Steph and I had a chill Sunday. We went to the Tate Modern and saw a lot of strange exhibits. Steph got some poses in front of the ones that looked a little silly.
Some of my favorites include:
The mudlarking exhibit of the areas in front of the Tate Modern and Tate Britain. They had lots of interesting things they pulled out of the river. None of them were particularly significant, but each had a little story to it. They made a really nice arrangement in one of the old wood and glass display cases. The most interesting thing was the drawer of pipes. They had a lot of bottle caps arranged in a rainbow color display. They also had lots of glass bottles and vials.
The large display of window blinds was strange and interesting. I really, really wanted a giant cord that I could pull and raise all the blinds.
The side by side video of a Filipino drama show, with a recreation using genderswapped actors and a very different acting style. They had such a different feel and effect, but were spot on scene by scene.
We didn’t stop by any of the paid exhibits, since Steph didn’t have the Arts Card with her, and we also had spent nearly 2 hours inside on just the free portions. We might go back for a second round and prebook the paid exhibits on a weekday morning. We could see the entrance and it looked absolutely packed inside those exhibits.
On Wednesday we went to see Magic Mike Live. It was way better than I was expecting. They had the fake MC start out, and the acts they were doing at the start was about what I’d expect, minus the ridiculous banter from the fake MC. The show was like a burlesque, but not themed, and with a lot more physical performance similar to a cirque show. I had a good time, and Steph really enjoyed it.
On Thursday I stayed late at work to play MTG Commander with everyone. I used the Grenzo deck, which is really fun and random. I didn’t really get it going too strongly, but I had a good time playing.
Friday morning we went to the Better gym and did some max weight lifting. We were still figuring out what our max lifts were, and we were both pretty sore afterwards.
Friday evening we had Nancy, Punit, Roel, and Marlien over to watch the finale of Physical 100. It was a well done set of challenges, although some of them were deceptively simple. We hung out for a good time afterwards. They saw the Alice book, and they saw my itch.io games. I think they liked it, and I’m really looking forward to the AI day on Sunday.
Saturday Steph and I had a nice walk to a pottery showroom that had some gorgeous pieces. We also stopped by Russel Square. They had a lot of blooming flowers, as it is starting to get into March. We headed back and played some Crew with Michelle and Michael. It was much harder this time, as we were playing the later, harder missions.
We planned a trip to Hever Castle for an overnight on Sunday. I took Monday off from work to make the most of it as well. The castle is famous for being the home of Anne Boleyn. It was also fully refurbished in the late 1800’s and looks good compared to many other castles of the time. There is also a snowdrop walk and great castle gardens. To get there it was a combination of three different rail routes, but overall a smooth experience. The only issue came up when contactless payment didn’t work on the rail out of London at one point, and the announcement said we’d have to pay a penalty fare if we didn’t get off. Luckily we just had to pay a small upgrade fare.
The walk from the train station to the castle wasn’t too bad, but it did have some very muddy parts. We got to the castle and dropped off our bags before walking the grounds. We started off with the snowdrop walk, which was nice and took us through most of the open sections of the garden, then we walked around the lake and took a relaxing sit at the Japanese Tea pavilion. There wasn’t any tea, but there was a great view of the lake. Then we continued around the lake and went to the walled and hedged parts of the garden, stopping off for two rounds of coffee.
We also went into the castle proper, which was pretty impressive, if small. There were a lot of interesting paintings and furniture. The hard part of it was telling what was the reconstruction in the early 1900’s and what was the original furnishing, walls, or windows. I think most of it was from the reconstruction. There were callouts to parts of the castle that were from the times of Henry VIII, including the sleeping chambers he was expected to have used.
We chilled in the room for a bit, as well as around the Victorian styled castle village that was actually built in the early 1900’s. We sat in the adorable sitting room and tried out hand at some Snooker, which we were terrible at. We ended the game at 13-8, which is pretty bad all around. Then we went for a lovely dinner in the castle dining room.
The dining room wasn’t in the castle, but in the victorian styled village. It was nonetheless a gorgeous and intricately carved set of rooms. There was a huge fireplace that we had breakfast next to the following morning.
We made our way through the gorgeous countryside the next morning with some fog and sun mixed together for a lovely walk. We got to London via London Bridge rail station and decided to walk the south bank. Since last time we went by the Golden Hind they weren’t open, we went back and into the ship.
The rest of the walk along the south ban was really nice, and we went down onto the river bank and I looked around for any artifacts like in the the lost alchemist. It couldn’t have taken anything, but the tide seemed to be really low so it was worth taking a look. We then went into Westminster Abbey and it was a lot more impressive than I was expecting, especially on the historical front. Unlike most churches, the people who are buried there are major historical figures. It was also a lot more expansive than most churches we’ve been inside. They had some garden sections as well.
We then walked to the Victoria Bus Station and got on one of the older double decker busses that had been converted to serve afternoon tea while driving around London. I really enjoyed it, even though we’d already seen most of the places they wanted to show us.
We then headed back to the apartment and cuddled the kitties for the rest of the evening.
Not much happened for the rest of the week, as I was working long days.
We continued watching Physical 100, and the draft is currently favoring us. It is fun to draft participants in shows like this. We have two drafts going with different people and are winning both.
Saturday I went climbing with Alexander from work. We did well on up to V2, but I couldn’t quite get a V3. Alexander was able to as the last route he did.
Steph and I then ran errands for most of the rest of the day. We got some new plants, and some things around the house that we’d been missing.
I was sick over the weekend, and Steph got sick from me during the week. We still were able to make it out a bit between me getting better and her getting sick. We did go on a nice walk to some art that is spread around King’s Cross. There was the Lethaby Gallery for student art on Granary Square and there is a corporate art gallery in King’s Place.
We went to Allegiance, the George Takei musical about Japanese internment camps in WWII. It was an interesting take on them, as some parts they glossed over, like the start of the internment camps and how they were created. They also embellished parts of it with more physical violence and military like camps than was actually reported in the histories Steph looked up. It is possible that happened, but the histories left it out. The ending was strange and rough, as the fight the characters had in their 20’s resolved by one dying of old age supposedly in their 60’s or 70’s. Steph waited after the show and got Takei’s autograph.
I got some bronchitis, but we had the extra antibiotics so I took a course of those and it helped a ton. I got better pretty quickly.
Saturday we went to Brixton and did some more climbing. We joined Nancy, Punit, and Roel at a small climbing gym there. We then went out to lunch and had some pretty good okonomiyaki.
Saturday and Sunday I got inspired to illustrate Alice in Wonderland using Lexica.art. I made over 3000 images with them and used 76 in the text. Here is one of my favorites.
Sunday Steph and I also went on a nice walk to and around Regents Park. We took a small detour out of the park to a cheese shop that had three of 2022’s cheese competition winners. They were good, but my tastes aren’t refined enough to appreciate the difference between those and the decent ones from Waitrose. I also decided to get all the tea biscuits, and they are all tasty.
Sunday evening we had a great bookclub discussion with Candice and Michelle on Cloud Cuckoo Land. It is such an interesting book with lots of great story. In addition to the story there is great narrative complexity with six main characters over four epochs. The parallels and differences made for great conversation, as did the ethical concepts.
We went climbing again this Monday with some people from work at the Castle Climb. I had a great time and we found out that we hadn’t even made it to the largest bouldering room. The other 5 bouldering rooms were small in comparison, but they weren’t small by any means. We joined Carla, Vytautas, and a friend of Carla, Diana. I found a few V3’s that were fun, but I wasn’t able to complete any of those. I did manage to get a good number of the V1-2 and one or two of the V2’s.
Tuesday I stayed at work and played a round of Commander MTG. I ended up playing one of David S’s powerful decks and won at the power table after a 2 hour game. It was fun, but challenging playing a deck where I hadn’t even read through all the cards (some of which were in Spanish and Japanese).
We had an issue with our house in CA later in the week, where a pipe connection broke for the guest toilet and flooded most of the house. It happened after the carpets had been removed and before the new floor was put in, so perfect timing on a bad situation. Steph has handled it all well with the property manager and contractors that were already working on the house. We don’t expect it to delay the construction almost at all.
Saturday we had a nice social day. A friend from work invited us to a mini golf outing, at a place called Swingers [insert inappropriate remark yourself]. The place was tucked away in the financial district and we were the first on the course in the morning. Steph did well, and won. She had the only hole in one, and also didn’t have as many holes where she had to pick up the ball on stroke limit. William and Mimi have been in London for a while (with a break in the middle back to the US). They had great pointers on interesting places to go. For lunch we went to one of the 10 oldest pubs in London, the Hoop and Grapes. It was a pub, and had lots of markings on the wall saying that the Great Fire of London stopped just before it reached the location where the pub now stands.
In the evening we got online for some games with Michelle and Michael. We played a game called The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. It was pretty good, and we had a few fails, but mostly we were able to win. We made it through the first 17 missions.
Steph and I started this week well with going to a castle. This castle also happened to be a climbing gym, and we went with Nancy and Punit. It was an amazing place with so many bouldering walls. They had the towers as the top roping and lead climbing, and maybe if we get good enough we’ll make it to the top of one of them. It looked amazing. I stayed on the bouldering and was able to do some V2’s, which is good for as long as I’ve been away from climbing. My forearms are sore and I tore some skin off a finger, but nothing too bad. We went out with them afterwards to a restaurant called Bean, which is a chain in London.
We walked around the parks in the area, since we didn’t know when we would next be there on a nice sunny day. It was sunny but cold, as the lake was almost entirely frozen over. The park was mostly a big field, but was still nice to walk through.
Monday we went to a neon live drawing event at the Old Queen’s Head. The bar was amazing, being both incredibly intricate, fancy, and cozy. We had a drink downstairs before heading up to draw the model. They had a series of art styles they walked us through for the event, and then we had time to do freeform drawing. I had a few that turned out ok. Steph had a few that turned out great.
After the drawing event we were just in time to go to the comedy night at Camden Head. We saw eight acts, but my favorite part was the MC playing the audience. We were in the front row so she picked us out to make jokes about. She had a really hard time making jokes about me, but she was able to play Steph off some of the other audience members.
On Wednesday we went to the Canary Wharf lights installations. It was an interesting time, and we got to have some delicious ramen at Ippudo. The lights were mixed in quality and didn’t have too much of a unifying theme. I especially liked the giant globe, the hanging fiber optics, and the misty fountains with colored lights.
Thursday evening I participated in a MTG draft at work. I did pretty well, winning two of my three matches. We have been making the apartment more homey with some pictures hanging, and the kitties have been so cuddly.
We got back to the kitties after Florence and they were glad to see us. We got a lot of cuddles.
We tried to go out to a comedy club on Wednesday, but they ran out of spots. We got there before the hosts, and didn’t go to sign up until it was too late. I still had a great time chatting with Jon while out drinking. We also got to go to the King Charles 1st, which is the closest pub to our flat. The pub was fine, but not a place we would likely go back to.
Thursday we tried our first Waitrose cooking class. It was pretty fun, and they had a good mix of things to do. We made ramen, including making the pasta from scratch. It wasn’t very hard, we would just have to buy the right ingredients and mix it in the right proportions again.
Saturday we had a full day in South London. We started out heading to the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which had great works, and I liked the way they laid out the art and information. They had a special gallery dedicated to an artist that was studying a specific Reuben’s in the adjacent gallery and it was interesting to see the way the artist interpreted it.
Second we grabbed lunch at a place that served Turkish fondu and shakshuka. We got the spicy version of fondu and it was delicious.
Third we went to the Horniman Museum and gardens. The exhibits were well done, but it was a little depressing to see taxidermy so old. Most of the colors had faded and some of the taxidermy was not well done. It was also full of screaming children, and the big stone building amplified the screams. I don’t know why, but children there screamed a lot more than at other museums we’d been to; maybe it was the taxidermy. We had a nice walk through the gardens, even though not much was showing signs of life.
Finally we headed to Ninth Life, which was an amazing bar. They had little scenes that you could peep into through spyholes, including one that was full of rubber duckies. They had lots of cat themed art, and the building facade was painted like a cat had clawed it, but with bright colors. There is a giant cat statue on a sign across the street, and they had pop art takes on the sign.
We were there for the Smoking Caterpillar game, which was fun, but not exactly our kind of experience. It had lots of immersive theater and escape room aspects, but the direct interactions with the characters wasn’t something we were as interested in. I wanted to figure out each puzzle, but since the room was full of people going at the puzzles, it wasn’t even close to possible. The ones we did work on were done decently well. I had a good time, and the bar itself was amazing. If the bar were near us I’d probably want to go back.
Steph and I took the tube to Victoria and the the Gatwick Express to Gatwick Wednesday evening. We caught the plane to Florence, which left on time, then a quick cab ride to downtown Florence by midnight. It was about six hours of travel total, with almost 2 hours at the airport in a pretty nice lounge. Our AirBnB in Florence was right by the Ponte Vecchio, on the city side of the river. The wifi was down at the AirBnB and the thick stone building blocked cell signal, so it was an interesting week. Especially since I was still working Thursday and Friday evenings.
Thursday morning we went to the Uffizi Gallery. It was huge and had so many amazing works by well known artists. Steph and I got really tired of all the baby Jesus, but the rest of it was really amazing. I especially enjoyed the ceilings in the main hallway on the top floor. They seemed to be a feature many people just glanced at as they walked by, but each panel was unique and referenced a lot of the art in the galleries. I had my meetings along the river next to the Ponte Vecchio, which was really nice.
Friday we had a full day. Early in the morning we climbed up the Duomo and got a view from the roof, as well as from high up inside the dome. It was amazing, and the most definite must do thing while in Florence. We then stopped by the Academy to see the David, and made our way across the Rive to the Pitti Palace. The Palace was just as large as the Uffizi, but the names weren’t quite as impressive. The art there would still have been the prize of any US museum. The tables were especially amazing with the intricate stone inlays. We took a walk through the gardens behind the palace as well, which were extensive and well kept. We found all sorts of mushrooms in the gardens, including lions mane, chanterelles, coral mushrooms, and turkey tails. That evening we went to one of the places we saw on the Stanley Tucci series on Italy for it’s wine window. The window was so cute, and we met some Australians there, who we might show around London if they come in Feb.
Saturday we left the city and went to the Tuscan countryside, specifically in the Chianti region. We were there for the truffle hunting with three adorable dogs, but there was so much more. Walking through the countryside during the truffle hunt was so nice, and then we had the wine and olive oil from the property as well. They make their own truffle oil, which we bought. During the walk we (the dogs) managed to find twenty or so decently sized black truffles, with one tiny white truffle. I was amazed at how well they did. The people that we walked around with were also amazing. We got to hear about the architecture from a professor who comes to Florence each year for several weeks to teach a class on architecture. So amazing, and we have a great list if we are to ever go back to Florence. We also chatted with a Canadian investment banker turned ice cream maker, and someone who works for the same company as me. They served us an amazing multi-course meal and let us shave as much of the truffle onto our food as we wanted. When we got back to the AirBnB I accidentally locked us out, and Steph spent the next hour messaging people to get us back in. I know I should never keep the keys for an automatically locking door, that is one of the reasons I installed keypad entry on our house in Redwood City. We still managed to have a nice dinner, then called it a little early.
Sunday we went on a wine tour of the Chianti region which was nice, although the truffle experience the previous day made it a little paler in comparison. We still had a great time, and some really good food and wine. The people were also self selecting for the alcohol instead of the truffles. We still got to see some really pretty estates.
Monday morning we got up at 4:30 to catch the plane back to the UK, and I made it to work by 9:30.
Sunday we went to the British Museum for some of the rooms we hadn’t really gone through yet. We focussed on the Native American, Fertile Crescent, and Islamic sections on this trip. We wanted to go to the Assyrian Gates section, but the rooms were closed. We could still look at the large gate guards, just not the rooms behind them. We also took a peak in the library, but will have to go back to go through that room a bit more.
We then wen to a restaurant in SOHO called Brasserie Zédel. It was French art deco, and was one of those places with a seemingly secret entrance that was through a cafe, down a hall, down some stairs and through a movie theater like lobby. The windows were probably just frosted glass with lights behind them.
We relaxed at home for a bit, and tried to go to Camden Head in Angel for a comedy night, but showed up too late and they were full. We then headed to Laki Kane, a tropical themed restaurant and bar. It was amusing how they styled themselves as Thai in some places, Southeast Asian in others, and had things that were vaguely tropical all over the place no matter where from (Cuba, Hawaii, Dominican Republic, Thailand). The vibe was great, and the food was good.
I had a nice walk along the canal and made it down to two more big basins. I can’t wait to get a SUP on the canal. I also saw a few more canal side places to have dinner, but definitely not in the winter.
We cooked dinner for Nancy and Punit. The carrot ginger soup turned out amazing. We played some Drawful and had a great conversation over dinner. Nancy made a burnt cheesecake that was delicious, and Steph’s egg and tofu dish was tasty. They were so nice and will be taking care of Archer and Lana when we are in Florence.
This week started out slow with New Years. I did the audio tour of King’s Cross, which was a nice walk and good info. Steph and I relaxed for most of the rest of the day. I was sad when Michelle was the only one to call in for book club, but not too surprised. The book wasn’t the best for a discussion anyway, so I’ll let it slide instead of rescheduling. The next book, Cloud Cuckoo Land, should be a great discussion, as it has all sorts of interesting social and political commentary.
We played a game of Wingspan on BGA with Nancy and Punit. It went pretty slow as they were learning. Steph won with a set of really valuable birds. Punit had some powerful combos with the Corvids, but not the fully overpowered one as we’d turned those cards off. I had a great food combo, but couldn’t turn it into enough points without the eggs.
Steph and I went to an exhibit at the British Library the next day on Alexander the Great. I expected a few more non-book elements to it, but it is the British Library, so I suppose I was wrong to hope that. They had a nice suit of armor and a few paintings. The illuminated manuscripts were amazing. I also found it funny how so many of the texts on display tried to show Alexander as being Muslim or Christian, when neither of those religions existed at the time. The honest ones that didn’t try to claim Alexander were the Zoroastrianism texts that said how much they hated him for destroying their holy places and texts. After the exhibit we stopped by the Euston Tap, which is a unique bar in a monolithic building in front of Euston Station.
The next evening we went to a show at the Barbican, which was a live play with large puppets as an adaptation of My Neighbor Totoro. It was very well done and adorable. The first appearance of Totoro had it take up nearly the entire stage. It must have been 40 feet across and 20 ft high at the top of the belly.
The rest of the week was normal life, with lots of work and rain in the evenings keeping us in. Saturday we played some Terraforming Mars against Paul and Yutong. It was a close game, with one milestone being the difference. It was great to chat with them during the game, although it sounds like Yutong is having a hard time at work.
It was a slow week, but it good to feel like I’m getting a bit of a routine set up.
We had a lazy Christmas Sunday. We played some Ship of Fools together, and the final round of Wildermyth with Michelle and Michael. We also, of course, had calls with family. That, plus cleaning up the place took up the day. Steph got me some socks and warm leggings. I got so many kitty cuddles, with them both snuggling up to me when we were playing games. After vacuuming Lana hid and wouldn’t come back out until pretty late. I think she hears it and it reminds her of the plane. If I start in the bedrooms she goes to Steph and starts shaking.
We also started planning more of our time in London with a restaurant list/map and museum list/map
For Boxing Day we went on a bit of a walk and did a little shopping in Islington. Most things were still closed, so it was pretty empty everywhere. We walked along the canal to the tunnel under Islington, then went up into the greenway path until we hit the high street. We went to an outdoors store Steph wanted to visit and grabbed some nice socks and shoe cleaner. Our shoes had been destroyed by the snow and wet, including all the salt and grit that went with that. I took about 20 minutes to clean them up, which I’ll need to do every few weeks going forward most likely.
We played some more ship of fools, and got much further. I decided to go for a nice long walk along the canal past Camden. As I got to Camden the market there was very busy, and it took a bit to squeeze through the crowd. Just past Camden the canal walk was closed, and I hopped on the surface streets to get to Regent’s Park. I walked along just the close corner, but could see into the zoo from the path. The camels looked super fluffy and smaller than I would have expected. I took surface streets back, to make a loop of the walk instead of an out and back.
We watched some Netflix series on London and Florence to get ideas of more things to do, and got some very nice additions to our lists.
The next day was Boxing Day (Observed) for the London offices, so I took it easy while still getting work done. I just focussed on writing the year end reviews for myself and others. Steph and I also did another boxfit class at Frame, which was better than the previous ones and more intense. Afterwards we decided to drop by Nando’s, since it is a must eat place in London. The piri piri sauce was tasty, but La Vic’s orange sauce is better we think. The heat was too forward in the sauce, with the flavor taking a back seat. I stopped by the grocery stores looking for after Christmas deals and picked a few up. I got a Christmas Cake, which was surprisingly good, but very dense. I also grabbed some more plants to add to my growing collection.
The kitties have been really eating up the plants, but I don’t mind as they haven’t been puking like they would with the lemongrass. We decided the ribbon on the Christmas cake would look good on Archer, and it did. But he didn’t like wearing. He did like playing with it.
Many things seemed closed this week. I went to the office, but they weren’t serving food, and the kitchens had been cleared out. They didn’t even have coffee, with the machines turned off. I tried to go to the crypt gallery, but when I showed up 30 minutes after the listed opening time online, it was still closed. I grabbed a pasty nearby for lunch, and then headed home a little early to work from there and eat Steph’s delicious cooking.
Steph and I took a quick trip to the British Library, which is less than a ten minute walk from our place. We went through the permanent collection, which has a lot of amazing books and documents. They have a lot of old bibles, with the oldest from 350-400CE. They also had a few copies of different Magna Cartas. A number of other documents from famous authors, inventors, artists, and musicians were on display; all of which were people I just recognized on reading the name. Most documents weren’t possible to read, even if they were ostensibly in English.
We took a day to go around to some museums in Kensington: The Design Museum, Japan House, and Kensington Palace. Getting there was interesting, as you take the Circle Line to the Circle Line, since it isn’t actually a circle, but a loop with a tail.
The first stop was the Design Museum, and I got tickets to both the exhibits there. I’d also picked up the National Art Pass, which was entirely worth it. We went to the Surrealism exhibit first, and parts of it were interesting, while others we thought were just odd. I was amused by some of the language describing the process where “he let his body take over from his mind” really means “he didn’t plan anything and was probably on drugs.” The Dali art was the stand out part of the exhibit. The second exhibit was on ASMR, but was pretty completely ruined by screaming children and children running around with noise making toys. We did enjoy the small room about Bob Ross and how his Joy of Painting was unintentional ASMR with the sound of the brush and the soft spoken positive voice. They had three paintings there that corresponded to the episodes being shown, and I think they were original Bob Ross paintings from those episodes, but I had a hard time confirming that. I did get a little bit of ASMR from the studio where you can mess with the mic setup yourself. We also went upstairs to the Designer Maker User exhibit, which was interesting but had a strange layout.
We then headed to Japan House where they had an exhibit on Japanese carpentry methods. It was a great exhibit, with better design than the design museum in our opinions. They had some hands on parts and a great set of videos of woodworking that I found pretty entrancing. Steph also enjoyed all the cute and well designed things in the shop while sipping a macha latte.
We walked through Hyde park to lunch at Pizza Pilgrims, where we got the top bunk seat. The pizza was pretty good, but had a really soggy bottom crust so it had to be eaten with fork and knife.
We then stopped by Kensington Palace. They had two main exhibits, the first on the young princess Victoria, and the second on the King and Queen’s apartments. The rooms were gorgeous, and with the National Art Pass it was free to visit. If we are in Hyde Park again we could just stop in if they have space.
Before and after the Palace we stopped by the Round Pond and watched all the birds. There were an amazing number and assortment. There was a swan that always had it’s head low, a black swan, several types of geese, ducks, coots, gulls, and pigeons. At the tube station the Piccadilly line was stopped due to a signal issue, so we walked to the next station and hopped on a different line. I cooked some soup while Steph went for a massage when we got home.
For New Years Eve we decided to do an escape room in the morning with Nancy and Punit. We had a great time in the escape room and did really well. We only needed two clues and we breezed through all the puzzles. They did a really good job of this one, and it was harder, but we had a better idea of what to expect. Nancy and Punit did a great job of figuring out the puzzles they were on, and we escaped with 13:30 to spare. Afterwards we went to Dishoom, which was of course, delicious.
We had a day of some chores and planning after that until a cheers of prosecco at midnight.
It's an Exciting World 