I’d been looking forward to St. Patrick’s day because I’ve heard a lot about the parade. I know it’s an Irish holiday, but I figured that the proximity might mean that it’s popular in the UK as well. My friends and I had decided to catch the London parade and thought it would go through the same area as the Chinese New Year parade.

Unfortunately for us, we arrived really late and went directly to Trafalgar square since that’s where the crowd was and none of us had done our research. The parade was actually at the other side of the square. Before we realised it, the parade was over. Oh well.

In any case, there was still the main food and festivities to enjoy, so we set out to find something we could eat. I settled on this Irish fish and chips, which was really good, but I have no idea as to how this is any different from regular fish and chips. Irish fish perhaps.

From there, I decided to head over to Columbia Road Flower Market, which only opens on weekends. The flower market is known to be pretty cheap, so I thought maybe I’d go take a look and maybe buy something.

And then it started hailing! Ugh, they were really big hail stones too. I had no choice but to seek shelter in nearby shops while the arctic clouds passed since I didn’t bring an umbrella. I know, something something read the weather forecast. Whatever.

The flowers were really lovely. The market itself though was just along a single street, so you can cover it in like 5 minutes. It’s location is not particularly convenient either, so you might want to consider other markets if you don’t have the time.

The stalls also started packing up early because of the hail, so I didn’t end up feeling like buying anything. What a meh day. But look at this cool doughnut shop!