Magical musicals

Okay guys, I know I just did a post and the second post may be too much for you to handle, but I implore to my loyal readers, just bear with this unexpected but hopefully pleasant surprise. I was going to include this in my soon-to-be-but-forever-delayed London post, but I simply have to post something about it here.

I saw three musicals while I was in London, which were, in the order that I saw them in: Lion King, Wicked and Phantom of the Opera. Before I get into the actual musicals themselves, I will talk a little about musicals in London.

For those who don't know, London is littered with theatres. It's one of London's biggest revenues and there's a huge industry behind. Not like here, where

TicketTek (boooo) and TicketMaster (boooo) control most of the plays in Melbourne, there are literally dozens of outlets where you can buy tickets for shows. Most of them offer discounted tickets, in which they try and sell last minute tickets or restricted views. Seeing a show almost seems like seeing a movie over there, but no where near as cheap (or should I say 'cheap').

Official tickets range from 60 pounds to as much as 200 pounds. Discounted tickets can get as low as 20 pounds. Pounds = AUS, roughly 1.5x. Now, my opinion on show tickets is this: I hate discounted tickets. You don't know what you're really going to get, because the people sell them really well (or just blatantly lie in your face).

For Wicked, I bought one of these discounted tickets, in which the lady said they were midway, dress circle. For those who don't know, theatres usually go in the order: stalls, dress circle, grand circle, balcony - from ground up. So I thought, middle row, dress circle not bad for 30 pounds. Turns out the theatre for Wicked only has stalls and the dress circle. So I was pretty much up the back, which while it wasn't completely a show breaker, it was still annoying. Now why would you pay so little, and give up enjoyment for a show you obviously want to see (otherwise what are you doing there?). So I like to buy with having mind enjoying show the best way possible. Lion King, me and tracy paid 65 pounds for 2nd row dress circle, and it was awesome.

Anyway, enough about tickets. The shows themselves:

Lion King

Easily the best thing I've ever seen. The costumes themselves are beautiful, the masks that they use to portray the characters that they're playing are magnificent. The music, which we all know and love, is as great as ever and the extra pieces they added in a pretty good too (with a few exceptions in my opinion). The translation from movie to stage is excellent, it really is a different experience but the whole story line is still there. The whole thing is so good, by the end of the first scene, the epic Circle of Life, I was satisfied. 65 pounds well paid for one scene. In short, it was BRILLIANT. HIGHLY RECOMMEND. Can't recommend enough. Stampede music and scene was my favourite, so epic.

Wicked

Had slightly distant seats as mentioned above, but I still thoroughly enjoyed this show. I had only very little idea of what it was about, and was really surprised at how much I loved the story. It relates to the behind the scene and is the prequel of the Wizard of Oz. The characters are cute and lovable, the songs are really nice and I've been singing along with them in my car for the past 2 weeks. People like Amanda will really love this show. Also highly recommend (and for the love of theatre, get good seats).

No picture =[

Phantom of the Opera

This one was slightly different in style, and an interesting deviation from the two above. Followed the storyline of the movie (from what I can remember anyway) pretty well and I did enjoy it. However, not sure if opera singing is my thing, cause I don't think I appreciated it as much. The songs in this one was very much more solo style, showing off some good talent. They had some nice special effects too, like fire balls (oooOOoo) and gunshots (everyone jumped, really unexpected). Recommend if you liked the movie and the songs. Theatre was kinda small though, my legs were pretty cramped.

So that's it. If you see a crazy asian boy driving, bopping his head and yelling out gibberish and bashing his wheel in some kinda of stampede pattern, that will be me. Makes the drive to Hopper's Crossing easier though =]

teoh,

In parii

Greetings from Paris! I realized I havent been online for awhile , but I figured this is a good thing. There were a few opportunities to get online but I did want to go out of way to get on. Nice break from dependancy on the Internet. I gave in when my friend offered his iPad for me to use with the hotels free wifi. Pardon any grammar or typos for this post.

It's two days away from the end of the tour. I wont go into too much details, as I'm pretty tired and we're getting up early to go to the Lourve. but it has been really fun. As I type I'm sitting next to my new good friends, Jo and nardia and a singapore couple milton and Sarah, both who remind me of Jason a lot. I'm going to write out and post pictures when i get back to London of what I've been up to. But have been seeing many grand and historical things in Europe, it's amazing.

Mainly just wanting to say im alive and well, no dramas yet. Should be arriving back in London around 6pm on Saturday. Haven't done much shopping so that's what I'll be doing for the four days I'm in London.

Ciao,
Teoh

4 days on tour

this was a photo that was sent from the heineken brewery and is the only photo I can currently access with ease.

so it's day..4? now on the tour. It's such a crazy tour that I don't even count the time passing by days, I count them by the cities I've been. So far I have covered the white dover cliffs of england, pass through france and Belgium, finally arriving at Amsterdam. From there, we went to Rhine Valley, and then onto Munich, where I am currently sitting in a stair well with a borrowed laptop, as the wifi doesn't get to my room.

I've done some wine tasting, beer drinking, sight seeing and sleeping on the coach. I didn't get to get any hashies in Amsterdam unfortunately. I chickened out the first time I saw a coffee shop, and then I didn't get a chance to go again. The Heinikin tour was really good though, I really enjoyed learning about the beer. Wine tasting at the Rhine Valley was quite nice too. Otherwise, it's been really great so far all the things I've seen. Amsterdam has a great bike riding system, something they need in Melbourne city. Rhine Valley is beautiful and now I know a tiny bit more about wine. Walked the same beer halls as Hilter and drank 1L of beer at once, and spent the rest of the city walk a bit tipsy, probably the most tipsy I've ever been with alcohol.

Let me tell you about my fellow tour travelers. A big chunk are Aussie, mostly from Melbourne or Brisbane. One or two Americans, some from Canada, a pair from Singapore. They're all around 21 - late 20's. There are hardly any guys on this tour! There's about 7 of us, 4 having partners, 2 guys traveling together, and me. This means I get a room to myself every hotel so far! Personally, I prefer it that way; I'm picky with my life style.

Now, being one of the few single males, you'd think that's good news for me. Unfortunately, it's much harder to join groups, as most of them are girl groups. Girls tend to stick to each other much harder, so I've had to spread my efforts around a bit. I've managed to make a few friends that I can hang out with on the tour, so all is well in that department. Chances don't look good on the romance side unfortunately.

Anyway, I'm going to try and make more friends. So I'll leave it at that. Just letting my loyal friends that read my blog that I'm alive and well. Haven't lost anything yet, and hopefully it will stay that way.

Again, hope everything is well back home =]

teoh,

whirlwind london

just a keep post, before I need to go pack.

The past few days in London have been pretty fun. I must say, I'm pretty lucky that Tracy was also in London, as I would've not had half the amount of fun I've had with someone to share it with. Not only does it provide motivation, but also helps with picture taking and appreciation of what you're doing.

So I've seen more of local London, eating some pretty good food and drinking some unusual drinks (pimms & green is good smoothies). I've seen more famous landmarks, including the royal parks (got lost in hyde park cause it's that big), buckingham palace, pretty fountains etc. etc. Went to the British museum today, which had so much history, I couldn't keep my attention span long enough to appreciate it all.

The Tube system. I originally thought it was brilliant. Gives quite a bit of access to anywhere in central London, unlike our crappy City loop. Also, the Oyster card works quite well..in terms of performance. However, it's SO EXPENSIVE. I've already eaten through 30 pounds on my oyster card. Sadness.

Saw the LION KING MUSICAL yesterday. And man, it was worth the flight over. It was AWESOME. Brilliant. Best thing I've ever seen. Beautifully done. I can't really describe how good it was. After the first act, with all sorts of animals and the music coming together, I was so satisfied already by the end of Circle of Life.

Anyway, I've been so tired, I decided to take this afternoon off. But now my sister is making me go pack, for my whirlwind tour around Europe!

hope everyone is well back at home.

teoh,

I have arrived

So I have arrived in London OK. No luggage lost, passport still on me, things are still good!

The flight and transit times are death though. I am already cringing at the thought of the return flight. My travels to London was broken into three sections: Melb to Brunei, Brunei to Dubai (which is catchy) and Dubai to London. Each transit was about 7-8 hours. Each.

The first flight was okay, as I had all three seats to myself. It still takes a lot of trial and error to find the best sleeping position though. Dad, I don't know what's so good about these new planes. They may be new, but they're using old entertainment equipment. No touchscreens, just tiny screens couples with the old handsets I remember from Malaysia airlines. The movies are not that recent, although I watched Unknown which was pretty good.

It was easy to know that I was in Brunei when I stepped off the plane (besides the captain telling us we had arrived in Brunei) because the humidity smacked me in the face as soon as I walked off the plane (and into the bus that then drove very slowly to the airport). I bought a magazine and read until it was time to get on another 'new' airplane (which had the exact same old equipment and movies, yay). The second and third part of the flight was pretty hard to take. I sat next to these nice Brits/Indians ladies, who had come back from a jungle trek in Malaysia.

I decided to try and talk to them, made some nice conversation and got some advice about London. One of the sisters was a underground attendant, and rewarded my slightly exaggerated enthusiasm for riding the Tube for the first time with a exclusive Oyster card, which was one of the 25000(?) made to commemorate Prince whatishisname and Kate's marriage. Pity it doesn't work. But apparently I can sell it for 45 quid (which apparently is slang for pounds) on ebay. At this point, I felt like I was in an RPG. Hit X to interact with the character next to you, and some NPCs may reward you with random loot. Yay for my video game training.

Anyway, I arrived at the airport, pretty scared as I had no idea what I was doing. I realised I had not written down Tracey's apartment address, just memorized the station I needed to get to (which was so (not) helpful). I bought a sim card from a VENDING MACHINE??? Did not realise it did not come with any credit and didn't see a convenient way to top up. So I called Tracey on at a payphone, and said to meet me at the station in however long it would take me to get there.

If you're thinking this sounds like a very vague plan, then you are correct. Luckily I managed to get to the station and Tracey was waiting for me and saved me. So now I'm in her apartment (after cooking and cleaning her breakfast!?), typing on her horrible ACER laptop, half deluded with lack of sleep / sleeping in a upright position during my TWENTY FOUR HOURS travel. Like really? People keep saying how it's a small world. LIES. Otherwise I would've arrived YESTERDAY.

Anyway, as you can see, no anger has left me yet. I might grab a nap and then plan with Tracey where we're going to go exploring. Yup.

teoh,

btw, my phone number is 07554615693. For all those who miss me so much. :D