Travel – Page 4 – thekua.com@rest

The Color Purple

January 3, 2007 Patrick Entertainment, New York, Theatre, Travel

The Color Purple Unlike most West End tickets in the UK, tickets for Broadway shows seem to have a great variation with almost all tickets on last minute sites going for several hundred US dollars even though the original price is about twenty to forty US dollars. However thanks to a little hunting around I found a decently priced ticket offered by Razor Gator to see the Oprah Winfrey presented Broadway show, The Color Purple (sorry for the American spelling but I think it’s more correct in this case). At first I thought Razor Gator seemed a little dodgy when they told me to pick up my ticket from a bartender at an Italian restaurant just off Broadway but it all worked in the end and I got my ticket in the nose-bleed section of the theatre. The seat was actually not bad since they hadn’t sold out the entire theatre and there weren’t that many people sitting in front of me so I had a good view of the stage.

This musical follows the life of a small African American girl as she goes through all the trials and tribulations of living in the early 1900s. We see her mistreated as a child, abused as a wife, make friends with stronger female characters and ultimately triumph over all adversity in the typical heartfelt manner. Unsurprisingly, given the theme of this musical, the crowd was largely composed of large groups of African Americans. The set and the costumes are simple but very appropriate given the setting. The music on the other hand is extremely colourful and the songs are very catchy including that little bit of jazz, bit of blues, a touch of gospel and a hint of ragtime.

I’m glad that I saw this show in Broadway as I think it’s most apt played by Americans and the strong appreciation of the audience and it certainly makes up for the last show I saw.

TheKua.com Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Bubba Gump Shrimp Company

January 2, 2007 Patrick Food, New York, Restaurants, Travel, UK Life

Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Company is a highly successful chain restaurant based on the idea taken from the movie Forest Gump (then again, there are plenty of chain restaurants in America). Its central theme is very simple – serving shrimp in many different ways in each dish including salads, fried shrimp (far too many ways), grilled shrimp, and shrimp in a bourbon sauce. The restaurant does offer more than just shrimp on their menu including chicken, fish, BBQ ribs and several options for vegetarians.

Each restaurant is excessively dressed to look like a real ol’ southern restaurant with far too many tacky memorabilia and items hanging from the roof, and a rusty tin bucket holding all the sauces and a roll of brown paper working as your serviettes (or napkins as they’re referred to as here). An interesting variation and probably the only other thing from the movie is a sign that sits at your table that you use to grab the attention of the staff that walk up and down. Leaving it on the blue “Run Forest, Run” sign and for the most part the waiters and waitresses will leave you to your own devices, but if you do need some attention of some sort, you can flip it over to the red “Stop Forest, Stop” sign. It’s a novelty system that although is kind of fun to do the first time, still quite isn’t as effective as actually stopping someone who is going by and asking them for something.

Details: Bubba Gump Shrimp Company
Found on: New York – 1501 Broadway, New York, NY 10036
Contactable on: +1 212-391-7100
Highlights: A different chain restaurant themed on the Forest Gump movie. Each dish has plenty of shrimp and some of it is actually quite tasty. It’s a fun restaurant with a strong family vibe going
Room for improvement: Almost to the point where it’s overbearingly tacky, Bubba Gump is fine as a first time but I couldn’t see myself there all the time. The novelty stop/go signs aren’t as effective as they make out they are.
The Kua Rating: 5 out of 10

Top of the Rock

January 1, 2007 Patrick New York, Travel

Since I’ve visited New York City quite a number of times in the past, there’s not a lot of tourist spots that I’m yet to actually do. One of the newer places that opened up last year was the viewing platform at the Rockefeller Center. Called Top of the Rock, it’s an impressive multi level viewing platform that seems like it will hold a huge capacity of people. If anything, I’m impressed by the ticketing and lining system – you can either book times online, or buy them in person (with the latter, it’s more likely you’ll have to buy for a later session) and then you go up whenever it’s close to your session.

You have to queue again to get into the elevator but the waiting theatre has some interesting mini-clips about the building and its surroundings and you it cycles so you don’t see the same clip twice. When you actually step into the elevator, lights and music play as if you’re about to jump on a ride but at least it makes the trip go faster. When you finally get the top, you have three viewing platforms you can choose from, and amazingly you get almost uninhibited views of all over Manhattan since they use plexi-glass like barriers to block people instead of metal bars. You can stay up as long as you like but we decided to go just before dusk so we got to see everything with the sun and then after sunset with all the lights of Manhattan lit up.

Walking Around Town

December 31, 2006 Patrick New York, Travel

Gerrods Coffee A couple of days ago, I caught up with my mates Gerrod and Kristy who are both based in New York. I’ve done most of the tourist attractions in New York on previous trips before and the crowds between Christmas and New Year are just crazy, so it was nice to actually chill out and hang out with them for a while. Better yet, Gerrod makes some great coffee (and you can see the awesome little leaf design he has mastered in the

After a little bit of X-Boxing, we still headed out for a afternoon walk, braving the crowds via 5th Avenue and walked down to Columbus Circle and the Lincoln Centre, before leisurely making our way back through Central Park before heading home and out for dinner. For dinner we headed out to the East Village that looks like it’s a little less manic than uptown and a little bit more bohemian than other neighbourhoods I’ve seen. We settled for some great Italian food at Gasparino’s, feasting and drinking before finally settling at a bar nearby. Definitely a fun night out.

Slava’s Snowshow

December 29, 2006 Patrick Entertainment, New York, Theatre, Travel

New York’s Broadway is well known for its entertainment, so my sister and I lined up at the TKTS booth to get some discount tickets to watch a show. The queue was massive and by the time we got there, they did not have any great seats for well known Broadway shows left, so we ended up getting tickets for something off Broadway downtown called Slava’s Snowshow.

Slava’s Snowshow is unlike anything that I’ve seen before. I had no idea what to expect and had I known I would have definitely avoided it. The best description for the show is to call it a clown show set in a winter landscape. Probably most suited for a small theatre and for an audience full of kids, this short show (think an hour and a half already including the twenty minute intermission) failed to really capture any real excitement and laughter from much of the audience.

Most of the clown tricks were extremely dull and barely any of them innovative. The clowns’ costumes were at least bright and colourful and that was probably the brightest thing in the show, with the music very cliché or boring and the props not very exciting.

I unfortunately don’t have much good to say about this show, because frankly there’s not much in there, and I don’t think you get any value for your money whatsoever. My only consolation is that we didn’t pay at least full price for our tickets.

TheKua.com Rating: 2 out of 10

In New York

December 28, 2006 Patrick Travel

I arrived in New York just before Christmas and spent a lovely couple of days with family. I’ll be here at least until the New Year doing a few more of the touristy things that I’ve missed and catching up with some old friends. Living in London brings a very different perspective of what visiting New York City is like, especially since I’ve been to New York so many times in the past.

I’ll try to blog where I can but since I’m on holidays, expect more updates to follow a little bit later.

Moving Out and Moving On!

December 16, 2006 Patrick Coaching, Life in India, Travel, UK Life, Work Related

The biggest news I have this week is that I’m going to be living in India for about 6 months starting from January. I’ll be taking on a new role with other instructors running training and induction classes for people that join Thoughtworks. I’m really looking forward to the experience and I have a lot of support from my work colleagues and sponsor. I hope the people I will be working with will be able to capitalise on all my experiences I’ve had working on the many projects I’ve been on, and I think I will be able to refine a lot of the techniques and approaches I use when coaching teams and pair programming with people. I will also get a huge kick of working with people that are genuinely interested in learning and sharing and like most projects I’ve been on they’ll no doubt be plenty of fun along the way.

It’s a big change for me once again after moving to the UK, but I do plan on returning to the UK after six months and going through the paces again to find another place to live in London. It’s an exciting time and though there’s plenty of stuff to fit into the week before Christmas, it’s going to be completely worth it.