Quite a bit has happened since the catchup blog. Mika, (one of my groomsmen and a good friend) came to stay with us for a week which was great. He's doing a world tour of sorts and after staying with us he went to the US for a week or so. his main goal in coming over here was to see a whole bunch of plays, musicals, galeries and museums.
An artsy shot of Mika in Piccadilly:
So on the first saturday we all went to see the musical "Wicked".
We got into Leicester square early and bought some cheap tickets (about 20 pounds each) for the show, went and ate dumplings at our favorite resturant in chinatown and then went to see the show at night. The seats that we bought were literally the back row in the cinema so it wasn't that great a view, and then a guy with very bad body odour came and sat directly infront of us - everytime he clapped we got a particularly potent waft of smell floating our way. I wrapped my scarf arround my head for a while towards the beginning and we really didn't envy the lady that had to sit next to him.
anyway - the actual show was absolutely brilliant. although we werent really close enough to see the quality of the acting, the sound was great and the music and lyrics was very well done I thought. there were musical themes that continued througout the show, sometimes in major or minor keys dependant on the situation etc. altogether a very good play. without spoiling the story line, the musical is partially a prequel to and partially occuring parallel to the story of the Wizard of Oz. definately a 10 out of 10 for what we could see. Debbie and I were very impressed and will go again one time :-)
On valentines day, (we didn't plan it to be valentines day for any particular reason, it just happened to be the day we chose) We went with mika to see Ed and Di in canary warf.
so after failing to book, the tapas place where we intended to go to was booked out and all that was left was the set menu for 28 pounds per person. so we went for a bit of a walk:
...and found a good pizza place and had a great meal together:
On the friday night, Mika shouted us to the Lion King musical. We had second row seats in the stalls so we were right up close to the action, although slightly to the side of the stage. I have never really wanted to see this musical, but people keep saying it's really good so I went in fairly optimistic.
I have to say.... The costumes were brilliant, the puppetry was brilliant, the use of the stage and props was brilliant, most of the singing was brilliant, some of the acting was very good, but some of it wasn't. and unfortunately the storyline, although we know it from the movie, seemed to rely on that fact and was perhaps a bit rushed or disjointed or something... there was also no emotion. what I mean by that is for example when the lion king dies it seemed very fake and perhaps even clinical. in hindsight I think that this was perhaps caused because props and all the fantastic stuff on the stage seemed to detract from the meaningfullness of the situation.... also some of the songs that weren't in the film seemed to be put in there just for the sake of it. "oh, well, I guess we should have a song about now so here goes...." Simba's song where he sings about how he misses his father etc is just rubbish: the entire musical is set with an african theme which makes for some absolutely awesome african harmonys and great cross-rythmns, but simba's song was certainly not written by a black man (excuse the political non-correctness), it was more like a traditional church hymn, and really broke the flow of the whole thing.
Not having seen all that many musicals in my life, I'd actually rate the lion king fairly low. go see it for the spectacular sets and props and stuff, but it's not all that brilliant as people say.
So to rate all the musicals I've seen in order of coolness.
Pirates of penzance (also performed it when a bit younger, I was a police dude)
Les Miserables
Wicked
Mikado (also performed at one stage I think? or was it Nathan that did it and I watched?)
The Lion King
Oliver (performed only, not watched, I was a homeless kid)
anyway - so here's a shot of Mika and I, both fairly tired on the tube on the way home:
So on the saturday morning afterwards, we went on the London Eye! for 15 pounds each (sorry I'm not using the pound symbol, it's not on my keyboard...) we got a 30 minute trip - it was very cool:
debbie to preparing herself for the trip:
here's a shot of the city:
you can see st paul's cathedral to the left and the gherkin to the right.
the BT tower:
and us of course:
here's a shot of westend:
Debbie's building is the middle one (kind of looks like a couple of buildings but it's really one with a few tower like things.
here's an attempt to get Nelson's column and regent street in, but it didn't turn out that well - I should have just focused on trafalga square.. anyway, you can see the column there :-)
then we hit the top of the ride:
and on the other side there was some good shots of buckingham palace:
and the houses of parliment:
looking up at the other pods:
and of course, we should feel very secure as the london eye appears to be held together with duct tape:
attempt at artsy shot with big ben between us:
and finally a snap of a Dali sculpture on the way down:
After the Eye, Debbie and I had lunch with our friends that we stayed with when we first came over at a Vegetarian resturant at tooting. now we were both thinking... "vegetarian....what could possibly be tasty about that?" but as we very quickly realised, vegetarians certainly can cook."Kastoori" is now on our list of favourite resturants in London and if you come over here, and appreciate really good food, we'll have to take you!
The following weekend (today) we went to the Borough market. This market is one that will inspire even the most McDonalds loving person to want to cook and eat good food. The market is entirely fresh food and has 5 or 6 stalls just selling different cheeses, about the same number selling only olivs, some just selling fruit and veggies, there was one selling truffles and truffle related products such as truffle olive-oil, truffle based sauces, pesto-like mushroom and truffle mash. Neither of us have ever smelled or tasted truffle before so this was an eye opener. they had some black truffles in a bowl with a lid that had a sign saying "smell me" so we did. and it was amazing. I've watched those cooking shows where the cook smells the truffle and tries to discribe it, and I've thought, ok, surely it's an acquired smell or he only appreciates it as much as he appears to because he's a cook. but seriously, it's amazing. it's earthy but slightly sweet, it's entirely unlike anything I've ever smelled before. We tried some bread with truffle based olive oil, it was really tasty!
we bought some fresh burgers for lunch, debbie had a chicken one with salad and I had a venison one with some fresh blue cheese, onions and english mustard - very very tasty.
so at the end of the day we came home with this stash:
from left to right:
A mediteranian chutney
Some green olives with parsley, tarragon, lemon and olive oil
"Truffled sauce" (mushrooms, black olives, summer truffle, extra virgin olive oil, salt and herbs)
A slice of cheese that we cant remember the name of and couldn't pronounce anyway.
The olives were amazing! we'll have to go back and get more and try all the different types. we havn't yet tried the truffled sauce, but the idea is to make some pasta and mix it in with some olive oil, so we'll probably try it this week.
the chutney is really fresh also, very tasty. the cheese is a very rich, flaky one - very cool.
we could have spent so much money just buying amazing quality food at the markets, but we had to restrain ourselves, we're on a bit of a budget at the moment :-)
anyway - so there's another thing to add to the list of things that are really great to do over here.
oh, and after stepping out of the markets, we saw an Ariel Atom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Atom
a very cool go-cart for grown ups :D
That's all folks!
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