thames barrier park is a modernist park design which combines formal modernist geometric topiary with wildflower meadows. the hedged ‘wave’ feature, and dancing fountain, nod to the area’s dockland past. you can visit from the docklands light railway, floating pontoon station, next to london city airport. the park also overlooks the monumental thames flood barrier.

the city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.

italo calvino

teppan-yaki-ya are usually associated with flashy upmarket slightly tacky pepper-mill twirling wisecracking steak chefs in london and new york epitomised by ‘benihana’.  this place was a bit different. it’s warm and friendly, and the food has a distinctly japan meets the rest of the world cosmopolitan complection.  you’ll find it on one of the little back streets off the roppongi crossing (and more than that i’m not prepared to say)