choose from!). There's not as many clothing stalls here as it's mostly food but you'll find some cool cultural items at some stalls on the street/road market. There's also the Pop Brixton area which is an outdoor two-story food eating area (more hipster and pricey foods ranging from steak and fries, crepes, tacos/burritos, pizza, beer, etc) with maybe 1-2 vintage selling clothing stalls. There's a nice seating area on the second floor that's covered so you can take shelter there if it's raining.

Inside Pop Brixton

Pop Brixton second floor seating area

Vintage Kilo Sale! This event goes on every so often so check Facebook to see when the next one is. They have multiple locations

10. Bloomsbury Farmer's Market
Thursday only food market (9 AM - 2 PM) located near the University College London (UCL) so you'll see lots of students here. It's well-rated online with lots of reviewers raving about the lunch options but I haven't actually found the time to make my way there so I'll leave this short for now. Prices are said to range from 5-6 pounds which isn't unreasonable and they're said to have a good range of options to choose from. The only downside is that during peak lunch hours, there can be quite long lines and since the market isn't even open for that long, you might find yourself waiting a bit.

11. Broadway Street Market
Really nice outdoor street market for lunch time foods.. which is a shame because I went there around 10-10:30 (and it says it opens at 9) and most of the shops were still getting set up (especially the ones making fresh hot foods). It apparently gets really busy during lunch time so maybe go right before the lunch rush hour or after. There are a really wide variety of foods including savory and sweet (some really nice looking meringues and eclairs and cakes!) as well as shops selling handmade clothing, jewelery, and general things you can give as gifts. Also a few shops lining the buildings surrounding the market that are good for early birds looking for a bite to eat. It's close to Netil Market which is a small market (only about 5-8 small shops in a fenced area) that sells old furniture, bike parts, art pieces, flowers, and some other random things. It opens at 9 AM on the weekdays and 11 AM on weekends but I'd suggest going around 12 or after on the weekend since when I went, they weren't really set-up or open at 11.

12. Roman Way Market
Small outdoor street market selling cheap clothing and random things to use around the house (ie cleaning supplies, plastic tupperwares, etc). There's not a huge selection of things here and only 1-2 stalls selling fresh produce and it's not some market I'd say you HAVE to go to but they do have some stalls selling designer brand name clothes so you might want to pop on by if you're into that. There's a fair amount of restaurant/food shops lining the buildings surrounding the market if you're looking to get a bite to eat (Percy Ingle smells of warm melted butter and fatty goodness - definitely recommend checking out their hot pastries) but none of the usual fresh food stalls you might see at other markets.

That's all the ones I've been to so far. I'll continue to update this with more markets that I go to in the London area but hopefully you've found this helpful and enjoy exploring the London culture as I have. Let me know what markets are your favorites or if I've missed any, which ones I need to add to my list to check out!

Adventures in Seoul, Korea: Day 5

Day 5 out of 7~! As usual, we woke up a bit behind schedule and quickly ate breakfast in our room (oh the amazing things having a kitchen in your room can do.. warm eggs and toast mhm mhm~!) before we headed off to see the Guard Ceremony at Deoksugung Palace. The palace is located pretty close to the City Hall subway station and wasn't hard to find, so we arrived just on time to see the ceremony starting. It was actually quite cool to watch the guards standing on their horses or in line and it was a pretty elaborate process with a speaker explaining what was going on during each step (in both Korean, Chinese, and English!). After the ceremony, we took some pictures, got a waffle from a nearby shop that's supposed to be pretty popular, and headed into the palace. Admission was only 1000 won for adults and 500 won for children (ages 7 - 18)! I really enjoyed looking around at the palace and the architecture and we took a good amount of photos. There was even an app that my mom downloaded that you can listen to so as to have a self-guided tour - pretty nifty if I do say so myself.

This horse kept derping and moving around and the guy sitting on top of the horse was like super annoyed haha.

The yummy waffle we got from the nearby shop~! It was super tasty and I would definitely recommend you check it out if you stop by :)

City Hall~! Located right next to the Palace (well across the street but still really close). We didn't go look at it but I'm sure it's somewhat interesting haha.

After the palace tour, we moved on to Namdaemun Market! This market is known for it's more traditional items and wholesale products so we didn't buy too much but mostly just looked around. We did eat lunch in the market which was absolutely delicious, but that's about as much of the photos that I got. I think I was too distracted just enjoying myself to take photos :)

Ginseng chicken soup

Traditional Bimbambap

My favorite ... Seafood Pancake~! This was sooo yummy :)

After our lunch, we walked around a bit more before we went to go find "Sillo Fire Pot Sauna JimJilBang".. This is a Korean bathhouse or sauna, however you call it, and was something I had been looking forward to the whole trip. It was a bit hard to find and we did get lost, but thanks to the kind folks who knew a bit of English, we managed to find our way there. It's located behind a supermarket and up a hill and you should see the giant red sign saying "Fire Pot Sauna" from a good distance away. (Sorry I wish I could give better instructions but I don't remember exactly sigh -_-) The sauna was a great place to relax in the indoor hot spas and the "hot room" or "cold room" or "marble room".. there were just so many different things to try out! Okay, sorry if that makes no sense at all but basically the Sillo Fire Pot Sauna is a bath house with separate shower rooms for men and women where you can stay overnight (!!) if you want. There are also lots of different special rooms where you can take naps in that are supposed to be good for your health or skin (ie. a salt room that was literally filled with huge chunks of salt and you could rub yourself with it and it felt superr good :D). If you're interested, click here to get linked to their website. We spent the rest of our afternoon at the sauna, relaxing and resting our tired feet and bodies from all the walking we had been doing on the earlier days. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos because well you have to be completely unclothed and naked in the shower rooms and everywhere else I didn't want to carry my camera around so I had locked it up in a locker. However, I think their website has a ton of great photos and probably a much better description haha. You could even get your nails done or get  massage (kind of awkward since you're naked imo, but hey if you're cool with it then go for it!) but you had to pay extra for those things so we passed on it.

After our relaxing time at the sauna, it was basically night time so we headed off to Seoul Square to check out the famous giant LED screen building and eat dinner. Turns out the LED show really isn't that cool.. I'm not even sure what it was supposed to be since it jut showed faces of a bunch of random people.. (you'll see in the photo below) so we quickly got bored of it and went into the shopping mall. The mall is pretty nice, but more importantly, has an awesome food court haha! You order your food a registrar and then they give you a number and you pick up your food from a certain "booth" when your number shows up on the screen. I was really craving Kimbap so I ordered that and my sister ordered an omelet while my mom ordered another soup (didn't get a good picture of it though D: )

After dinner, we decided to get an early night's sleep and headed back to our hotel in Myeongdong. Day 5 was definitely one of our more relaxed and chill days, but I'm glad we did have a more calm day to rejuvenate our bodies for the last upcoming days of our trip! Sorry if this post wasn't as interesting as the others (I know I'm lacking in photos sigh), but hey, the spa took up a good chunk of time and was fun fun fun~! Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed and come back for Day 6~!

Adventures in Seoul, Korea: Day 4

For day 4, we had planned to start off by going to the War Memorial of Korea before heading off to Lotte World, but we came across some unexpected bumps early on. Day 4 of our trip was actually a Monday and due to some accidental slip-up, we didn't realize that the War Memorial is actually closed on Mondays! -o- Therefore, it was an unpleasant surprise as we walked up the stairs towards the entrance to realize that the doors were locked. It was quite disappointing as the War Memorial is supposed to be one of the top places to check out in Korea and admission is free! Luckily, there are quite a number of attractions outside of the museum itself such as actual planes that were used during the war that you can take pictures of/with so we had a good time looking around the outer perimeter of the museum.

Main entrance of the War Memorial of Korea

One of the many planes surrounding the War Memorial that you could take pictures with!

Because the War Memorial was closed, we finished looking around it before we ran out of our "allotted time" in our itinerary so we decided to stop by the Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market (aka Noryangjin Fish Market) and eat lunch there. The place was huge and not too far from the subway exit - though we did have to go into a GS-25 to ask someone for directions - and the fishy smell tells you you're going the right way. The bad thing about the fish market is that if you're a tourist or don't speak Korean fluently, you're bound to get ripped off. We went in knowing that, but we didn't realize how badly we would be jipped until it had already happened! Q.Q We walked around looking at all the seafood items they had displayed out in the water or on ice until one lady who spoke in Mandarin managed to convince my mom to buy her items. Most of the sellers have the same thing so it's hard to really decide where to buy anything, but it's best to walk around and see who's willing to give you the best deal. Most of the sellers also speak Mandarin quite fluently (like the lady we bought our food from) so it wasn't hard for my mom to communicate with them. We ended up getting sucked in and buying a enormous King Crab for 50,000 won (something me and my sister strongly advised my mom NOT to do but she wanted to try it out -_-;), three live octopus for about $3000 each (if I remember correctly), and 3 abalone. The lady was nice enough to give us some free clams too! After we purchased our live seafood, the lady directed us to a restaurant right outside the fish market where they cooked our food for us. She had told us it was only going to be like 5000 won per person (a "dining" fee) but our total bill turned out to be like 35,000 won!!! Total rip off and we were super confused why and when we asked them to explain, they couldn't really because (1) their Mandarin/English was definitely not up to par or (2) THEY DIDN'T HAVE A GOOD REASON >:( It wasn't like they even really did much when they cooked it.. they just grilled the abalone, chopped up the octopus (you eat it just raw o_o), and steamed the octopus.. sigh so yea we were definitely not happys. But what could we do? So we payed them and went on our way back to the fish market to go back to the subway station to our next stop. Luckily for us though, the lady who had sold us our seafood asked us what we thought and my mom, feeling ripped off, mentioned how it was way too expensive! Haha it was kind of funny because once my mom explained how much it cost, the lady got super upset too and actually ended up calling the restaurant owner and convincing him to give us 5000 won back LOL. Not that much but it was better than nothing. Walking back into the restaurant to get our money back was SUPER awkward though. The owner was soo mad and since the fish lady wasn't with us and he couldn't speak Mandarin, he was just glaring at us and blabbering away. Some of the workers there did speak some Mandarin and attempted to translate to us/him but we got our money and walked out of there. Ain't going back there anytime soon. So yes, lesson learned, go somewhere else and cook your own seafood unless you want to pay for a $100 mediocre meal.

The view from the second floor right when we walked in. Endless seafood shops~!

My sister and the giant King Crab we ended up buying for 50,000 won. You think it's worth it?

Fresh cooked clams!

The tiny octopuses we bought all chopped up .. yea not that pretty of a sight. They still moved too! Not because they were alive, it's something to do with the neurons firing still which makes it move but it's dead so yea. Still.. THE SUCTION CUPS STICK TO YOUR TONGUE BLECCCK. It's a weird feeling =3=

After our less than pleasant lunch experience, we headed off to Lotte World. By the time we arrived it was just past 4 PM so we were able to get the discounted price 21,00 won for people over 18 and 18,000 won for "children" (18 and under, if only America was like that). I didn't realize that Lotte World was an indoor amusement park but it was really quite amazing just stepping in and ..well basically a giant playground. I would HIGHLY recommend Lotte World to anyone visiting Korea. My mom is definitely not a rollercoaster person but Lotte World is filled with lots of younger kid/older adult friendly rides that are more gentle and has lots of shows and things to look at it. You think that might be boring but don't worry, there are definitely a good amount of those thriller roller coasters, water rides, and there's a sort of "Drop-Zone" ride if any of you know Great America. The lines for some rides weren't that long but the more adventurous/exciting rides like the roller coasters, we had to wait about an hour or so. There is even an outdoor portion of the park (so it's not entirely indoor) which is really quite nice but we didn't go out until late at night (we stayed until 9 or 10 PM I think) so we didn't get to see all the rides since some of them had already closed (including one of the roller coasters sigh)

THERE'S EVEN AN ICE SKATING RINK! But it's like a separate part of the park so I think you have to pay extra for it.

 

THIS WAS THE RIDE THEY WENT ON IN RUNNING MAN WHERE THEY HAD TO DO KARAOKE. It's really not that bad LOL but it was fun knowing that I was riding the same ride Yoo Jaesuk or Song Jihyo went on haha <3

The water ride! This line took quite a while but it was definitely fun. There's like two crazy drops!

View of the whole indoor park from the air balloons that circle the entire indoor park.

There's even an area that's like a mini Trick-Eye Museum (if you don't know what I'm talking about, go read my Day 3 post~!)

The outdoor portion of the amusement park! They have a castle that's lit up like Disneyland! Super pretty :)

After we got kicked out of Lotte World (they literally were like "Thank you for visiting us but it's time for you to go now!" hahaha) because it was closing time, we headed back home. I think it was the earliest we had gotten back to our residential home since all the previous days we had gotten home superr late. It definitely took a bit of time though since Lotte World is so far from Mapo, but it was well worth the trip. If you couldn't tell from the pictures, Lotte World is definitely a must go to stop on any tourist's itinerary and I would lovee to go back next time I visit Korea :)


Anyways, that's it for Day 4. Past the half way point :'( But keep out for Day 5 where we explore a palace and Namdaemun~! <3