trip to New Malden

leaving central London, originally uploaded by supafly.

On my last Saturday in London, a parade went down Peckham as we ate lunch. It was a small parade - one truck with a band and a row of people behind dancing, singing about Jesus and waving ribbons. However, it was enough to create quite a traffic jam. Behind the parade were half a dozen buses. We peered into the bus windows to see how many people were pissed about the exceptionally slow bus ride and wondered if any of them knew what was holding them up.

We headed out of zones 1 and 2 of London and took a Southwestern train from Vauxhall to New Malden (just 5 miles past Wimbledon). We were going there because it's supposed to have the largest expatriate community of Koreans in Europe. Marshall was impressed with how close together all the Korean shops were. Within 2 or 3 blocks of the train station were two Korean grocery stores. Both of them had these back stairwells that led to other businesses, like cafes or a golf store. There were also several Korea hair salons and Marshall went to one for a haircut. While I waited for him, I was entertained by a trio of friends who were all there to get their haircut. The two men were laughing about how much more complicated it was for women when they get their haircut but were baffled as to why. Their female friend proved them correct. She was British-Korean and spoke no Korean so her friend had to translate for the hair stylist. In her words, she wanted it "styled more." What does that mean? In the end, they couldn't agree on anything so she let her guy friend get a haircut while she thought about it some more.

After a delicious and spicy Korean meal and a stop to get kimchi and seaweed for the house, we went to see Shrek 3 at our local theatre - the Peckham Multiplex. It smelled a little funny, but it wasn't too expensive (£6) and wasn't crowded at all. Some people I have talked to loved the movie and others didn't, but we thought it was hilarious!