Shoreditch

For my first ever visit to Shoreditch, I knew I had to have open eyes and watch my surroundings: I had heard so much about the multi-cultural, 'new-Camden'.
I got off the tube at Liverpool St. to be greeted by a man asking for 50p, then simultaneously spotted a street-style blogger wandering round, looking for a victim.

As I made my way towards the Old Spitalfields market, I was like a child seeing the world for the first time. I was engrossed by the simplest things: bicycles with one wheel detached and padlocked to lamp posts, a little old man, smoking and dreaming, a coffee shop in the back of the smallest van I had ever seen (surely this doesn't fit an actual human inside?)
The actual market itself of course, was cute, but not all that ground breaking for me. The lovely stalls with hand made cards and Italian crafted masks, vintage fur coats and quirky, sloganed T-shirts were very cool but not unique for me. I found myself getting bored of this market quickly and moving along, perhaps I came on the wrong day?

I followed the lead of a friend on to Fashion Street where we saw the most incredible street art, a police man on a horse: the detail, down to the pain drops was mind-blowing. There were also paintings of Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse which suggested to me the kind of area this was: urban, typically London, edgy.

Along with the art, there was posters mocking 'Never Mind the Bollocks' with Coronation Street characters on.
As we approached Brick Lane, I saw countless off licence's, but not your ordinary one, they had shisha's and bongs in the window. Along with these stores, there were many Indian and Chinese cafes: this is where I really got the multi-cultural feel. This was only added to when we met the strip of Indian curry houses with waiters at the door begging me to come inside to eat. The street signs along Brick Lane had an Arabic version below which shows the vast population of foreign people in the area.
A tad bit further down the road, there was a promoter for a vintage boutique, a mannequin on a roof with 'R.I.P Whitney' spray painted on, a blog url written on the wall, rappers handing out EPs on the street and a man carrying a wooden wardrobe on a skateboard: the amount of variety in this area is wonderful.
The shops down Brick Lane include run down fabric stores, a shop for 'Luxury Womenswear' stocking only handmade leather bags and jackets, fashion boutiques, tattoo and piercing places, fried chicken shops and a very cool book store with east end history in the window.

As the day ended, we made our way to Shoreditch high street station and saw the most interesting thing of the day, a homeless man reading a book to his dog: this broke my heart and also renewed my faith in humanity.

LOVE K