So here we are back on this random ramblin welshman's blog and a new segment perhaps is launching in which i document my travels? Oh i don't know about that i rarely go anywhere exciting and i have never left the UK for a holiday in my life. Some will find that fact a real shocker but you shouldn't as it is severely rare to see me sunburned. It has only happened twice maybe three times to me. Might go into that bit later but that's not what this topic of travel is about.
This one is about the three times i have been to London. So i hope you enjoy and to break it up for you, i will be adding some pictures so enjoy and comment and like and all that good stuff at the end of your visit to this post. Bit of a head's up also all views are my own.
LONDON!
A city i have been to three times, the city full of rich history both dark and lovely and the capital of the UK. London is home to the Queen, Olympics, Prime Minister, Big Ben, The London Eye, The Shard, Tower Bridge, The dungeons, Madame Toussauds and The Houses Of Parliament to name just a few famous places and people.
I'd say London is the city where people have no patience for the busyness of the city life. Everyone is in a hurry and if they get slowed down, well they tend to kick off and this is only from observations of people i have made in my travels to the big city and it does not reflect on anyone or everyone in or from London. I will say again as ever these are my opinions and thoughts and they don't reflect everything or everyone just my own opinions and thoughts as i said.
THE FIRST TIME
The first time i went to London was back in mid July 2014 for London Film & Comic Con with 5 of my friends. It was a great first experience my first trip over the Severn bridge into England so i was taking in all the sights on a 4 hour taxi trip. The main point of the trip or rather, the point which inspired us to take the trip was the fact it was Stan Lee's last UK convention and we all wanted to meet him. Did we get to meet Stan Lee? Nope. Why? The queues there were utterly insane! I had photo ops with a bunch of guests there and they all conflicted at the same time so the entire time of the con i was running around like a headless chicken trying to make it to an area with a celebrity guest to have a photo against a blank canvas behind us. There was many guests there besides Stan Lee i wanted to meet so despite not meeting Stan i did meet everyone else i wanted to meet and had a nice day and experience. I met Tyler Mane, Al Snow, Jeremy Borash, Magnus, James Storm, Lita, Casper Van Dien, Paul Freeman, David Yost, Jason Narvy and Paul Schrier. I will add this was a hot busy Saturday we went and it was held in Earls Court. Traffic was so terrible.
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| My un-photogenic self with David Yost aka Billy Cranston MMPR Blue. |
THE SECOND TIME
The second time i went to London was also for a comic con run by Showmasters and this was again mid July but 2015 and it was held in The Olympia and it was just me and James who went and it was Friday i believe. It was a lot less busy this time and it was a lot more relaxed and enjoyable we both met everyone we wanted to and bought what we wanted. Our main point in going was just to meet Jason David Frank and we did it. It was a great day out not as hot either as the past one and this was one of my fave comic cons maybe my second maybe third favourite overall. Celebrity guests i met were; Jason David Frank, Steve Cardenas, Jason Faunt and Erin Cahill.
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| Myself and Jason David Frank aka Tommy of Power Rangers. |
THE THIRD TIME
Flash forward to my third trip to London which was 4th September it was just a day out with my work colleagues and it was a lovely trip. Let's have a run down of the day shall we? I had 3 hours sleep woke up 4am to get ready and then went to my work place to meet with everyone to get down to Cardiff to get the 7am bus to London and now being a tall person it for me was cramped as i do require more legroom but it's fine i stick this stuff out and moan about it when i stand up later haha.
Took 4 hours to get to London we got to Victoria station and from the outside i was like "This looks small." we get in the building and it's like a shopping centre like ones in Cardiff so i was not out of my comfort zone but i was very nervous for days leading up to the London trip. I was still nervous in London before we got on the tube because that part was scaring me the most. Why was i so nervous of the tube? It's due to all the stories i have heard or seen of it being very fast and cramped and of any incidents and bad things happening but eh it was fine but back to the bit before the tube. Go past some shops and then go down some escalators and then oh my god the place was huge! We queued for 10 mins or so for day travel tickets. Then after we had our tickets the dash to get the train to Madame Toussauds kicked off.
Soon as we got underground it blew me away and took my breath from me because it was so damn hot even the air was but it was a quick adjustment. There's so many escalators about on the underground and they caught me off guard the first lot because they are a tad faster than the ones i have been on in Cardiff or anywhere in Wales to be honest. On the tube now it was not as bad as i had imagined or anything made it out to be or maybe we went at quiet times who knows. Got on the train and waited and few seconds after i boarded i was stood up holding onto the rails and the doors closed and vwoosh off it went i was like holding on it was pretty darn fast compared to anything i been on before. I was looking out the window and all i could see is darkness speeding past and the noise of the train and the speed of it was like we were going to time travel you know i jokingly said "i feel like we are about to go back in time like back to the future now" to me it was that fast. It was a weird experience and we were all running about going back and forth to all the stations, changing over to get a different train and so on anyway i got used to it and its speed and the escalators and their speed and all went fine.
To Madame Toussauds now and i'll be completely honest i have been wanting to go to Toussauds for years and i found it a bit disappointing as i expected it to be more spaced out and less cramped than it was and to have individual themed rooms through different doors you walk into but it was just a bunch of stair climbing and there everything is.
It's a walking tour. There was a ride there also everyone had to get on and it was moving cabs taking you through a history of London and it started nicely and then it went dark like real fast! There was a Grim Reaper behind a child and there was like holograms of children running around with ring a ring a rosies playing that was creepy as fuck! The ride was alright i was more confident of the ride before the bar lowered onto me but of course that was purely for safety purposes and it's cool so now i don't know why i wrote this line but eh it's all documented from my brain and now pasted onto text in this blog post. We did the Alien Experience which was a quick walk or run through a dark area in alien inspired ship from Covenant and having loud noises and an Xenomorph pop out with some guy by the exit hiding in the dark jumping out at people was not as scary as the atmosphere made it out to be.
The Marvel 4D experience was amazing, i loved it so much it was so bizarre but a good bizarre if you get me. The wax works at Madame Toussauds are incredible so life like i applaud them for their fantastic work and besides feeling a little disappointed it was a great experience. We then had two hours to kill before we could make our food booking at Planet Hollywood. So we all split up and some went to Self-fridges, some to Forbidden Planet and the group i was with well......we went to Weather spoons. Some of our group after finding out my group went to spoons had said "You came all the way to London and your going to spoons? Why!?" and my response was "Hey it's cheap and reliable and we are guaranteed a place inside to sit and chill out and have a pint." Good response or not? YOU DECIDE! So after that chill in spoons we raced and got to Planet Hollywood which is a great restaurant like the food is lovely! The film props inside the place are so fascinating and amazing sights to see, just in the entrance to the restaurant is the screen used Red MMPR costume and i geeked the hell out when i seen it.
After our lovely meal we went to M&M world which i thought was a cool and very colourful shop but to have it that big and with 3 floors filled of the same stuff is just ridiculous.
After that we visited Vue West End which is really massive and posh and then basically headed for the bus home. The travel home from London to me always feels longer than the journey to London, it's weird. Anyway 4 hour bus trip home and yeah basically that was it, a lovely day full of great new experiences with so many amazing people and if any of them are reading this i just want to thank you, so thank you very much for a great day.
And that being said and done it is the end of this blog post. Thank you for stopping by and reading this.
Photo credits to - Me, Daniel O'Sullivan, Harri Gibbs, Google Images, Showmasters and Madame Toussauds Photographers
