Camden Markets

Ian and I visited London’s 4th most popular tourist attraction yesterday: Camden Markets. They’re made up of hundreds of stalls on the sides of streets, in many buildings and under marques. It’s a great place to get anything from cheap t-shirts, arts and crafts, sunglasses, clothes, shoes, fruit & vegetables, jewellery, etc etc. It’s packed full of colourful characters (see punks below) which was a nice change to seeing suits everywhere in central London. It kinda reminded me of Cuba St, Wellington, where everyone can comfortably be themselves – except on a much huger scale. Also on offer were a good range of international fare, of which, we sampled a Turkish kebab. I’ve been told not to expect much from kebabs here, but this place quashed that expectation somewhat by serving us a great kebab with a handmade wrap.



What was a bit surprising is that here, stall owners and sales assistants actually tried to help or sell you a product. As you probably know, most sales staff in England try to make you feel bad by giving you an annoyed look when they have to pause their cellphone conversation to serve you. Sometimes, they won’t even leave their conversations! It’s different at Camden Markets; I was looking at a power adaptor which was in plastic packaging and the guy opened it up for me to let me take a better look. I wasn’t really that interested and said “thanks, but I’ll leave it for today”. He said, a bit disgruntled “But I opened the package for you” to which I said “Well, I didn’t ask you to” and walked off.

All in all a great day. I’ll be returning with TJ when she comes to visit as I know she’ll love the place. And when I need a new studded leather dog collar…