Cool place in London ON?

[FlavorFlav]

No problem. A lot of parts of DT are sketchy lol. Richmond Street (one of the main streets of London - runs north-south and is the street that parts of Western is on) and Dundas starts to get pretty sketchy. Anything south of Richmond and Dundas is pretty sketchy, although I've never been past Richmond and Horton. There's a weed shop, a bunch of sex shops, a bunch of people who look like they're doing hard drugs, a bunch of homeless people asking for money etc. There are a lot of places that literally smell like dried piss and I've actually seen people take piss on streets there. Bikes get stolen a lot in London too. My bike got stolen in my 3rd week there. Lock got cut. Always buy a U-lock if you have a bike or prepare for it to get stolen.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, check out the Convent Market on King Street and Talbot. It's like London's version of the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto.

awesome, thanks again.

 

[Sonic Disturbance]

You just described every city in the world

Not really. I'm used to live Toronto, and there are definitely sketchy places downtown but proportionally, it's far less than London. Smaller cities usually have "nicer" downtowns too. I also used to live in Mississauga and the downtown there (while kind of "boring") was clean and well-built. London actually has a smaller population than Mississauga (~350,000 to ~500,000) too. I've also visited and lived in countless cities both in Canada and internationally and while some third-world countries have DT's that are definitely worse, no first-world country city I've been to has a DT with a greater proportion of sketchy-looking areas than DT London in my opinion. The area north of Western (where I live) is great though.

 

[Stand Witness]

LOL I figured as much.

31

31? Avoid Frog, Belfort, and Ceeps if you want to avoid the university crowd. If you don't? Frog and Belfort are your go to. Avoid Jacks at all costs. Joe Kools is the 'older crowd' bar right now. Molly Blooms can go either way but it is a pub if thats what you are looking for. Fun place but a different vibe than the rest of DT.

No one's really giving serious answers here. I'm currently a graduate student at Western, just started this September so only been here for two months. Some tips:

1) London Knights games at the Labbatt Center are great. Good quality, relatively cheap. It sucks that a lot of their talent (Marner, Dvorak, Tkachuk) are off to the NHL this year though.

2) Most of the best places to eat are downtown. Check out the Early Bird. It's a technically a breakfast place, but it's all day and they make some cool looking stuff. Thaifoon is pretty good for Thai food. If you're on campus, avoid the UCC for food, it's terrible and overpriced. I'd recommend The Grad Club. Sommerville Cafe is good too, but it has very limited hours. If you don't mind the walk, Brescia Cafeteria is pretty good.

3) Parts of downtown London are pretty sketchy.

4) If you want to go shopping, go to Masonville Mall - it's just north of Western. This is also one of the nicer areas of London.

5) London Transit sucks ass.

6) If you're into martial arts/MMA there's a high-level gym - Adrenaline MMA just past downtown. It's run by Mark Hominick, who fought Jose Aldo for the UFC featherweight championship in 2011 at UFC 129. He actually teaches some classes (Monday kickboxing). They have other current and former UFC fighters teaching there like Sam Stout, Chris Clements and Chad Laprise.

7) Western probably has the highest density of attractive females of any place I've seen in Canada.

8) It's cold as **** and rains a lot.

London Knights are also a good time for sure and there are some good places to eat downtown for sure.

I agree on the sketchy thing. I wouldn't recommend anyone going south of Jack's really. No need to if you are trying to enjoy a night downtown. Everything good is essentially north of Jack's.

Masonville is definitely your average mall if you want to go shopping. Not a bad idea if you want to walk around and kill some time. LTC is gross but I haven't had any really bad experiences on it tbh.

7). Yes. 100% true. Its crazy how my view of an average girl has changed from going to Western. Its actually insane.

And ya, we do get really bad weather here.

Since I forgot, something I could suggest (but haven't done myself yet) is one of the escape room/houses around here. I have heard great things about them but haven't done it myself yet. Something on my bucket list around here for sure.

As someone who has lived in London I am actually trying to come up with things to do too. So if anyone else here has recommendations I am listening