Canary Wharf and Greenwich

We had hoped to get a few jobs done today such as head to Ikea and also pick up the rest of our bags from Erlitas house. Once we finally got ourselves up and ready post breakfast and completing a few loads of washing it was around midday. Erlita was out all day and it wasn’t an option for us to go to her place. We had also discovered Ikea was at least an hour out of town and since we were moving places shortly there wasn’t much point in us going to buy stuff that we may not need in the next place. We planned to head to Canary Wharf to check it out since this is another option for housing that my agency offers. We can literally see the Thames with Canary Wharf right outside our lounge window but there isn't a bridge or anything to get you across there. You either have to walk 20 minutes to the underground where you then have to take one stop on the Victoria line or take a boat across. Both were annoying and not exactly cheap and we wanted to check out where we were living so I found a bridge right down the end by Greenwich that would take us 1.5 hours to walk from our place to Canary Wharf. We set out just bringing a bag of chips with us hoping to find something to eat along the way. The entire walk around Canada Water was pretty boring and you had to duck in and out of the streets since there wasn’t a path all the way down the riverside. It kept going and going and we past a lot of public housing which made us thankful for the house we are currently living in as they looked nasty. We still couldn’t see a bridge as we continued around and wondered if we had crossed the river already. When we checked the map we most certainly hadn’t but Greenwich was the next place we came across. Zan had recommended we come here also so we were pleased to have discovered this by chance. There was a cute market going on and also a famous ship called the Cutty Sark which we had no idea what the history of it was. Turns out it is a boat built in Scotland in 1869 and was designed to carry tea from China to Britain as fast as possible and is boasted to have visited every major world port. Now it is sitting 3 meters above ground you are able to enter inside for £11.50 ($22.50 NZD) but we decided this really wasn't necessary for us today.

There was a strange brick tunnel that I first thought was the underground but turns out it is actually a pedestrian tunnel that goes underneath the Thames instead of the bridge we had been looking for! But first we figured we would grab some lunch at the markets around the ship before continuing our walk. We chose a nice looking burger place that had £5 ($9.80 NZD) beef burgers out of a small antique caravan and the guy also made special sauces so instead of the usual tomato sauce we had a tomato and pomegranate sauce. They were lovey and felt like the ones we made at home with fresh ingredients. We continued walking toward Greenwich town center and were super surprised that there is an actually Greenwich market with heap and heaps more stores around here. Every single food truck looked amazing with Japanese ramen burgers, pulled pork wraps, Thai, and Mexican and I think if we found this it would have been hard to decide what we wanted for lunch as it was all amazing. There was no doubt we were coming back here. There were also a lot of stalls selling handcrafts and other goods but nothing caught our eye. I did however notice a bar that sold hot drinks - mulled wine, spiced apple etc and really felt like something sweet to finish lunch off. I stood in line to buy a £3 ($5.90 NZD) cup of spiced apple and as I got my cup the guys laughed a bit and Lew explained when I returned to him that he had just seen a young kid knock the nutcrackers head off into that large vat of spiced apple that I was now drinking and he thought we should have got it for free. Not like he stepped up and said anything! Oh well it tasted devine and once Lew got past the fact that he wasn’t probably drinking something contaminated by very old horse hair and wood he tried it as well. The tunnel underground was rather interesting and small in places but we wished we had one close to our place so that we could access the underground and the mall across the river at Canary Warf a lot better. There is talk of them putting this in but I don't know when. This side of the Thames was a lot newer and they had obviously learnt from their mistakes that they needed a walkway all down the side of the river. It made it easier for us to walk through the Isles of dogs and get to Canary Wharf. Once we arrived there was so much more going on with an ice rink (only during winter) and a large mall. The reason we had actually come over here was there was a shop that had a lot of Nike shoes that I wanted to buy for work and we figured we would see the neighbourhood at the same time since it was a sunny day. The mall was quite large underground and there’s was a fashion show and a band playing whilst we were there and they were even giving away free candy floss! Lew gave me such a horrified look when he saw me demolishing it and he asked whether I had been deprived as a child haha. Of course your deprived from that sort of thing when your father is a dentist! A photo did get sent home though the Facebook group chat so I didn’t get away with it and everyone in my family was able to send their judgement my way. We found my shoe shop but there wasn’t anything that I thought would work for my job and I decided to wait until I at least get my exam results and find out what the hospital uniform policy is before buying a pair. The mall had the underground station in it so it was very easy for us to hop into the Victoria line and then go one stop to Canada Water. Unfortunately we then had to walk another 20 minutes in the dark and cold with rather sore feet. We had gone to the supermarket whilst at the mall so we at least had some food to cook for tonight. Our flat mate Yolanda was cooking something with mussels when we got home and the house smelled very strong. I liked the smell but she was very apologetic and had all the windows opened. We cooked after her and relaxed for the rest of the night catching up with some of the paperwork that had arrived at Erlitas whilst we were away in Europe. Goodnight everyone. Fingers crossed for some good exam results tomorrow!