Little Venice

One of the many joys of moving to a new office is having a new surrounding area to explore. And as my initial enthusiasm for exploration waned long ago, the move has provided a much-needed boost in this department. So far I have spent 2, yes, 2! entire lunch times exploring my surrounding area, as well as another lunch time spent tasting local Thai pub cuisines. Sadly, all this exploration got in the way of my updating blog last week, but as it was in the interesting of possible new blog topics, I hope I'm at least somewhat forgiven.

The first exploratory period involved walking to Paddington Basin and Little Venice. Both sound, exciting, I know. First of all, I had hard much talk of this Paddington Basin but had no earthly clue what it entailed or where it was. Now I can tell you that it's a massive development just north of the train station (I'm just west of it) involving office space, some commercial space, and I think some residential. In the middle there was a bit of a circular hole in the ground with some grassy seating, some food options and a gym. Around this hole there were more food options, primarily involving sit-down restaurants, and a pub. All-in-all, handy but perhaps not exciting.

Stop 2 was Little Venice. Believe it or not, but the UK has an intricate canal system that was developed shortly before the arrival of the railroads. Many of these canals still exist, at least in parts, including one just north of Paddington Station. Two canals meet, resulting in a large pond-like open area, and this serves as the heart of Little Venice. Now I was expecting a happening landscape, but instead things were relatively quiet, with one boat serving as a small cafe, but other than that it was really just a pleasant place for a stroll, and was surrounding by what I can only assume to be extremely expensive houses. There is also an architectural-type pedestrian bridge crossing the canal, connecting me to this little urban oasis.

My other journey out last week took me towards Edgware Road (not to be confused with Edgware!). I typically think of Edgware Road as an annoying tube station, as I take Edgware Road branch District Line trains to get to work. But low and behold, there is actually an existence outside the station! I know, crazy. We happened to come across a random market, mainly involving cheap wares, vegetables and kebabs. Not that exciting really, but it's interesting to know what goes on! We were attempting to find Lord's cricket ground, the 'home' of cricket in London or something silly like that, but without a map we sort of ran out of time and had to turn back. It turns out we were about two blocks away.

Luckily I still have many directions to discover. Like to the west towards Westbourne Grove, and to the south towards Lancaster Gate and Hyde Park. We'll see how long it takes for me to get around to those! Oh, and the Thai food was not the best!