Kim's trip to London
This weekend, I visited London. Not exciting for most Englanders, but as I am from the frozen north I have not been to London since I was about eight. Therefore, I thought I would record my childish glee for you all. I've put it in an LJ cut as it's fairly long and has a few spoilers for the musical 'Monty Python's Spamalot'.
Saturday January 19th
Nick and I set of on our adventure at the ungodly hour of 8.45am and just had time to grab a sandwich at Norwich station before hopping on the train that would take us to London Liverpool Street. The next few hours were spent playing 'Final Fantasy III' (in Nick's case) and listening to Queen's Greatest Hits (in mine).
After getting off the train we decided to go and check into our hotel before doing anything else so we had to get on the tube to King's Cross. The London Underground, for the sake of any foreigners on here or anyone (like me) who is unfamiliar with it, is an unbelievably stressful experience. Hundreds of people packed into a tiny, sweltering tunnel only then to be packed into an even smaller, sweltering, metal box.
Even though the Circle line was down, it did not take us long to reach Kings Cross and find the Premier Travel Inn that we were staying in. Leaving our bags in our room, number 244, we left the hotel and had lunch at Burger King before braving the tube again to get to South Kensington.
Our initial plan to go to London for my birthday was initially sparked by my desire to see the Natural History Museum. I love dinosaurs, and there are certainly a lot of them there. After gaping at the huge diplodocus skeleton in the lobby, we queued up for the dinosaur exhibit and spent a long time looking at the many complete skeletons, as well as seeing if we could identify them without looking at the plaques next to them. That I remember, there was certainly a triceratops, a baryonyx, an allosaurus, a camerasaurus, a baby T-rex and a Tuojiangosaurus (which is sort of like a little Stegosaurus). There was also some fairly impressive animatronic T-rexes and Deinonychus which scared the life out of some small children, and iguanadon after iguanadon. As well as two complete iguanadon skeletons, every exhibit seemed to have a different part of an iguanadon on it. Nick took plenty of photos for me so hopefully I'll be able to put them up soon.
As we exited the dinosaur exhibit. We found the specialised Dinosaur gift shop. Brilliant. I came out with a guide book, two plushie stegosauruses, a plushie velociraptor, an excavate your own stegosaurus from a block of plaster kit and a paint your own stegosaurus kit. Bet you can't guess what my favourite dinosaur is.
We continued exploring the museum for a few hours after this, visiting the exhibits about insects and mammals, before heading off to Leicester Square to find the Palace Theatre. As a birthday present from my mother, she had purchased for me two tickets to see 'Monty Python's Spamalot' (starring Peter Davidson as King Arthur) and so we figured that it would be best to suss out where the theatre was before the 8pm viewing. When we got off the tube, we had tea at the Garfunkel's opposite the station before navigating our way to the theatre. Since we still had plenty of time, we took the tube back to Kings Cross, left our bags in the hotel room and came back ready for the show.
In the foyer of the theatre was Ye Olde Rippe-offe Shoppe where we purchased a programme/brochure/poster combo thing, two T-shirts emblazoned with the tagline 'I'm not dead yet', a badge that said 'Ni! Ni! Ni', a soundtrack for the show and a small, plushie rabbit with big pointy teeth before heading up to the Upper Circle. From our seat we had a perfect view down onto the stage, and the show was utterly fantastic. I can honestly say that I've never heard Nick laugh so much in a musical. Parodying stereotypical West End musicals were such songs as 'The song that goes like this' and 'You won't succeed on Broadway', and it also featured some classic Monty Python songs such as 'Camelot', 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life', 'Brave Sir Robin' and 'Finland'. Basically, the show was just a retelling of 'Monty Python's Holy Grail'. Therefore, we got the killer rabbit, the black knight, the Knights who say Ni and the discussion into how a swallow could carry a coconut. The trick to seeing this show, if you're interested, is to sit in seat D1 in the stalls. The person in this seat gets called up onto the stage at the end to receive a special prize from the cast. Don't believe me? Go and see the show.
After the show, we returned to our hotel in good time for me to enjoy a bath and watch 'Carry On Camping' before bed.
Sunday 20th January
Due to me feeling incredibly ill in the moring, it took us a little while to set off this day. Our mission, as our train did not leave until 6.32pm, was to seek out as many Japanese/manga shops as possible. After a full English breakfast at the hotel, we purchased train tickets and set off back to Leicester Square (this time laiden with all of our luggage as we had been forced to check-out at noon).
Our first stop was Orbital Manga, a small but decently stocked manga and merchandise shop, which I left with volume 2 of the 'Mushi-shi' manga (a good find, as I wasn't aware that there was one), a plushie of Giroro from 'Keroro Gunso' and 'Keroro Gunso' and 'Naruto' gashapons. Next, we headed up to 'Forbidden Planet' where we just browsed and purchased some 'Magic: The Gathering' cards. On the way back to the station, we discovered a magical cake shop that sold huge muffins topped with luminous icing. I ate a very blue blueberry one while Nick's was chocolate topped with licorice Allsorts.
Next, we had to get back on the tube and head to Picadilly Circus. When we got off, we went to a Japanese department store which had manga in the basement. Here, I found two 'Mushi-shi' art prints and so purchased them before heading off to KFC for lunch.
Next we went into the Trocadero Centre in search of Tokyo Toys, where Nick bought a lot of strawberry pocky, before seeking out the Japanstore, where Nick discovered 'Lucky Star' gashapon and I bought lots of Japanese food to try. Strawberry pocky containing bits of actual strawberry, sweet bean and chestnut pancakes, dango and (my favourite) coffee-flavour yeast bread were all purchased before we headed back to the station. We had run out of things to do and so all that was left was to make our way back to London Liverpool Street and wait for our train, during which we had a rather exciting moment where Nick managed to leave a bag of stuff on the platform of Picadilly Station. Luckily, it was still there when we doubled back on the tube to find it.
Thus, our exciting adventure in London came to an end...
Saturday January 19th
Nick and I set of on our adventure at the ungodly hour of 8.45am and just had time to grab a sandwich at Norwich station before hopping on the train that would take us to London Liverpool Street. The next few hours were spent playing 'Final Fantasy III' (in Nick's case) and listening to Queen's Greatest Hits (in mine).
After getting off the train we decided to go and check into our hotel before doing anything else so we had to get on the tube to King's Cross. The London Underground, for the sake of any foreigners on here or anyone (like me) who is unfamiliar with it, is an unbelievably stressful experience. Hundreds of people packed into a tiny, sweltering tunnel only then to be packed into an even smaller, sweltering, metal box.
Even though the Circle line was down, it did not take us long to reach Kings Cross and find the Premier Travel Inn that we were staying in. Leaving our bags in our room, number 244, we left the hotel and had lunch at Burger King before braving the tube again to get to South Kensington.
Our initial plan to go to London for my birthday was initially sparked by my desire to see the Natural History Museum. I love dinosaurs, and there are certainly a lot of them there. After gaping at the huge diplodocus skeleton in the lobby, we queued up for the dinosaur exhibit and spent a long time looking at the many complete skeletons, as well as seeing if we could identify them without looking at the plaques next to them. That I remember, there was certainly a triceratops, a baryonyx, an allosaurus, a camerasaurus, a baby T-rex and a Tuojiangosaurus (which is sort of like a little Stegosaurus). There was also some fairly impressive animatronic T-rexes and Deinonychus which scared the life out of some small children, and iguanadon after iguanadon. As well as two complete iguanadon skeletons, every exhibit seemed to have a different part of an iguanadon on it. Nick took plenty of photos for me so hopefully I'll be able to put them up soon.
As we exited the dinosaur exhibit. We found the specialised Dinosaur gift shop. Brilliant. I came out with a guide book, two plushie stegosauruses, a plushie velociraptor, an excavate your own stegosaurus from a block of plaster kit and a paint your own stegosaurus kit. Bet you can't guess what my favourite dinosaur is.
We continued exploring the museum for a few hours after this, visiting the exhibits about insects and mammals, before heading off to Leicester Square to find the Palace Theatre. As a birthday present from my mother, she had purchased for me two tickets to see 'Monty Python's Spamalot' (starring Peter Davidson as King Arthur) and so we figured that it would be best to suss out where the theatre was before the 8pm viewing. When we got off the tube, we had tea at the Garfunkel's opposite the station before navigating our way to the theatre. Since we still had plenty of time, we took the tube back to Kings Cross, left our bags in the hotel room and came back ready for the show.
In the foyer of the theatre was Ye Olde Rippe-offe Shoppe where we purchased a programme/brochure/poster combo thing, two T-shirts emblazoned with the tagline 'I'm not dead yet', a badge that said 'Ni! Ni! Ni', a soundtrack for the show and a small, plushie rabbit with big pointy teeth before heading up to the Upper Circle. From our seat we had a perfect view down onto the stage, and the show was utterly fantastic. I can honestly say that I've never heard Nick laugh so much in a musical. Parodying stereotypical West End musicals were such songs as 'The song that goes like this' and 'You won't succeed on Broadway', and it also featured some classic Monty Python songs such as 'Camelot', 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life', 'Brave Sir Robin' and 'Finland'. Basically, the show was just a retelling of 'Monty Python's Holy Grail'. Therefore, we got the killer rabbit, the black knight, the Knights who say Ni and the discussion into how a swallow could carry a coconut. The trick to seeing this show, if you're interested, is to sit in seat D1 in the stalls. The person in this seat gets called up onto the stage at the end to receive a special prize from the cast. Don't believe me? Go and see the show.
After the show, we returned to our hotel in good time for me to enjoy a bath and watch 'Carry On Camping' before bed.
Sunday 20th January
Due to me feeling incredibly ill in the moring, it took us a little while to set off this day. Our mission, as our train did not leave until 6.32pm, was to seek out as many Japanese/manga shops as possible. After a full English breakfast at the hotel, we purchased train tickets and set off back to Leicester Square (this time laiden with all of our luggage as we had been forced to check-out at noon).
Our first stop was Orbital Manga, a small but decently stocked manga and merchandise shop, which I left with volume 2 of the 'Mushi-shi' manga (a good find, as I wasn't aware that there was one), a plushie of Giroro from 'Keroro Gunso' and 'Keroro Gunso' and 'Naruto' gashapons. Next, we headed up to 'Forbidden Planet' where we just browsed and purchased some 'Magic: The Gathering' cards. On the way back to the station, we discovered a magical cake shop that sold huge muffins topped with luminous icing. I ate a very blue blueberry one while Nick's was chocolate topped with licorice Allsorts.
Next, we had to get back on the tube and head to Picadilly Circus. When we got off, we went to a Japanese department store which had manga in the basement. Here, I found two 'Mushi-shi' art prints and so purchased them before heading off to KFC for lunch.
Next we went into the Trocadero Centre in search of Tokyo Toys, where Nick bought a lot of strawberry pocky, before seeking out the Japanstore, where Nick discovered 'Lucky Star' gashapon and I bought lots of Japanese food to try. Strawberry pocky containing bits of actual strawberry, sweet bean and chestnut pancakes, dango and (my favourite) coffee-flavour yeast bread were all purchased before we headed back to the station. We had run out of things to do and so all that was left was to make our way back to London Liverpool Street and wait for our train, during which we had a rather exciting moment where Nick managed to leave a bag of stuff on the platform of Picadilly Station. Luckily, it was still there when we doubled back on the tube to find it.
Thus, our exciting adventure in London came to an end...