London Day Six – LEGOLAND

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Friday 7 April

Today we went to Legoland, something I have wanted to tick off my bucket list for a very long time.  


It was a lot bigger than I imagined but very very cool.  Because the Lego Batman movie is the big thing at the moment there was loads of stuff connected to the movie and you could even get your photo taken with him.

There was a little roller coaster which looked like fun and even tho I had said I wouldn’t go on any rides made for kids, I really did feel like a big kid again and so it seemed the right thing to do.


My favourite part was Miniland.


    
Clever Lego creations everywhere and plenty of cool rides for kids and really beautiful gardens everywhere.

            

We even went on a log flume type ride that travelled through many different fairy tales.

      
And just when my poor tortured friends thought we could finally go home I found a roller coaster that we had to queue up for.  At least I hoped it would be a roller coaster, it wasn’t possible to see from outside the castle facade but there was a big queue so we joined it and hoped it would be worth it – it was.

Near the entrance to Legoland there was a whole gallery of busts of famous people.

  
Near the exit was a whole area dedicated to Star Wars which had many amazing creations from the various movies and a shop for me to buy Luke’s Landspeeder.

London Day Five

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Thursday 6 April

Today I had lots of free time till 5pm when I was meeting up with another friend who lives in London who I haven’t seen for a while.  So I had a nice relaxing morning at “home” and then set off for Turnpike Lane the Tube station I used to live near in search of the flat I lived in back in 87/88.


When I exited the station nothing looked familiar, it was really weird.  Obviously the park across the road and all the shops had always been there because they looked old, but I don’t remember them and I used to walk past that every day on the way to work and home again, guess it was just always dark!

As I walked towards Alison Road, somethings did look familiar, like the church on the corner of my road and the building that used to be my local pub, but now it’s a shop, shame!!!


Luckily the house I used to live in was still standing and looked familiar and I had flashbacks of lugging all my groceries and laundry up the hill all the way home.


Back on the main road I recognised the place I bought stuff like pots and pans and a jug etc, at least that was still there.


And I used to live above a shop just like this one for about a week when I first moved to London (top floor, a lot of stairs).


The grand old abandoned hotel was still there, but it doesn’t look any more utilised than back in the 80s.

As I still had a couple of hours to fill in before meeting my friend I decided to catch a bus back to the city so I could see everything I’d always been missing by travelling underground.  Luckily I didn’t have to wait too long for a bus that took me all the way to London Bridge.  I got to walk across London Bridge and saw Tower Bridge and the Monument.

  

I met my friend and we walked along the Thames so I could get a great view of Tower Bridge and actually walk across it!

  
We walked past the Tower of London, waited for an Uber to take us to a pub called Boot and Flogger where we had dinner.  It was a really lovely day and fabulous to have such a great walk and a catch up with my friend.

London Day Four

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Wednesday 5 April

Today was the day I got to return to the Lego Store to get my portrait made out of Lego.  When we went in to the store yesterday I discovered you can’t just rock on up to the Mosaic Maker and get your picture taken, you actually have to book on line and the earliest appointment I could get was the next day at 5:15, so I said to the nice lady who made the booking “oh well such a shame… I’ll have to come back tomorrow and do more shopping”.

So that meant we could do a bunch of things during the day but we had to be at the Lego Store at 5:15!

First adventure was on a couple of Tube trains to get to Knightsbridge for a luxurious shopping spree in the Harrods Department Store.  We spent several lovely hours being overwhelmed by the amazingly fabulous merchandise and displays.  The food department was incredible and I just wanted to take photos of everything but somehow I knew that would be tacky and probably not allowed.  The main reason for making the trip to Harrods was so I could see the model of Harrods made out of Lego situated in the toy department, it was not disappointing and in fact it was bigger than I expected – and how often does that happen in real life!


    
While having lunch across the road from Harrods the sun came out and we decided to make the most of it and take a trip up The Shard for an incredible view of London.  Somehow we timed it perfectly for the next lift and there were no queues or waiting times.


    

After The Shard we got the Tube to the Lego Store in time for my 5:15 appointment with the Mosaic Maker.


Here’s my box coming out of the machine, very exciting.

And here’s the finished product. Well it’s the instructions I still have to make it once I get home.  The further away from the image you get the more it starts to actually look like me.

Feeling quite pleased with myself, Michelle and I looked for a place to have dinner in Leicester Square.  We found a cool looking place called Steak & Co where you received your steak on a hot plate so you could cook it yourself.  As anyone who knows me would realise at this point it was a terrible idea – I don’t cook – but Michelle assured me it was the best way to make sure I got it exactly how I like it – and it was!  What an awesome dinner experience.


From there it was a beautiful evening stroll past the National Gallery, then to Downing St to say hi to the Priminister and see Big Ben lit up at night. 

  
  

London Day Three

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Tuesday 4 April

Today’s main mission was to go to the brand new Lego Shop in Leicester Square, but we ended up doing sooooo much more.  It was a totally awesome day and there were many moments of nostalgia from when I lived here back in 87/88.

First we caught the train to Waterloo Station, which reminded me a lot of the Westend Girls video, but maybe all big London stations look like that.

  
From there we strolled along The Strand in search of coffee and a Vodafone store.  Apparently we couldn’t go to just any old coffee shop so luckily it wasn’t too long before we found one called Pret A Manger.

          
After coffee we found a Vodafone store where the very helpful man sorted my phone and we were off again.

Yes at long last I made it to a real Lego store.  Luckily there was no queue (there were queuing barriers but not needed at that time, many other times I walked past there and there was always a queue).  The Lego store was amazingly cool.

                            

After that we went for a walk to Picadilly Circus to see my old work, which closed down long ago, but the building is still there.

      

After that we were hungry so we headed back to Leicester Square to find somewhere to eat.  We ended up at Little Italy.  After eating Michelle went to some tea place and I headed towards M&M world via the old Hippodrome where I used to go clubbing, but now it’s a casino.


M&M world, close to Easter in the school ideas was not the best time to go – it was crazy busy, packed, unbearably hot and not really all that great.  It was four floors of mayhem.

            

We met up outside M&M World and then headed to Trafalgar Square and another Pret A Manger to wait for Michael.

    
We all caught a bus to Regent St so I could soak up the atmosphere of the incredible experience that is a real Apple Store.

    

Next was Hamleys toy store with a very awesome Lego department on the top floor and an amazing Star Wars section in the basement.

      

Next we went to the Penhaligans rather exclusive fragrance boutique to get some Juniper Sling. 

From there we found a nice theatre pub to have a drink in (I think it was the Garrick).

After a drink we walked down to the Embankment so I could see the lights, crossed the Thames to have dinner in an Italian place and headed home.

Big Trip to London 

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Day One and Two, Sunday 2 April 2017

At last the day I have waited so long for has arrived. I booked and planned this trip over a year ago and yesterday the countdown app on my phone finally said ONE more sleep. See below, top right corner app FancyDays.


Yesterday day didn’t drag too much as I had quite a lot to do. My most important job was to pick up a Lego set I’d been longing for ever since I first knew it existed. Buying it the day before I go on a big trip isn’t really the smartest thing to do, because all I want to do now is build it, but I still have far too much to do before I go away, however at least now I have something very exciting (the Disney Castle) to look forward to when I get back.


So now I’m lapping it up, rubbing shoulders with all the rich people in the Qantas Business Class lounge.  Qantas kindly invited me to try it out. How could I refuse?  Boarding the plane in one hour – so excited, but all this free wine is helping to numb the excitement and get me very chilled out ready for the 30 plus hours of flying ahead of me.  Oh and Qantas just rang me to check I was aware of the hour long delay with my next flight, Melbourne to London.   So here’s my fab view of the lounge, it’s very nice and extremely quiet.


I’ve practically got the place to myself 🙂

Well here I am in the transit area of the Melbourne airport. My flight is delayed by two hours so I set off in search of a coffee and when I finally found one, embarrassingly none of my cards would work and the exchange rate for pounds to Australian cash was extortion so that was a buzzkill. I thought I’d die of thirst till I realised my phone was trying to tell me I needed to change the card controls in the ASB app so I could use them internationally. Success!

The Qantas flight from Auckland was packed and very very hot. But the service was fab and the food was great and I did manage to watch a whole movie – La La Land; not sure what all the fuss is about really and why did it win Oscars??? After the movie I did have a wee nap and luckily the nice lady sitting next to me saved my chocolate for me – they hand out Whittakers chocolates instead of lollies prior to landing. Nice!

Because of the big delay Qantas have just given everyone a $15 voucher to buy some refreshments while we wait for the gate to open. I wonder what caused the delay.

Here’s the big delayed beauty.


The flight from Melbourne to Dubai was no fun at all.  By the time we finally got to board the plane it was nearly 1:00 Australia time which was actually 3:00 am my time (NZ body clock), so I was really tired and expected to fall asleep on the plane straight away but that didn’t happen.  The flight was packed and it was dark nearly the whole way and it was really long (13 hours I think), plenty of time to watch a movie and some TV shows.

Luckily I had two unhappy ladies sitting next to me who didn’t speak much English and they were mad at the big delay coz they would be missing their connecting flights out of Dubai so we didn’t talk much and they both slept the whole time – which was a tad awkward when it came time for me to wake them both up so I could go to the loo (twice).  Anyway flying in and out of Dubai was quite interesting as there was snow on some mountains at times and nothing but sand at others.

    
My short stop in Dubai for just under two hours was a fuzzy blur, spent mainly looking for a toilet with loo paper, every cubicle I visited had run out!  There were some very stunning shops in the transit area but I had no idea what the time was and when the flight was taking off, because the delayed flight meant the indicator boards were all wrong etc.  It was at this point I discovered a serious downside to an Apple Watch – you can’t manually adjust the time – it needs the phone to be connected to it to share the time.  But I had no idea what data would cost in Dubai so I never took my phone off Flight Mode.  Guess that gives me an excuse to buy a watch before I go home in three weeks time.

  
When we flew out of Dubai I could see the Burj Khalifa in the distance through the haze, which was kinda cool.

  
The flight to London from Dubai was great – only 7.5 hours – I watched the movie LION and loved it, thank goodness my new neighbours a recently married couple from the UK were asleep for most of my movie viewing coz it was a beautiful movie and I cried.

Border Control at Heathrow was very very long, 1,000s of people and long queues, Customs however was non existent and my suitcase survived the journey and was waiting for me when I went to collect it and then my friends were there to greet me and drive me home.

After a big catch up and relax we went for a walk to the local shops for a look round the village – Egham, and buy supplies from the supermarket.

Xmas Holidays 2016

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As I’m going away in April on a big trip to London I need to stay home these holidays and just chill out.

Highlights of these holidays:

  • Xmas Eve at a friend’s place for dinner with the “gang” and seeing my friend Michelle who lives in the UK who is home for Xmas, I hadn’t seen her since February 2015.
  • Xmas Day spent at my brother’s house with all the family.
  • Watching a DVD I bought all about Lego “LEGO Brickumentary“, it’s a movie length documentary explaining way more than I’ve ever known before.  It even had a chapter on famous adults who are big fans of Lego such as Ed Sheeran.

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  • Spending New Year’s Day out in the country.

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  • Visiting the Museum and the Art Gallery in one day.
  • Hanging out in Takapuna with one of my best friends who lives in the UK, but is home for the holidays.

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  • Spending lots of time in my backyard drinking far too many beers.

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  • and building Wall-E.

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Labour Weekend 2016

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At last the long weekend is here, and this year I’ve added two days of annual leave, giving me a lovely long 5 day holiday, starting with Friday and ending on Tuesday.

To celebrate the big weekend I cracked open a bottle of my favourite wine, bought a book on tidying up which I intend to read and act upon this weekend and a very large box of Ferris Wheel Lego to build when I’m not drinking wine or reading my new book.

There will be quite a lot of Lego featuring in my long weekend, as it’s the Auckland Brick Show starting on Saturday which I’m really looking forward to.  Happy Labour Weekend everybody.

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Update: Monday – Labour Day 24 October 2016.

What a fab weekend it’s been, I finished the Ferris Wheel, drunk all the wine, read most of the book (which I’m really enjoying) and went to the Auckland Brick Show with a friend to see all the amazing Lego.  I wasn’t going to buy any more Lego from the show, but I couldn’t resist a Wall-E and a motor for the Ferris Wheel – both on special for the show.

Here’s the finished product – I think it’s my new favourite, check out the two little videos: https://beejaygelego.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/10247-ferris-wheel/

1,000 Origami Cranes

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A couple of weeks ago we were asked at work to share something we enjoyed with the people we worked with as part of Adult Learning Week.  I decided to do some Origami and talk a little bit about the cultural significance of the Japanese Crane.

While doing a bit of research to make sure I got my facts straight I learnt some amazing things that changed the way I thought about the symbolism behind the origami crane.  I’ve always known that the Tsuru (crane) in Japanese mythology symbolises good fortune and long life because of it’s fabled life span of a thousand years, and that an old legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane.

But what I didn’t know was that after World War II the crane came to symbolize peace and the innocent victims of war thanks to a story about a schoolgirl Sadako Sasaki and her thousand cranes.  Suffering from leukaemia as a result of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, knowing that she was dying she tried to make a thousand cranes before her death at the age of 12.  After her death she became internationally recognised as a symbol of innocent victims of war.  There is a monument to her near where the bomb dropped in Hiroshima which I saw when I was there in 1986 – but I had no idea of the symbolism.  Near there is the peace flame which is a monument to the victims of the bomb which has burned continuously since 1964 and will continue to burn until all the nuclear bombs on the planet are destroyed and the world is free from the threat of nuclear annihilation.

The fictional story of Sadako Sasaki tells of how at the age of 12 after being diagnosed she spent her days in hospital folding the cranes so her wish to live would be granted.  But she only made it to 644 cranes before she became too weak to fold any more, so her friends and family helped finish her dream by folding the rest of the cranes which were buried with her.

However… according to her surviving family members that’s not actually true.  She managed to fold about 1400 cranes before she died and the family have donated some of her cranes to places of importance around the world including the 9-11 memorial in New York and Pearl Harbour in Hawaii.

After learning all of this I decided maybe I should make a thousand cranes and thanks to a photo of a huge bowl of cranes on a coffee table I saw in Google while researching the topic, I have started my quest.

crane1 crane2

However after folding only one, I think I’ll just make a bowl of origami.  Anybody who knows me well, will know I’ve been folding origami birds forever and if you count up all the cranes I’ve ever made I don’t think it would even come close to 1,000.

 

Xmas Holidays 2015 Day Twenty Eight

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Friday 15 January 2016

My very last day of holidays – sad.  As it was my last day I decided I needed to buy something fabulous and exciting and fun to cheer me up – so I set off in search of a brand new Sodastream machine.  I’d seen a cool one that lit up blue and did everything automatically.

As I had a Mitre 10 gift card I went there first, but they didn’t stock that model – hmmm very strange, why not?  Next I went to Noel Leeming but the only one they had left came in a rather damaged looking box.  Next I went to Harvey Norman and they didn’t have that model either, so I ended up at JB HiFi where I found one and bought it.  But they didn’t have any of the accessories so I ended up going to Farmers for spare bottles and gas cylinder.  I should’ve gone there first coz they were having a big sale and it was a lot cheaper.  Oh well never mind.

I love it – it makes awesome sparkly water and it glows blue (the machine, not the water).

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