Mile End & Bethnal Green

London is a city where you can come to find quite a few random places and meet quite a few random people; this post might have a little bit of both. Turns out that one of my class mates and friends from school, also basketball team mate, is now living in London as I am. We have been friends for a few years although we lost contact for some time - I went to the States, then she went to Jordan, then we both moved again a few times but never to the same city - but now since we have London as common residence we see each other quite frequently.

Last week she was looking for a new room to rent, and I decided to accompany her with my camera to see if I could find some material for the blog, and we went East again. The first stop was somewhere close to Mile End - I'm going to spare the details of the house hunting for now. I had been around the area in order to get to Victoria Park - Lovebox festival 2012 - but not wandering around the area.

It was actually one of the first times that I saw the Gherkin's East face or from the East - I'm used to looking at it from the West - but what I really loved was to find a little place such as Mile End Place with beautiful small houses with front yards; especially considering that it's an area mainly filled with apartment blocks. 

London has hidden places with different architecture from the rest of the area, where you're suddenly transported to another era. They're not always easy to find but after some time you get used to looking into mews and alleys, to check as if by magic you are taken somewhere different even if it's just for a few moments.

From Mile End we were walking around the different streets and building blocks until we got to Bethnal Green, and saw some guys playing basketball and remembered our younger years... it was a random happy sunny afternoon.