Category Archives: Tourist Attractions and Days Out

Alton Towers

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We couldn’t let summer go by without a visit to a theme park. As Mei’s family lives Birmingham way, which isn’t too far to drive to Alton Towers, that’s where we decided to head. Laney, Mei (cause she lives in London full time) and I packed up our overnight kits and headed north for the weekend. We were a little bit worried that the weather was looking a bit ropey but it turned out pretty glorious in the end … which also had the unfortunate effect of bringing thousands to the park – but hey, sometimes you can’t have everything.

The train ride up on Friday night was surprisingly quiet and comfortable. Virgin trains are always good for comfort but in my experience people are always fighting for seats. We must have timed our train just right as we missed most of the commuting traffic and weekend traveler traffic. We ended up hitting sack pretty late – Mei’s mum insisted on feeding us and then we listened to Mei on the piano. She says she practises anytime she’s at home to keep her skills up. It seemed so natural – makes me regret not continuing on with my piano lessons!

Saturday morning bloomed bright though ominous clouds did sit on the horizon for a bit. We thought we got to Alton Towers pretty early but heaps of people were already there. We parked in the carpark and took our first ride for the day – the monorail from the car park to the theme park entry! No chicken drumsticks allowed …

Waiting for the “line” drop was painful – so many people trying to push in front and get through but in the end it didn’t really matter, there were enough rides that for the first bit at least there wasn’t too huge a queue. The most we waited the whole day I think was about an hour a half for Rita – ironically the queen of speed had the largest line of the day! Oh, this was not counting the wait for Thirteen, the newest ride at the park, which broke down just as we were about 15 people from the front! Thirteen wasn’t the greatest ride in the park, but it does have something that will surprise.

I was quite impressed with our planning, and luck, during the day. We managed to hit all the rides we wanted to hit including Air, Nemesis, Oblivion, Ripsaw, and Hex (this one still trips me out).

But the ride that we really enjoyed the most on this hot day was the Flume. The line for this was nearly as long as for Rita but it was massively entertaining to be in line because everyone was getting absolutely drenched – and if the splash back from the bottom of the ride didn’t get you, the showers afterwards did – just as well none of us
wore white today! It was a good time to have a slushie too – mmm.

Our last ride for the day 🙁 was the Sonic Spinball. This was rated “Laughs and Frights” but I think it was the roughest ride of the day! Ha ha!

Almost the best thing about the day was the dinner that Mei’s mum had prepared for us which included one of the best roast pork dishes I’ve ever tasted. I must admit I kept going back for more!

West End LIVE

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West End LIVE is a great annual event to get taster of what’s on the scene in the West End from theatre to musicals to jazz bands and even to museums and galleries. Now in its 6th year it is bigger and more popular than ever. Leicester Square is the central point of the West End so the entire event was centred on the Square. This had its pros (at least you didn’t have to run from venue to venue) and cons (if you don’t get there early enough there’s no chance you’ll get close enough to the stage for a decent view.

The main performances started at noon today but the gates opened before that and people apparently started lining up from at least an hour before hand. Acts were every 15-20 minutes or so.

Actually at one point the area got so crowded that Nic and I ended up separated from each other!

If you don’t mind a bit of pushing and shoving in the crowd, other than the usual people who are always constantly moving there were also quite some vigorous dancers!, it’s a great way to see the showcase of shows on offer at the West End.

Tap Dogs

Stomp

Thriller Live

Jersey Boys

Priscilla

Legally Blonde

Lion King

Tate Britain: Henry Moore

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A friend from work was able to score me some complimentary tickets to see the Henry Moore exhibit at the Tate which I was very happy to accept. The best thing about the tickets was that I could go any time without having to commit to a particular time slot so today I brought Pat along after lunch.

The exhibition at the Tate of Henry Moore is one of the largest indoor exhibitions of his work. With over 150 sculptures I thought it would take us some time to get through it but actually despite the number of sculptures on display many of them are on a lot smaller scale than his better known pieces so it didn’t take us as long to get through as I’d thought. The rooms were loosely set out in themes with a dominating theme of the Mother and Child. My favourite pieces, however, were the ones carved out of Elm Wood – probably due to their size!

It was an interesting exhibition though I wonder if it would have had more impact on me had the exhibition been on display outdoors.

Royal Ascot – Part III

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Well, we have lost one of our crew for our now annual journey to Royal Ascot for Ladies’ Day – Pauline you were missed! – however that Su Yin happily stepped in this year to join our journey. The start for Royal Ascot went a little off-track when D missed the train we were supposed to catch though he managed to get on to the next one which was only 15 minutes after ours.

The seating and table arrangement had changed a bit when we got to Royal Ascot from last year. It seemed that the fencing had moved forward a bit and they’d added a whole lot more benches but as usual we went for a table which was useful for placing our giant food supplies for the day. Heh heh. They’d also moved the lavs even further away and though there were a lot more toilets than last year they were so far away I could barely be bothered making the trip to them. It also somehow didn’t change the long lines out the front! Hopefully they’ll change that for next year.

We had a really brilliant day weather-wise – mostly warm and always blue skies (last year was fine but quite overcast at times) – which could have explained why there were so many people at Royal Ascot this year. It felt like everyone in London was the races today!

Photo opps were taken at the start when there were less people around, after that it soon got so busy we could barely make our way around.

Race-wise I think Su Yin did the best out of the four of us and was probably the only one to finish in a net positive position. Unlike last year the race results were fairly unpredictable so if you had some money on the bigger odd horses you could have made a bundle.

It was once again a successful and fun day, and also another opportunity to say hi to the queen.

City Buildings

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It was just another one of those gorgeous days that made me want to walk forever and ever until the sun disappeared so after brunch with James I called up Su Yin to see if she wanted to take a walk.

We ended up walking for a couple of hours around the City which was blessfully empty of its city workers. heh heh.

I may not love the city workers but I do love their buildings. Lloyds:

and of course the Gherkin

Glorious Day at Greenwich

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Its going to be a really good summer this year if today is any indication. The weather was absolutely amazing today and its only May!

Laney and I thought we’d take advantage of the glorious weather and do some more elephant hunting out at Greenwhich. I don’t get out here too often cause its so far away but it’s a lovely short getaway from “London” and if you can gather the energy to climb up to the observatory on the hill you can get some stunning views across London. As usual when the sun surprises us there are some … interesting sights as the population do all they can to get rid of their pasty white bodies!

The only pain today was the number of people lining up to stand on the meridian. Tourists are so rude and thoughtless sometimes! But we eventually got our turn (not without there being some fights which broke out in front of us though!)

Glorious day.

Mirela visit London

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It has been a long time since I’ve last seen Mirela – gosh it must have been Madrid in June last year and that was only a very fleeting visit. Since then she’s left Madrid, gone to work at a summer tennis camp in the States and then gone back to settle back home in Greece (moving in with her boyfriend to the new apartment that her parents built her) so a lot has happened. Further I don’t think she’s visited London since November 2008.

Although February is probably not the best time for someone who loves the sun and warmth to visit London at least the weather for her this past weekend has been fairly lovely. Especially on Friday when I took the day off from work to spend with her traipsing around London.

In every conversation that we’ve had since she booked tickets to come visit London the very first thing that comes up is Crispy Duck. Her flight was delayed coming in on Thursday night so we didn’t end up leaving Heathrow Airport until just before 9pm. We were both absolutely starving by then so we made our first stop one of my favourite local Chinese restaurants: New Fortune Cookie! We didn’t even bother stopping at home to drop off any luggage – lucky she packed relatively lightly. I love the staff at New Fortune Cookie. I don’t know if they recognise me, I do get take-away and eat-in quite often, but they are always ready to greet me with a friendly smile and friendly service. I also don’t know if they remember Mirela visiting last time and her total obsession with the hoisin sauce they serve with the crispy duck. It was rather amusing! The crispy duck went down an absolutely treat that’s for sure.

This weekend with Mirela wasn’t planned at all which is very unlike me as most people know! But because I also had to consider Sabrina’s plans, one of Mirela’s close uni friends, it was a bit hard to organise anything such as tickets to an event or even to organise drinks. But I think it worked out okay.

As I mentioned Friday weather was absolutely lovely. We started off with coffee for Mirela from Starbucks before walking down Kensington Church Street to get to Giraffe for brunch. Mmmm … love their English Breakfast. Even the vegetarian version, which is what Mirela had, isn’t too bad.

After brunch we headed up the Babylon Roof Gardens for a peak, a quick drop by some of the shops and then it was off to the Tate Modern to meet up with Fabrizio, another of Mirela’s Uni mates. Interestingly this guy never works and has spent most of his 30+ years at school! He has recently decided that he wants to move to Spain somewhere. To do goodness knows what but hey – he seems happy.

The current installation in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall is Miroslaw Balka’s giant grey steel box which is in essence a vast black dark chamber. Its supposed to represent aspects of Polish history (the artist is Polish). Supposedly the experience creates a range of “sensory and emotional experiences … provoking feelings of apprehension, excitement or intrigue.” Er … it was literally a big box (think huge container van) with no lights on inside. We walked up to it, into it, fumbled around, got to the back and then walked out again. Mirela, who can cannily imitate a barking dog, entertained us by displaying her skills and as a result a bunch of teenage girls ran screaming out! Anyway, if a big vast black box sounds like you’re kind of thing you have until 5 April to visit.

Another meal that Mirela was keen to have was sushi. It was kind of awkward timing at 3pm by the time we ate – we returned to HiSushi which was okay but as they were nearly closing down we were pretty much rushed to order our food.

After heading back to my place for a bit of a rest, we’d been walking for quite a few hours by then so we were rather weary!, we headed over to Sabrina’s house for a night out in South Kensington. After a couple of hours mucking around at Sabrina’s we stopped at Carluccio’s for dinner, which as usual even at 10 pm was heaving (we had to wait about 20 minutes for a table”), and then headed to Vendome for some drinks: 3 drinks for £30 – ouch!

Vendome was more bar than club – its quite a small venue with plenty of seating around – so it was quite relaxed but it was filled by what I imagine to be a typical South Kensington crowd. Music was not too bad but quite mainstream. We managed to dance the night away but with the bar closing at 1am it was an earlier end to the night than I was expected. As it turned out it nearly took me two hours to get home anyway – it didn’t help that I was quite a little bit tipsy …

On Saturday we all woke up a little worse for wear – we only had three drinks each at Vendome! But we had planned on a pretty quiet day of shopping at Westfield so it wasn’t supposed to be a demanding day. We made the mistake of trying to lunch at Westfield right in the middle of lunch time. Sabrina was craving Nando’s but the line for it was massive. To be fair the line for most other places was the same. We must have waited nearly an hour – I didn’t think we’d make it we were so hungry!

Surprisingly we actually lasted the whole day in Westfield though Mirela did have a few naps:

Ha ha. Just kidding! We did also spend quite a bit of time admiring the hot guys at Hollister – couldn’t believe there was a queue to even get into that store!

Sabrina then cooked us some dinner at her home:

On Sunday all we had time for was to say goodbye to Mirela. A quick visit but one that we appreciated. Its only now that she’s gone that I’ve realised how much I’ve missed her!

The Citypoint Club Deluxe Spa Day

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There is no better way to spend a chilly winter’s Saturday than indoors in a lovely warm spa! Ha! Red Letter Days had a sale on their spa days a little while back so Sandra and I decided to take advantage of one of their packages. For just under £80 each we would get unlimited access to the facilities (which included a pool, the gym, the jacuzzi, the sauna, the steam room, a plunge pool, the squash courts and a very funky but very busy tropical fish relaxation lounge) plus a relaxing facial, Serenity back, neck and shoulder massage (treatments lasting about 25 minutes each) and a two-course lunch.

The Citypoint Club is about five minutes from Liverpool street. I’d say that the club is used mainly by the city folk to get in their gym work outs and then weekends is probably when you get the day spa people in. It was kind of weird to be going to a spa day at a regular gym that’s for sure!

In an attempt to not make this day a totally lazy one we spent the morning using the facilities including a work out on the squash court (we were too busy laughing at ourselves to get a proper work out) and a jog on the treadmill. After a quick costume change it was into the sauna and steam room followed by a few laps in the pool. Well, Sandra did a few laps – I was feeling to fatigued so satisfied myself laying on the lounge. Before lunch we also had a dip in the jacuzzi which was lovely.

After our lunch (fairly small serves but tasty) it was time for our treatments. The massages were first up and both Sandra and I were punished by our respective masseuses! That’s what we got for asking for a firm massage – my shoulder blades have never had that much pressure before. I was too scared to ask my masseuse to take it easier – ha ha! It did feel really nice though and strangely relaxing. After a quick break in the fish relaxation lounge (I’d love a room like that in the mansion that I’ll have one day – lounges with comfy blankies in a darkened room lit only by the giant fish tank I was practically asleep before Sandra roused me four our facials!) it was time for our facials. There was a bit of a mix-up with mine so I had to wait a bit for my girl to turn up but I didn’t mind as the facial was nice and the girl was very chatty.

We had a lovely day at the Citypoint Club. Any more people and I think the venue would have been too busy but today at least we had pretty much use of whatever facility we wanted without too much hassle. The service was pretty good as were out treatments.