Chesington world of Adventures

I am aware that this is not somewhere to be going during term-time, however my excuse is, that it is half term and i have a younger sister. I am also going to say that you have to experience different forms of hospitality to be hospitable.

 It has been a very grey day today, but being at a theme park i suppose doesn't really constitute the need for good weather- probably why they are so popular in England. It is a themed night too which the main reason we came- Halloween being this coming Sunday. So dark and dreary fits quite well.
A note on a couple of the rides that we have been on today- Dragons fury was good, although being a wet day, as you can imagine (we are in England), they had to stop letting so many people on the ride so the Que was really slow. This ride has also made me realise how much of an old fuddy duddy I'm getting. As we were on the ride i couldn't stop myself thinking about the safety of the ride. My sister was sitting next to me, which i think started me off. Its the fact that the seats are so big. I know they obviously have to make them ergonomically sound for the biggest people getting on the rides but a the same time it means as a normal sized person (Or a child) you get thrown about on this ride that is 40ft in the air! It was fun though, extra fast because of the rain.
http://www.chessington.com/explore/land-of-the-dragons/dragons-fury.aspx

I was quite upset that the small monorail that was running around the park wasn't working, this is usually one of my favorite rides- always empty and you get to look at all the nice views- instead we went on the Ferris wheel. It seemed like a good idea at first- but there was a huge puddle in our cabin and it was really cold by the time we got to the top of the wheel. By this point of the day my mum decided that we needed Ponchos. Another good ride for me was the Egyptian tomb- mainly because i won and it was inside- It was like being inside a shoot em up' game- you just had to shoot as many beetles as you could- At the end of this ride i bought one of those expensive photo keyring things to remind me of my accomplishment. What is a day out without a pointlessly expensive commercial expense. But these photo things do make you feel special, it's terrible- as if they have only taken a photo of you on the ride.

There was actually a crooked house in the theme park too- we went there last so we wouldn't have to Que and looked at the penguins on the way-  i actually remember coming here a couple of years ago for a different Halloween themed night- however the house wasn't as good as this years. The main properties of the crooked house were the mirrored room- the neon painted walls and as in the other house the bridge through the swirly tunnel that make you feel like you are falling over- however the one main difference to the house in Yarmouth that made this slightly more entertaining for me was that there were actors inside the house, popping out from cupboards and behind walls. They weren't fierce like the actors were in the London dungeon. Actually quite homely, just dressed as witches. I think this is what made the experience of this crooked house more sensational than others- because of the human influence, somewhat the attention.

Open House and Hitachi

I took advantage today of the open house event and went up to the mayors office with my sister. Amazing views across London and a brilliant building to be inside, my sister wasn't so interested in the architecture as i was, but there was an activity at the top of the building where you could make a house and put it in an imaginary city of other houses that people had made. We made a haunted house and placed it on the edge of town next to the 'Sunshine Hotel'- the defining features of our building was the tissue paper smoke surrounding it and expanding out of the roof- it also had a drawbridge. The building was a lot like the Reichstag in Berlin- slightly smaller ques to get in, and views that i recognise- but very similar, I'll have to look up to see if it was the same architect that designed the building.


Conveniently it is also right next door to the Hitachi Consulting office where we put up a show earlier this year- I didn't hang any work myself but i project managed and helped curate and choose the work to be placed in the year long exhibition, paid for by Hitachi Consulting. So i took the opportunity on the balcony to take some photos of the Hitachi Building- mainly the parts where you can see the work through the windows. I am trying to get together a catalogue for the private view coming up in October, so the photos may be quite good for that. If not its a good record of location.
We also went to The London Dungeons today- I thought i would mention it because it was really good, and it had a link for me to the crooked house ideas i was having in Great Yarmouth. A lot more extensive than last time i went (about 10 years ago) and a lot more participatory, there are more actors and things like the Sweeney Todd exhibit which gives everybody exactly the same creepy experience. They also have a room which is the old '10 Bells Pub' in Shoredich, linked onto the Jack the Ripper exhibit- I personally enjoyed this because it linked history to location, and I've been to the pub too. We actually went over to Shoreditch after the dungeons so i could show my sis the pub, and a couple of locations of the killings- i went on one of those Ripper Walks a couple of years ago, and remembered a couple of locations. It puts things into perspective a bit, if not bored my sister a little. From there we also went down Brick Lane to get some bagels to eat on the way home- however we got stuck in the middle of a music festival that was going on, and realised when we got to Mile End that i had actually taken us the wrong way down the lane. We had to squeeze all the way back down to the other end. It took us about an hour in total to get the Bagels and get out of there!