Paddington Market and the Paddington Reservoir Gardens

Paddington Market is a dangerous place!

Keep your wallets on lockdown or you will dig into it over and over again,-- and POOF -- suddenly it will be much, much lighter. I love markets in general, and this is one is particularly cool. It's held every Saturday starting at 10 a.m. on the grounds of a quaint old church in the trendy neighborhood of Paddington.

It took us a while to find the place and our plan had been to eat lunch at the market; therefore we were starving when we finally got there at around 3:30 p.m. Finding food was obviously the first order of business. G opted for a sausage, a general favorite of his when it comes to vendor food. I've been nursing a cold and lost my voice the night before. When I'm sick, I split two ways -- I want either really comforting food like matzah ball soup, or really spicy food that will cut through to my taste buds and clear out my sinuses all in one go. I really felt I need the jolt, so I went with a 'Shangrila Combo' Plate from a Himalayan joint. Everything was delicious and they had an awesome hot chilli sauce that hit the spot so well that I went back and asked for more. A few vocal cords were temporarily jump started by the heat.

This plate included something very much like a chickpea dahl, a delicious stewed lamb, a noddle stir-fry, potatoes, rice, with yogurt and chilli sauce, and puri for about $10.

Once we'd eaten, we could focus on the rows and rows of art, jewelry, clothes, crafts and antiques. G and I were both impressed by the quality of the art pieces you can find here. A lot of times you hit a market in hopes of finding an art piece to take home as a souvenir, and all you see is reproductions of the same series of images that are designed to draw in tourists repeated throughout the stalls over and over. Not so here. There are many awesome artists displaying cool and original pieces. I don't think I saw any repetition between booths.

There is PLENTY in this bazaar for the fashionistas. There are lots of up and coming designers displaying boutique creations, some tending towards the avant-garde. However, if you prefer uncovering the gems of yesteryear, there are also lots of vintage booths to plow through.

Accessories are my own particular vice -- and when traveling, jewelry is my souvenir of choice. It's pretty and packs well. I'm really lucky in that G has a good eye for jewelry. I can count on one hand the number of times he's bought me flowers, but he's wonderful at jewelry; and between flowers and jewelry, I'll definitely take the later. At this point, we've kind of started a tradition that everywhere we travel he picks something out for me. It doesn't necessarily have to be expensive, but it's always special and chosen by him. He ended up finding my anniversary and my Christmas presents here. Super lucky me!

Actually, we found a lot of inspiration to begin our Christmas shopping here and I'm pretty sure we'll be back for more. A few items have been lingering in my mind. I think more than one person on our list will receive finds from this market.

What makes this place sooo dangerous is that there are a lot of affordable treasures to be found. The designer items are definitely a little more pricey and would require careful consideration and editorial selection. However, there is also a lot that is close enough to the realm of reasonable so as to make it easy to convince yourself that it's o.k. Go ahead! This is a once in a lifetime trip. Live it up! You need a memento. And inevitably your wallet is seduced out of your pocket or purse.

All told we wound up very happy with out loot!

I've left out our X-mas finds, but otherwise our selections included a textured print of 2 love birds mounted on a wooden plaque, a whimsical silver necklace picturing a courting pair of storybook bunnies beneath a tree, and a silver choker with a firery red pendant made from mother of pearl treated with enamel. G also scored a pair of much needed sunglasses. Doesn't he have great taste, though!

You can find the wood plaques at www.maiwaku.com and other pieces from the artist of the silver necklace can be found at www.honeybeegoods.com

Paddington Reservoir Gardens

Now I am going to backtrack a moment. As I mentioned, it took us a while to get to the market. We either got off at the wrong bus stop, or I got bad bus directions, probably both, and it ended up costing us about 2.6 (or 1.6 miles -- working on this whole metric system thing) of extra walking. A little annoying, but we ended up running into this awesome reservoir. Paddington Reservoir was used for just a few years in the late 1800's and then inevitably fell into ruins. It was recently reclaimed and transformed into a fantastic park that was opened earlier this year. I loved the mash up of the antique ruins with modern industrial elements. Hidden off to the side is an area that used to be a garage and if you peak inside you can catch a glimpse of some great graffiti. In the main area of the sunken garden there was a photography installation for any passersby to enjoy.

Sometimes getting lost is one of the best things you can do.

Here's G's slideshow of the reservoir, the market, and some of the surrounding scenes:

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Point A is starting point way over in Hyde Park, Point B is the Reservoir, and C is the market.