Day-Trip to London

From Day-trip to L...

Today I took the day off work so K and I could go up to London to see a matinee performance of The Phantom of the Opera in its birthplace: Her Majesty's Theatre. We bought the tickets about a month ago. It's something we'd been talking about doing for a long time now. K had never seen the musical and since we're living in England, we thought we'd better go see it!

We took a 9.55 train from Bournemouth to London Waterloo. The last time I had taken a train to London was when I worked there. It's much nicer to travel outside of rush hour! There were plenty of seats and the trip was fairly quick.



Arrived in London around 12 o'clock. An absolutely glorious day. The sun was out, but not too hot. We had a leisurely walk across the river and up through Trafalgar Square and into Soho. The plan was to have lunch at Maoz, an Israeli franchise specialising in falafel, then head to Her Majesty's Theatre around 2pm. We got to Maoz at the perfect time just before lunch. Good appetite from the walk and the initial sensory overload of London. Had lunch facing the window to watch the colorful Soho characters walk by. K had a salad of various pickled vegetables, olives, etc., with fried aubergine, falafel, and hummus. She said it was the best hummus she has ever tasted! I got my usual: the Maoz sandwich meal. A wheat pita stuffed with falafel, aubergine, hummus, pickled veg, and tahini sauce. And it comes with luscious Belgian-style fries (chunky, twice-cooked). Very filling but oh-so-scrumptious.

After lunch, we strolled back through Soho and Leicester Square. K got a frappuccino from one of the 10 Starbucks we passed.

From Day-trip to L...

Down by Trafalgar Square, I had a quick peak in the National Portrait Gallery. K wasn't allowed in with her frapp. Then we sat in the Square for a while and did some people-watching, trying to pick out the American tourists in the crowd. At one point, a 100-strong flock of Spanish tourists came around the corner. They basically enveloped us because we had a nice place to sit, apparently. [Spain called. They want their people back.] Luckily, it was just about time to head over to Her Majesty's Theatre. When we rounded the corner to the theatre, there was a stream of pensioners on their way into the theatre. Haven't they seen this play by now? It's been running for 30 years!



We were sitting in a sea of white, yellowy, and light gray hair. The theatre is quite small and the stage seemed a lot more compact than the two US tours I've seen as a teenager. We had pretty good seats; central in the Grand Circle (the middle bracket of ticket prices). Of course, the seats were very cramped and small. No surprise there.

[I saw Phantom for the first time when I was about 13. I was ENTHRALLED! Subsequently, I became a Phantom fanatic for about 3 years. Put together the costume and everything. Knew all the lyrics. It was quite nerdy, looking back at it now!]

Even though I've seen it before, I still got goose bumps a few times and even a bit choked up.

The current London cast is quite good. Ramin Karimloo, the Phantom, was fantastic. He brought some interesting elements to the role and some nice melodic changes. Very good voice. Robyn North, Christine, was good in the louder, fuller bars of the songs, but a bit shrill at times. The staging and special effects were, as usual, amazing. They squeezed every inch of utility out of that tiny theatre. Despite being a bit creaky, the set is probably one of the most jaw-dropping aspects of the show. We're really glad we went to see it, but having said that, we probably won't see it again. This was a good note to end on. It's just a bit pricey.

After the show, we had about 3 hours to kill before our return train. So, we wandered up to Oxford Street to go to Selfridges. I was vaguely interested in getting some Venezuelan Black 100% Cocoa, but mostly, it was just something to do. It took a while to get there because part of Oxford Street (which is ALWAYS crammed with pedestrians) was even more crowded because they shut down one side and the entire road due to a knife murder that had taken place yesterday. The police were still there searching for clues. Not sure why. Seems like a open/shut case. Lots of witnesses. Murder weapon found.

Selfridges is nice. We looked at all the posh (over-priced) food. It's like Harrod's or Fortnam & Mason. You can buy a package of imported Oreos for £7. Funnily enough, the Venezuelan Black cocoa was also £7, but for a scant 200 grams. We didn't buy any.



By this time, it was getting to be time for dinner. We avoided the bustling Oxford Street this time by taking the quieter streets paralleling it. For dinner, we were craving some good Thai or Vietnamese food. I had written down a couple of options in Soho. The one we ended up at was Busaba Eathai, a bustling, chi-chi restaurant with "communal" tables. The dinner was REALLY good. K had these little banana-leaf wrapped chicken parcels with a lush teriyaki dipping sauce that she said reminded her of Hawaii and some coconut steamed rice. I had a seafood stir-fry with jasmine rice. The service was speedy and friendly enough. We'll definitely remember this one. If we lived in London, we would eat out much more often than we have been doing. That's for sure.

After dinner, we had a brisk walk back to Waterloo, making it to our train with about 15 minutes to spare. We were a bit exhausted from all the walking we had done. Both of us had sore feet. The train we were on was one of the slower ones that stops at more of the smaller stations. We got home around 10.30 and soaked our feet in cold water for a while. Then we slept like two rocks.

It was a good little day out.