Thursday, December 15, 2005

Inner city life

Unlike Hong Kong, inner city London isn't designed to be lived in. It's a place that people people visit to work, shop or see a show. It is also the hottest location for the celebrated British pastime of pavement vomiting. I try not to go out late at night - particularly on weekends.

But my biggest gripe is the difficulty of shopping for essentials. I must not fit the inner city demographic cos what they sellin I ain't buyin...

When I wanted gelatine a couple of weeks ago I had to search for days before I found a supermarket that stocked it. Every other supermarket stocked a vegetarian gelatine alternative.

Likewise when I wanted a hair cut. Salons were everywhere but it was hard to find a salon that didn't have a sign saying 'as seen in Vogue etc.'. Everything was either too pricey (thirty pounds and way upwards) or too freaky ('we also specialise in ALL types of piercings and wet body shaving').

I've decided to start doing some of my grocery shopping near my work where things are half the price. Oh, for a wet market!

4 comments:

Cal said...

Oh yes, I miss the wet markets as well. But there's a reason I live where I live: Ridley Road market- google it and weep. Then come shop.

Berwick St market ain't that far from you - not the same, but not too bad.

And there's always Chinatown.

Joe said...

i know, i know... i'm even planning to go to Southall soon cos I found out my film is showing there...

Anonymous said...

Hey, don't diss the vegetarian altenatives!

Anonymous said...

haha... I am using a news article for teaching tomorrow. It is about a turkey that escaped off a truck and was taken to an office of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They are making it the guest of honour at their Christmas dinner where they are having tofu with all the trimmings.