aimeekitty

Due to being jetlagged, Mitch and I both woke completely up at 4 am. The TV on was lame so we read guidebooks until about 6:30 or 7 am and then we figured, what the heck, lets do Boxing Day shopping since nothing else is open at this ungodly hour! We took a scenic route to Regent St. as the sun came up.

This image needs some Claire de Lune with it, don't you think?

I shopped briefly in Topshop, but it was so crowded and the racks so messy that I was just "BAH" and we left to go to Westminster Abbey, etc. Mitch figured out a neat route to it, so we passed the Royal Airforce Memorial and got a good view of the London Eye.

Which meant of course that I had to get my obligatory "looks like that shot in Doctor Who" photo.

Then we walked up to Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.

... and again I had to get a Doctor Who photo. Too bad it wasn't night and we didn't have a 3rd to our party to really scare the muggles and run across the bridge with me. XD

Westminster Abbey, which was imposingly beautiful. It was HUGE. We enjoyed the Jeremy Irons audio tour. XD

Then we walked by the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum which were being hit by this beautiful afternoon light, but weren't open on Boxing Day.
I love the V&A's building. It's so dirty though, but somehow that's a bit charming. It has lots of chunks taken out of it from the War, too... which I think gives it more character.

Natural History Museum (which had an icerink set up)

OH NOES! It's a phone box! We must be tourists!

Let's just say I didn't think it said Locks.

Harrod's the famous DEPT. store. Also not open, but lovely.

I laughed to myself everytime the PA said cockfosters.

We went to Porters for dinner and it was OMG delicious. I had shepherd's pie and Mitch had some sort of pasty pie. With chips of course.

Mitch had black currant icecream and I had Spotted Dick for pudding. I loved the Spotted Dick. Seriously. It's a warm spongecake with sultanas (kinda like currants?) and lots of hot custard. GUH. CUSTARD. Plus I had to try it because it's called Spotted Dick. and I'm a five year old.

London Day 3 - Doctor Who Exhibition, Portobello Road, Phantom

First we went to Earl's Court Doctor Who Exhibition. They had WAY more stuff there than I expected. I was so happy that they extended the exhibition so that we could see it!

If you want to see more closeup photos of the costumes then please see this other post (you'll have to join the com)

Otherwise, on to the silly photos!

OH NOES. AUTONS.

way too pleased.

Why hello thar, FACE OF BOE!

Mitch made inappropriate Jack comments, as I'm sure you can guess.

I thought it was kinda awesome to see some of the non-costume props up close and see how they did a cool effect with something very simple. Case in point... Cassandra's base just had some clear plastic (like food plastic wrap) melted over it to give it that really manky look. Very clever.

Go back to your HOME!

I had no idea they had series 4 stuff at the exhibition! Mitch and I were both really impressed by the huge amount of stuff they had on display. Seriously awesome. They even had escape pods and pods from The Impossible Planet. Like a WHOLE POD. XD~ KLAJLKAJLK I love seeing stuff like this up close and seeing all the paint marks and how they did stuff.

I was completely squeeing over the Silence in the Library computer. XD

Is that you, Proper Dave?

ZOMG Miss Hartigan's red dress of DOOM

Then we left through the Earl's Court exit and tried to find the last remaining ~~blue callbox~~ TARDIS. But on first walk, we couldn't find it. It was upon turning around and walking back the other way to the station that we saw it. It was completely obscured by a bunch of crap!

awww... Hello real TARDIS-thingie, you.

Then we went to Portabello Road, at which point, quietly, to myself, I sung the Portabello Road song. Sadly, however, Portabello Road was a little too much Garment District in LA. Very tourist-ified. Everyone had the same shlock, mostly. Or maybe I just didn't know where to look. (I didn't have that much patience for it just then.)

I did see a few cute vintage stores but they were crowded and I was confused by the sizes, so I just kinda went "BAH" about the whole thing and we went to go get some food. We treked up this hill to a place that was recommended online, Windsor Castle Pub. Which was cute... but probably not worth the trek. :\ My feet were hurting though and sitting down was good!

We then went to Forbidden Planet to kill some time till dinner.... and I saw my book for sale, which is still kinda awesome.

I caved and bought some (heavy) Doctor Who books.

Then across the street, I saw some blue flashy lights, and as we all know, I can't not look at flashy stuff... we took a closer look and it seemed to be a really good Indian restaurant, and we'd yet to have Indian in London! It was called Punjab. Apparently London's oldest northern Indian restuarant. the bldg was 300 years old...
THE FOOD WAS WONDERFUL.
OH
MY
GOD.
Best samosas and Chicken Korma, etc, etc, I've ever had.

Then we went to Phantom of the Opera in the theatre where it originally premiered. (how cool is that.) The Phantom and Christine were really impressive. The Phantom did some very interesting finger/hand gesture acting and added a really interesting kind of insane quality to his performance. Fun! I think I prefered the performance I saw in LA a few years ago, but maybe that's just because it was the first time I saw it. It was great, though. I loved seeing the masquerade costumes closer up, especially. We had pretty great seats courtesy of Mitch's dad.