I was wrong about the number of pastry shops . . . there's another one across the street that I hadn't noticed because we haven't walked down that side yet.

This morning we continued with what has turned out to be our market weekend. No photos, though, because I forgot my camera at home. Probably just as well. We started out in East London from the Liverpool Street tube station. From there we walked down Petticoat Lane with lots of vendors selling purses, clothing, watches, fresh produce, etc. Stopped at a seafood stall and shared a seafood mix of shrimp and crab claws covered with chili sauce--kind of greasy and spicy for first thing in the morning, but my book suggested it so there you go! It was pretty filling and actually not too bad.

Then it was on to the Spitalfields Market. Now this was a nice market--much more eclectic, relatively higher-end stuff--it looked like a lot of young designers out with their new designs. I didn't buy anything but I kept thinking my daughters would love it. We stopped for coffee and then went on to the Sunday (Up)Market close by. This had items similar to and sometimes identical to what was at Spitalfields, but also had some interesting food, including Ethiopian (and an Ethiopian vegetarian one too, Katie). Unfortunately we were too stuffed from the seafood earlier, so didn't try anything.

That market ended at Brick Lane--another market that was more a flea market cum garage sale. It included more household/hardware things, electrical equipment, and the like. By this point even I was tired of looking. I must say that Gord very kindly did not complain at all about spending his morning doing what he probably likes least! We went home and decided not to do the Thames Festival later. All we could manage was going grocery shopping in the late afternoon. (Note to Maris: I did think about walking to Harrod's, but that will have to wait.)

We continue to get asked for directions, and today was no exception. We steered two American couples, wanting to know if we knew of any pubs in the area for dinner, to our Elephant and Castle (of course we haven't tried the food there but I did look at their menu once and it looked pretty good). I hope they weren't disappointed.

Update on our six pairs of train tickets: Virgin Trains (Sir Richard has his hands in everything!) had no record of any tickets sold to us. I couldn't access my credit card information online because their system was down for maintenance but got through by phone tonight. The credit card company didn't have any charges from Virgin, they just had six requests for authorization to make the charges. Problem solved.