The other weekend while Rebecca was back home in New Zealand, I ventured out to catch up with some friends east of the city to check out the markets and the street art scene in that part of town.

Our morning started near Aldgate East station as we browsed through Petticoat Lane Market - a long street market of people selling everything from clothes and watches, to records and souvenirs. It had that feel of a real market, with stallholders yelling in their cockney accents how much their wares were going for. "T-Shirts - £1!" one hollered as we walked past, while another was telling us all about the suitcases he had going "very cheap".

Traipsing our way through, and resisting the urge to buy more clothes (I had foolishly just bought a bunch of clothes at Primark the day before), we headed to the Old Spitalfields Market - a market with more craft items and clothes instead of the cheap tees. It was hard to believe these two markets were only two minutes from each other, with a completely different vibe. One very loud and very busy, the other quieter and with just as many people, but a more professionally organised feel.

After stopping for a lunch break at Sundayupmarket, we walked through the jam-packed Brick Lane street market (once again plenty of craft goods and clothing on offer) towards the Columbia Road Flower Market. The street market, which is only there on Sundays, was a very fragrant and colourful scene, with individual flowers, plants and trees on offer. Like all the markets we had been to, again this was full to capacity, with our group only able to make small steps to get through. It also had that proper London street market feel as well, with stall holders again yelling loudly to get our attention and convince buys to get some flowers for their significant other.

We finally found a way to get out of the market at head towards Whitechapel Gallery for the highlight of our day, a street art tour of east London. We signed up for a free walking tour with Free Tours By Foot (one of those tours where you give a tip at the end) and had a very informative tour guide who took us around for two hours, showing us the work of some well-known street artists, talking about the difference between street art and graffiti, as well as a bit of the history of east London.

I was awe-struck with some of the colourful art around the place, and of course there were a few where I thought to myself "is that art?". In fact there was a moment where I told Claire, a friend of mine on the tour, that I'm going to become a street artist and draw stick figures on walls. I though it would be an original concept and something so random would suddenly force people to come up with an explanation of what it represents. However my new dream was crushed five-minutes later when we saw two stick figures, one with a hijab, holding hands. It was done by an artist named Stik who started out painting stick figures. Original concept gone, and done much better than I could've done!

Overall east London is a vibrant and eclectic area of the city, and worth spending a day out there to explore the markets (ideally on a Sunday) and experience the thriving art scene.

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