It's funny how something with origins so foreign to my own can make a new city seem familiar.

London's Chinatown is smaller than I had anticipated, one of the smallest I've seen, considering the size of the rest of the city. But it greets the throngs of pedestrians with the usual ornamental entrance gate, the typical red lanterns strung over alleyways, and those unmistakable scents wafting from the doors of the pan-Asian supermarkets. I couldn't feel more comfortable.

The city's diversity has shocked me. Expecting to be surrounded by British accents, I've instead been straining my ears just to venture a guess at what language the people next to me are conversing in. Three hundred languages are spoken in London schools! And we Americans think we live in a melting pot.

Of course, having spent two years in Seoul, one culture I always have my eye out for is Korean. I was hoping to find a stronger presence in Chinatown than the two Japanese/Korean combo restaurants on Lisle St. (However, I was served a very tasty bowl of kimch'i jjigae at the one I tried.)

According to an informative Think London report, the primary Korean community in London (and apparently all of Europe!) is in New Malden, in the southwest of Greater London near Wimbledon. I may just have to venture down there in my search for Maxim, a wonderful Korean instant coffee. First stop Chinatown, next Koreatown?