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明けましておめでとうございます！or How I spent my New Year's
I want to write about the rest of my trip but briefly my new year's was: NYE I went to see the musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Drury Lane. It was pretty good. Lots of new songs (except for "Pure Imagination") and funny stage adaptations of things (I liked the golden ticket discoveries happening in a mini-TV set, and they gave actual personality to the grandparents, but the oompa-loompas were a bit odd/puppetish). The Underground was shut down everywhere in downtown apparently, though, so I had to walk home from the theater, which was like a mile and a half. There were a TON of people out walking towards fireworks viewing places; I decided I didn't feel like doing that, though I did have the choice to go back outside to the palace if I wanted to. Instead, I spent a half hour around midnight lint-rolling my clothes after a mild laundry disaster my first night in the suite (I'd spent a while earlier in the day hunting for a lint roller on my way to/from our Central St Giles office), and then I went to sleep.
New Year's Day itself, well, I woke up and did a little research while listening to the wind/rain outside and then decided, whatever. My plan all along for the day was the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden and the Dirty Dancing musical in Piccadilly, and it was just a matter of what else would surround those. So I decided to walk to the transport museum and take the long way around the London Eye, for a 3-mile walk or so. I stopped by Westminster Abbey and Parliament on the way of course, but it was so windy and rainy... decided NOT to ride the eye for that reason and instead continued over the Waterloo bridge. Got lunch at a fancier pub-like restaurant near the museum, more fish'n'chips, and then there was the transport museum. I expected to spend HOURS there but in reality only spent like 2 hours there. It was packed with tons of children who were running around and screaming, which was unfortunate, I also had a tough time taking photos because so many people in the way. Amusingly when I walked in the first thing I saw was a Tokyo subway map with Nakano-Sakaue on it (my station when I lived with Kozo) highlighted. How weird! I spent a while in the gift shop and got some cool stuff, and then wandered around the area for a bit and walked to Piccadilly via Chinatown. I really kinda wanted something quiet and tea-like for dinner but instead ended up at McDonald's around the corner from the theater.
The musical was... well, unlike other stage adaptations of movies, this one REALLY doesn't stand alone, they basically mostly just tried to redo the film on stage, which doesn't work in many parts. On the other hand, the dancing was fantastic (apparently the guy who plays Johnny Castle is a British ballroom champion and it really showed). One super-weird thing is that neither Baby nor Johnny actually sing at all, they just dance. And Baby was clearly a decent actress while Johnny was clearly just a dancer, I thought his acting was pretty terrible. They have Billy do a decent chunk of singing and there's another random staff girl who also sings a lot of the stage versions of the songs, and a few other characters get songs like the parents and Max and whoever.
I decided not to walk home after the play but took the tube to Victoria and went for a walk a little bit just to figure out where my hotel today will be, and then I came home, did more laundry, and packed, and slept. Now I'm back at work at the Google London office! Whee!
New Year's Day itself, well, I woke up and did a little research while listening to the wind/rain outside and then decided, whatever. My plan all along for the day was the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden and the Dirty Dancing musical in Piccadilly, and it was just a matter of what else would surround those. So I decided to walk to the transport museum and take the long way around the London Eye, for a 3-mile walk or so. I stopped by Westminster Abbey and Parliament on the way of course, but it was so windy and rainy... decided NOT to ride the eye for that reason and instead continued over the Waterloo bridge. Got lunch at a fancier pub-like restaurant near the museum, more fish'n'chips, and then there was the transport museum. I expected to spend HOURS there but in reality only spent like 2 hours there. It was packed with tons of children who were running around and screaming, which was unfortunate, I also had a tough time taking photos because so many people in the way. Amusingly when I walked in the first thing I saw was a Tokyo subway map with Nakano-Sakaue on it (my station when I lived with Kozo) highlighted. How weird! I spent a while in the gift shop and got some cool stuff, and then wandered around the area for a bit and walked to Piccadilly via Chinatown. I really kinda wanted something quiet and tea-like for dinner but instead ended up at McDonald's around the corner from the theater.
The musical was... well, unlike other stage adaptations of movies, this one REALLY doesn't stand alone, they basically mostly just tried to redo the film on stage, which doesn't work in many parts. On the other hand, the dancing was fantastic (apparently the guy who plays Johnny Castle is a British ballroom champion and it really showed). One super-weird thing is that neither Baby nor Johnny actually sing at all, they just dance. And Baby was clearly a decent actress while Johnny was clearly just a dancer, I thought his acting was pretty terrible. They have Billy do a decent chunk of singing and there's another random staff girl who also sings a lot of the stage versions of the songs, and a few other characters get songs like the parents and Max and whoever.
I decided not to walk home after the play but took the tube to Victoria and went for a walk a little bit just to figure out where my hotel today will be, and then I came home, did more laundry, and packed, and slept. Now I'm back at work at the Google London office! Whee!