Saturday, September 12, 2015

Day spent in Barking in East London. It's a multi-ethnic community - Eastern Europeans, West Indians, East Indians, Africans, and very few native British. It's common to see people on the street dressed in their native attire.  Several days a week there's a market where food, clothing, and household goods are sold at bargain prices.  In general, prices in Barking are fairly low, compared to wealthier parts of London.

When closed, the shops are shuttered.

There are a number of very small ethnic restaurants - Turkish, Persian, Balkan, Bulgarian, Chinese.  No Japanese. Most of them have 5-6 tables only, as people generally order take out.

Besides these types of small shops there are two larger grocery stores - Lidl is similar in price to Superstore in Canada, and is now planning to build many more stores in England

Where Brian lives - less than a 10 minute walk from the train station via the main street

Barking is great for transportation.  Two underground lines, and the overground rail line and National Rail.  Train cars are quite new and are very clean.  Service is frequent. Having a car is a luxury.

The overground train - C2C, goes to Fenchurch in the city

No idea who these people are.  Just thought it made for an interesting picture - the traditional and the modern

Map of the underground (the tube) Barking is off to the right, not visible here.  The underground is easy to understand and navigate.  Signage is excellent.  All stops and connections are announced on the trains.

This refers to special paint that doesn't dry, is slippery, and is meant to keep people from climbing the wall.  Also called anti-vandal paint.  This sign is on a house.

This surrounds a lovely large house. Brian's neighbour had 2 new cars stolen (has mobility problems) while parked outside his flat, and after that, gave up on having a car.  He has an electric wheelchair now.

Of interest to TV fans:  when people buy a TV in England they get dozens of FREE TV channels called Freeview, built into TVs - but they pay a YEARLY TV license fee of UK145.50 to have a TV. This license fee goes to the BBC which produces commercial-free programming.