London, England, 9.8-14.8.2016 part 2

This is a translated version of this. After the Harry Potter play we visited central London, the Natural History Museum and a few geek shops. The geek shops were nice, and me managed to see three during one day. Forbidden Planet was quite big geek shop, where the upstairs was meant for figurines and other geek stuff and downstairs had comics. Even though they had a lot of stuff, I could not really find anything. There were a lot of Marvel comics, but as I'm not interested of the comics I did not buy any. There was a lot of fandoms that I like, but a lot of stuff I would like to buy. I also wanted to buy a figure from there, but I could not find any that I would like. If you like DC, they had a lot of their figures. I bought a card holder which had the sign of Slytherin (I don't really do anything with it but it is nice to own) and a Attack on Titan poster, which had my favorite characters Female Titan and Mikasa on it. 

As Forbidden Planet was about to close, I could not take any pictures inside. I took a few of the showcase.

I had heard from a person that had lived in Camden that it is not the best area of London. But I have to say I was shocked to see where Who Shop was located. Doctor Who is quite a big deal in Britain and but still Who Shop with its store and Doctor Who museum was in really bad area, that kind of felt like a slum. The buildings seemed to be at the point of collapse and there were small boutiques of immigrants everywhere. We arrived to Who Shop 5 minutes before the closing time and lol, they did not let us in. The door was locked even though there were clients inside and they just came to the door to see us and walked away. The shop was so small that we could have been though it within five minutes. Also the door had instructions that you could not go inside if you smelled of tobacco or perfume which caused little what the fuck feelings for me and Pipsa. I saw the shop outside, I'm not going there ever again.

Shop from outside. Apparently they also sell Star Wars merchandise. 

Because of the whole mess with Who Shop, I decided randomly go to back to central London to look for a Harry Potter shop. I originally had not planned to go there, but I decided that we would make it. The shop was easy to find, we arrived at Kings Cross St. Pancras and the shop was there, about one hundred meters walk away. The shop was nice, but it felt like it was a little bit narrow. There were a lot of products and even replicas from the movies, but those were quite costly. All the houses were represented, but I noticed that there a lot of Gryffindor merchandise.  I could understand that, as we see everything through the eyes of Gryffindor students. I bought a Slythering necktie, and and a Deathly Hallows keychain, that I turned into a necklace. Before the trip I had bought a Slytherin scarf because I had planned to put it on when I was going to see the play, but I did not. They sold it a lot cheaper, so I was a little annoyed.

Slytherin representation table.

Professor Slughorn's hourglass. It looked so cool, and I wanted it so bad.

They also sold stuff like this. Unfortunately I could not take more pictures, the shop was full of people and all the interesting products were behind glass cabinets so taking pictures was really difficult. 

The next day we visited Natural History Museum. The museum was easy to find, as from the metro we could find an arrow that showed where to walk. The building was really big and really beautiful.  I really like old buildings and how they are built. We arrived to the museum 30 minutes before closing time, and we went to see the fossils of the dinosaurs. They were the only thing I wanted to see, as taxidermied animals can be seen in other places too. I have always wanted to visit the museum and I have loved dinosaurs since childhood. I took some pictures of them, but I have to apologize the quality difference, my SLR camera's battery died so I took the rest of the pictures with my phone. 

The building itself was really beautiful.

The lounge was great too.

I took pictures of two cool paintings.

This is one of the nicest pictures I took during the trip.

I also saw these sexy robot raptors. Notice the derp expression and my phone's bad camera quality.

I also posed with this sexy robot T. Rex. I really like the colors of this picture.

I wanted to see the Big Ben, so we went to central London. It is beautiful.

The next day we had to leave, and we did not really have time to do anything else than get up, eat and leave. I managed to miss Warner Bros. Studio as it was booked fully, and did not have the chance to see any musicals, but those I'm doing the next time I'm going to London. 

The things I bought: 

The Slytherin tie, card holder and Deathly Hallows keycahin. If you are wondering what the other things are, they had fudge inside it :D I really wanted British fudge but could not find it anywhere else than airport. 

The key chain that I turned into a necklace. I really like this, this is one of my favorite necklaces.

The Attack of Titan poster. Sorry about the poor light in my room. 

I hope you liked the post. :)

London, England, 9.8-13.8.2016 part 1

Warning: This post contains spoilers from the show Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

This is a translated version of this. I fulfilled my dream and visited London and I have to say I was not disappointed. At the Monday evening is went to Helsinki-Vantaa airport and spent the night there with my friend Pipsa. I was there at 12 AM, I could have gone later but the buses from  Kotka did not go later than that since the flight was 7:40  AM(nowadays I live in Espoo and going to the airport is so much easier, it literally takes 30 minutes). I spent the night at the airport and loaded my phone until we got to the flight. The flight was easy, I listened music the whole trip and then we landed on the Heathrow airport, which was little bit disappointing for me. The airport was somehow worse organized than the Finnish Helsinki-Vantaa, and confusing too. It took us a while to understand where the metro was. We took Oyster Card with us, and I loaded the machine 30 pounds that was quite enough. We arrived Camden easily, when we needed to change the metro only once. We were at Camden at 12 PM, and we had no internet so we did not know where to go. We decided to go to Subway, which was next to the metro. The British Subway was bit confusing; all the breads were different than in Finland, I think flatbread was the only one that we have. I ordered chicken breast, which they put a lot more than put in in Finland. I took bread called Italian, and it tasted good. We walked a lot in a wrong direction since we did not have internet. The hotel was pretty much the only place we had internet. There were a lot if Wi-Fi's, but they did not work. The hotel room was tiny, only 11 square meter. But it was fine. The hotel room wasn't super cheap, but I heard later on that in London hotels are mostly bad.

Few pictures of our hotel room. The shower was extremely tiny and and the bathroom door did not open completely because the bed was in the way.

After we left our luggage to the hotel room we went to search for gothic shops. That was the reason I had booked the hotel to Camden and from all the shops I was looking for three of them. We sometimes had Wi-Fi, and we followed Google Maps. But Google Maps made us walk crisscross, when we arrived to the place where the shop was supposed to be it showed that the shop was somewhere else. We finally found one shop, but the clothes were too small for me and I don't really care for New Rock boots. At downstairs there bigger clothes but they were not goth clothes. They had pin-up dresses and other clothes that were not my style. Nearby there was a shop of New Rock that had a huge boot on top of it (sorry no picture) but like I said I do not care for their shoes. There was also some sort of gothic corset shop but I did not go there either because my feet were so sore after walking almost ten hours. 

Picture of my myself I took before I went to the play. The sunlight makes my lipstick a lot lighter red that it is supposed to be, but oh well.

The next day we went to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a thing I was looking for and my reason to go to London. I woke up at 12 PM, and we had two hours to go. But because of my stupidity and because the West End station was not called West End we managed to miss the first 30 minutes of the show. We sat 10 minutes front of a TV, and then we got to the stand. All that we missed was Albus (Sam Clemmett) sorting to Slytherin. It would have been interesting to see other characters' reaction to this, but next time. The play was well made and especially the actress for Hermione (Noma Dumezweni) did her job well. Scorpius (Anthony Boyle) was great, he became one of my favorite Harry Potter characters, and the special effects were one of the best I've ever seen in a play or musical. But not everything was pink marshmallow. The play got critiziced it felt like fanfiction, and it really did. Harry (Alex Price) was strange all the time, he yelled at Albus for nothing and threatened the teachers in Hogwarts. And while the play had been made with a big budget, at the end it felt like they run out of money. When Albus and Scorpius were at the last trial at the Triwizard Tournament, the bushes that worked as fances were the same what were been used as stone walls in Hogwarts and other scenes. At the end when Albus and Harry were at graveyard suitcases were used as tombstones. I did not even get that they were at a graveyard before it was said. 

My favorite scene was the first ten minutes at the beginning of the second act. In that scene Scorpius gets into an alternative reality where Voldemort (Paul Bentall) won the war. It was so funny when kind and silly Scorpius was a Deatheater the other students admired and feared whose idea was that muggles were tortured in the dungeons. Scorpius and the Deatheaters had awesome clothes in this scene, black robe with green chest. Too bad I did not a picture of the clothes, so beautiful they were. I found it funny that Umbridge (Helena Lymbery) was the headmistress of Hogwarts. I was little bit disappointed with the costume choice for Umbridge, they could have made a very over the top pink costume, but they did not. The casting was great and only few characters felt wrongly cast. I liked the actors for Harry, Ron (Paul Thornley) and Hermione, even though they felt bit old for acting characters in their 40s. Snape (Paul Bentall), Voldemort and Dumbledore (Barry McCarthy) were the only ones whose casting I did not like. From the movies I have an image that Snape talks in certain way and with low voice. Even though his costume was great, I did not like the actor. He did not felt like Snape at all. I had kind of the same problem with Dumbledore. He was not wise in a way that he should be, and at some point he was telling jokes making him feel like a comic relief character. Voldemort was the biggest disappointment. The makeup was nice, even though they could not create the same effect as with CGI, but his way of yelling instead of talking was ridiculous. This version of Voldemort was not threatening at all, and I was disappointed. 

The plot felt like fanfiction at some points. The first act I sort of believed since Scorpius and Albus were 16 years old. I missed the first 20 minutes, so I did not completely understood the beginning, but Amos Diggory (Barry McCarthy) was sad because his son was dead and Albus and Scorpius decide to stop him dying at the Triwizard Tournament. It felt weird that they went through so much trouble to save someone who had died before they were born. And why Cedric (Tom Milligan)? I thought Albus would rather save Sirius, who was Harry's friend and his godfather. 

The main plot was fucking awful. The main plot was about Voldemort and Bellatrix's daughter. Yes, you read right, Voldemort and Bellatrix's daughter. I could not decide did I like Delphi (Esther Smith) or not. There was nothing wrong with her, but I did not understand she was supposed to be a lot older than the boys before it got said. She looked only few years older than Albus and Scorpius and acted like a teenager.  Of course she was just pretending, she had inherited her fathers lying skills, but when the big revelation came, I wanted to facepalm. I don't know what kind of villain I was expecting, but I did not want to go back to the old, and Voldemort's daughter as an idea was so idiotic I don't even know how Rowling accepted it. Delphi had lived with muggles, and that's why she did have a blonde-blue hair instead of dark hair, but she did not resemble her parents at all. 

They also showed us dementors, which I liked a lot. The special effects were really good. The demenors felt really real and they moved beautifully. They also showed dementor's kiss, which was nicely done. The play was amazing, the only thing I did not like was the plot and some of the actors. But I hope to see it again some day. 

Then some pictures. Unfortunately only pictures from the theater, since I could not take photos of the goth shops we went to. 

Picture taken from the theater. 

Sign of Voldemort at the beginning of the second act. 

Program that cost five pounds and the tickets to the show. 

Walking with Dinosaurs, Hartwall Arena, 20.10.2018

This is a translated version of this. Walking with Dinosaurs was in Finland in 2012, but for some reason I did not have the chance to go to see it. After six years I had the chance again, when the show come back to Finland. The show was pretty much what I had imagined. Great dinosaur robots, great music and a paleontologist explaining things. Even though the show was meant for children, I appreciated that the show had predator dinosaurs hunting. At the beginning just hatched dinosaur gets eaten, and they show Utahraptors eating a carcass.

The show had differently sized dinosaurs, which I liked. Most of them were big and imposing, but they also showed pterosaur, and and smaller dinosaurs that had humans as actors. The show also had small but so cute cubs of Plateoseurus, who gambolled around the arena. The sizes of the dinosaurs were not entirely correct, for example the Allosaurus were larger than it's supposed to be, and and Brachiosaurus was smaller (even though real-scale Brachiosaurus is most likely impossible to do). Ornithocheirus was supposed to be covered in feathers, but its flight was beautifully done.

The nature was also done beautifully. The show had nicely done and beautifully lit plants, that changed shape in different parts of the show. The big dinosaurs were nicely done and looked quite realistic. They moved a bit slow, but I guess that is because of technical problems. The fights between the dinosaurs were nicely done, especially with young Brachiosaurus and Allosaurus, and the two Torosaurus. I also liked the small details, like that the dinosaurs' eyes moved and they blinked. At the beginning there were really nice Allosaurus and Stegosaurus, which I did not manage to get pictures of, but here are some pictures from the show.

Two Brachiosaurs.

Ankylosaurus.

Torosaurus.

Two Utahraptors.

Young Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Mandatory Tyrannosaurus Rex and half of Ankylosaurus.

My look in the show~

I had the chance to use this T. Rex necklace which I had for a while but have not used.

The show from 2012. The show is pretty much the same, although some of the robots' appearance has changed. The video is in Finnish.

 

My trip to Tampere 4.-6.09.2020

If you are wondering why this post comes out five months late, I have to let you know I broke my phone and some of the pictures were inside it. It took me five months to get fixed :D Anyway I hope you like this post.

I had booked a hotel for Tracon in December, but because of the coronavirus the event got cancelled. I could not get the money back from the hotel, so me and Sade, with whom I had booked the hotel, went there.

At Friday we went to the hotel room, left our things there, and went for a pizza in Kotipizza which was right next to the hotel. Even though Kotipizza is not one of my favorite pizza places, it was pretty good. Then we went to the Majava bar, which is a rock bar and it was about 50 meters away from our hotel. The bar was not the best rock bar I've ever been to, but the atmosphere was great and the people were super nice. Many people came to talk to us and asked if there was an event in Tampere. One of the guests there told me she had seen other goths in Tampere, which was interesting to hear. Sade was lovely and offered me few drinks, and I had great time. The bartender even made me few drinks out of his head, when I asked a sweet drink. After being few hours in Majava, we went for Thasherie. It was a nicer bar, but unfortunately bit more expensive. Because of the coronavirus, I have not been in any bars this year and it was my first time this year when I was drunk.

At the Majava bar with Sade.

At 2AM, we went back to the hotel. I had planned that we would have gone to Kuroineko, a gothic shop in Tampere but we had no time. At Saturday I checked out where the shop was, and it was only few hundred meters away from our hotel. So we went there, and I bought a cat top from Banned that glowes in the dark. The shirt was super nice and only cost 23 euro, as it was 20% off. Then we went to the café Purnauskis, a cat cafe in Tampere. It was super difficul to find, and when we got there, they were fully booked and we could not get in. We had a appointment at 5PM, so we had one and half hours for nothing to do. So I decided to go to Urumi, which was just moved in Tampere. They didn't have much to sell, as they only moved there a week ago, but they had Ramune, few prize figures and plushies to sell. I had my eyes to an Umbreon plushie, but like anime plushies always, it was very cute and I'm not really into super cute plushies (and Umbreon is supposed to be black, the plushie was more dark grey). They also had a nice Harry Potter poster and a Mewtwo mug in their web site, but did not have them in the shop. The poster really was not a must have, but the mug was nice. I will likely not buy it since I have million and one mugs. I bought a Hatsune Miku prize figure, that cost 35 euro.

The top from Banned. 

Hatsune Miku Dark Angel figure.

Then we went back to the Purnauskis café. I was really surprised when they had an entrance fee of 5 euro. I have never been in a café with an entrance fee. The café was also really expencive. I ordered a piece of cake, and it was 6,50 euro. Coffee cost 4 euro. But the atmosphere was super nice, and the cats came to me and let me pet them. One even jumped to our table. When we left, there was a bit drama: one of the kittens had climbed up to a tree that were in the café and could not get down. The employees had to climb on a chair to get it down. But the kitten got down and we could leave. It was a nice experience, and even though the café was expensive, we had fun.

We also went for a restaurant called Shanghai, which was a Chinese restaurant like you could guess. This was my second time ever in an Asian restaurant, first time being in one when I was in Popcult Helsinki 2019. I ordered chicken with Chinese button mushrooms and rice. It was a very nice dish, and I really liked the place. 

The dish at Shanghai. 

At Sunday we really did nothing. We basically got up and left. We were not hungry, so we decided not to eat there. But I really liked our trip. We had Onnibus when we got there and left, and even though Onnibus is cheap, I really did not like to sit there for two hours. The leg room was so small and had to put my legs in the corridor because they did not fit behind the seat. Overall the trip was good, and even though Omenahotelli is a pretty bad hotel, it was in a good location, since the Majava bar and Kuroineko were right next to it. I might take it for next year's Tracon. 

Kinky Boots, Tampereen Työväen Teatteri, 18.11.2020

 I saw the musical Kinky Boots and it was pretty good. The show was first played in Helsinki, which is a lot closer to me, but for some reason I completely forgot about it. So I had to travel all way to Tampere. The bus ride was two hours and ten minutes, so it was not that bad. I traveled with my friend Pipsa, with whom I had visited London few years ago. I had heard a lot praise from the musical, and one of my friends say that it was one of the best musicals she had ever seen. I did not want to be spoiled, so I had not read the plot, read any reviews or listened any music from the soundtrack. If I'm being honest, I did not really like the main plot. The whole idea of a shoe company going bankrupt and then starting to make  shoes for drag queens felt a bit silly for me. I don't know why, but for some reason a plot like that did not really fit a musical. I also did not really like how many talking moments there were in the musical. 

Kinky Boots is a musical written by Geoff Dean and Tim Firth based on 2005 movie of the same name. Music is composed by Cyndi Lauper. The songs were good, but most of them were not that memorable. I found the officially filmed Broadway production but I did not watch it fully. I'm not saying I did not enjoy the musical, because I did, but somehow the musical did not strike me that hard.

The best part of the musical was easily Lola (Lauri Mikkola) and his Angels. Lola was just amazing, I loved every second he was on stage. I have actually never been to a drag show, and this just proved I would love to go to one - Pipsa and I actually talked about going to a drag show in Helsinki. His song What a Woman Wants became one of my favorites. The Angels were also great. Their dancing on high heels was fascinating, and they were so fun. What confused me was what when they were singing, there was also females in the chorus, which to me did not make any sense.

The other main character was Charlie Price (Petrus Kähkönen). I have seen him on Helsinki's Tanz der Vampire and Tampere's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and he acted the best in this show. He kind of over acted in Tanz and Hunchback, but I did not get the feeling in this. His Charlie was really likeable and interesting character. But I have to say Kähkönen's singing was not the best. He definitely sung better in Tanz der Vampire and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I'm not saying his singing was bad, but it was not pure at all times.

The costumes were just amazing. Tuomas Lampinen's costumes were rich, beautiful and colorful and they fit the characters. The more normal clothes of the factory workers and the more flashy clothes of the Angels were great. I especially loved the boots they created in the musical, and the red shoes were just great.

Petrus Kähkönen as Charlie and Lauri Mikkola as Lola.

Lauri Mikkola as Lola and his Angels.

Pictures by Kari Sunnari.

My look in the show.

The program from the show. It was decent quality, and it cost 7 euro.

I hope you liked what you read, and even though I did not enjoy all things from the musical I still liked it. Thank you for reading :)

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The Little Mermaid, Helsingin Kaupunginteatteri, 4.11.2020

I saw The Little Mermaid musical and it did not disappoint. The musical had the biggest budget out of all musicals in Finland, and it really showed. Everything was so grand and great. The fish costumes of the actors had so many details, and even though I still don't like how Ariel's dress is pink since it does not fit with her red hair, her dress had nice details. The sets were also very big and imposing. My favorite sets were easily the ship at the beginning and the castle at the end.  The swimming effect was done beautifully, and it really looked like the actors were swimming in water. The show has been going on since last autumn, but because of the coronavirus it had been cancelled. I had tickets for this year's spring, but because of the virus, it had been cancelled. But I had the chance of getting new tickets for this autumn.

I had the impression, that Sonja Pajunoja would be playing Ariel. Apparently she had left the show, and Ingrid Gräsbeck was playing her. I was slightly disappointed, since I had heard so much about her and how good she was, but I really liked Ingrid Gräsbeck's Ariel. She looked great and acted nicely, and her singing voice was good, but honestly when I heard it I was missing something. Not sure what, because she had a nice voice and sung with emotion.

Martti Manninen's Eric was pretty good also. Manninen was part of the original cast, and I really liked his Eric. He had energy and he sung well, but like with Ingrid Gräsbeck's Ariel, I thought his singing was missing something. But I liked him and the way he acted Eric.

King Triton was acted by Mikko Vihma and I really liked liked his Triton. He had a powerful voice and a powerful aura, and he acted his role well. He was easily one of my favorites from the show, and Triton's portrayal was one of the best in the whole musical. This was second time I have seen Mikko Vihma in a musical, the first one being Helsinki's Tanz der Vampire where he played von Krolock. Even though I liked his von Krolock he was not the best actor for the character I've seen, and I have to say, his Triton was a lot better.

Ursula was played by Sanna Saarijärvi, and she easily became my favorite character in the show. She was just amazing, her looks, her singing, her acting. Her tentacles were moved by eight people, and their movement was so satisfying. Her songs Daddy's Little Angel and Poor Unfortunate Souls were my favorite scenes in the musical. I absolutely loved her, and the reason I want to see this musical again is because I want to see her again.

Sebastian was played by Tero Koponen and his Sebastian was fun. Even though he might have over-acted a bit, it fit the character and the mood of the musical. Under the Sea is one of my favorite Disney songs and even though the lyrics were changed. I also really liked his way of singing, it sounded kind of similar to the Finnish dub of The Little Mermaid.

Flounder was played by Valo Eklund, and he was super cute. I usually don't really like child actors in musicals, but he played his part well. His singing was pretty good for his age, and like I already said, he  was so cute that I had to like him.

Scuttle was played by Sami Paasila, and I have to say he was the only thing in the whole musical that I did not like. I have not seen The Little Mermaid movie since I was a young child, and I have absolutely no memory how Scuttle was in the film, but I did not like his portrayal here. He was pretty annoying and over-acted, but this is a kids musical, and Scuttle was clearly aimed for children.

Tuomas Uusitalo was Chef Louis, and like I said, I have not seen the movie for so long time that I didn't have any memories from the character. I was surprised how over the top he was, and how "mad" he was - but when I saw his scenes from YouTube, it was the point. 

My look in the show.

The stage before the second act.

I also bought the program for the show. It was good quality, and cost 10 euro.

Sonja Pajunoja as Ariel. 

Sonja Pajunoja and Martti Manninen.

Sanna Saarijärvi as Ursula.

Mikko Vihma as King Triton  and Tero Kopoen as Sebastian.

Pictures by Robert Seger.

Like I said earlier, I have not seen the movie in many many years and I don't really have any memories from it. I did not watch any scenes before the movie or watched any scenes from other versions of this musical, since I wanted to be surprised. I listened the Broadway version of this musical, and even though I have to say I prefer Sierra Boggess's singing voice, I really liked the  Finnish version of the musical. This was my second seeing a Disney musical live, first being The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and even though I loved this musical, the more serious and mature Hunchback of Notre Dame takes the cake. I really wish I could have seen it second time, but I'm glad I got to see the last show they did before they had the cancel because of the coronavirus. Anyway, I hope you liked my thoughts about this musical. :)