10/31/2014
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| King's Cross station |
Baby wanted to go fabric shopping today, and boy, did she do her research. We walked to St. Pancras/King's Cross station to tube it. Recognize the beautiful station? Harry Potter, Angel!!! I wanted to go take pictures between Platforms 9 and 10, but baby wouldn't let me. She said we had much more pressing things to do today (like fabric shopping?) than Harry Potter.
Angel: Firstly, I didn't say you couldn't do it; just not today as we were in a rush. And secondly, you have a Harry Potter land in Universal Studios to go to; I don't think anybody opened an attraction/theme park for fabric.
Jen: "Firstly, I didn't say you couldn't do it; just not today"...or ever :T
We hopped on the Hammersmith line to get to Goldhawd Road station. Once you get out, the whole street is full of fabric shops. I asked Angel, what if it's a big conspiracy and they're all owned by the same person? hehe
Baby was so excited, kept oohing and aahing over the fabrics. She loaded up BIG TIME. The first store we saw, Angel saw a beautiful blue chiffon with white swallows print. She asked the clerk (she actually asked someone!!! *gasp* I guess if you give her an incentive...) how much that chiffon was, but the clerk said they no longer carried it anymore. Angel asked if she could get the piece in the window display and the clerk said he couldn't take it out of there. So baby went into every store, looking for that fabric.
We didn't find that chiffon, but we found many other things. After walking around the block, going into every store (some stores have 2-3 different levels!), we went to Shepherd's Bush Market, which is right off Goldhawk Road. They're like a tiny Portobello Road, with different stalls selling eclectic things, like kitchenware, sewing notions, clothing, CDs, seafood, meat and fruit. There was one store (not stall) that we noticed because Angel liked a mint polka dot chiffon. And then we saw all their beautiful upholstery fabrics--I think we were in that store for a good hour or so. The upholstery was only 3.95 pounds/meter, which is hella cheap compared to the US. I'd spent many an hour online, looking for my dream upholstery material (silvery damask, if anyone's asking), but it's like $75-100/yard. And not even the design I want.
So I was super happy to see upholstery that I liked--and Angel liked!--and it's cheap. A lot of women came by, touching the fabrics we pulled out and exclaiming how pretty they were. We bought out their supply of the green and pink fabric (I'll show you down below), just when a lady came by and asked how much that one was. The clerk told her there was no more--as it turns out, this was an overstock, so they got it for cheap. Cuz usually this stuff is really expensive, especially given the close weave.
Angel: Overall clothing fabrics were pretty cheap on Goldhawk Road - most of the cottons/chiffons I bought were 4 pounds or less (the most expensive was 4.95 pounds/meter). Inside Shepherd's Bush Market there were a few stalls off of the main market path and there I got the cheapest (and my favorite find of the day) piece of fabric for 1.5 pounds/meter; it was a mint green chiffon with roses and polka dots.
Around Goldhawk and Shepherd's Bush, there's a lot of yummy looking Middle Eastern food places. We walked by this one doner durum place and my mouth was drooling, the chicken schwarma looked so tasty, all dripping in oil. But we had a gigantic breakfast and I knew I couldn't stuff anymore into my stomach :T Ah well, next time!
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| Shepherd's Bush Market |
There were a lot of women our age on Goldhawk and Shepherd's Bush buying fabrics to sew with, which I thought was remarkable, given that this doesn't happen very often in the US. All girls I know go shopping for ready-made, not fabrics. Thusly, I was very pleased that the clerks here asked me if I needed help. I've been told in the US by someone that she didn't think I was the type to sew. :T
Why do I look like I can't sew???
Our haul was very heavy! And we had to lug it all back to the hotel. By the end of the fabric shopping excursion, I was left with 20 pence...and this was going there with a wallet stuffed full of coins and bills. Most places only take cash, unless you buy more than 10-20 pounds, then you can pay with credit card.
Angel: In total we bought over 22 meters of fabric! We even picked up a tablecloth for the new sewing room.
Since we had to carry all that heavy stuff back to the hotel, we had ourselves a rather big snack of chocolate-covered flapjacks:
And caramel shortbread:
We ate off almost 3 boxes within 24 hours! Yeah, we were feeling sorry for ourselves, for toting the heavy stuff around. Here's our haul:
And the expensive upholstery that we got for cheap (plus, the right one is 8.5 meters, but the clerk counted it as 7.5 meters because all she had was 3 separate pieces when we originally wanted it all in one big piece):
After our snack, we went to the Marble Arch Primark store (different store from yesterday's Oxford Circle locale). As the masters of dawdling, we ended up spending close to 3 hours in there--when at first, we were like, yeah, Primark won't take that long today. NOT.
We found 100% down jackets for 15 pounds (well, the blue color was cheaper than the black for some reason). I bought boots--yeah, yeah, another pair. But hey, I'll need it for Edinburgh, right?
Angel bought a bunch of flats. Dude, there was one for 2 pounds! She bought another cardigan and we went a bit overboard with their jackets. They're just so pretty and cheap! But because these jackets are all meant for UK winter wear (soooo different from CA winter wear as they're much heavier and substantial), we're now worried about our luggage limit.
After checking out, we went to the VAT tax refund counter on the top floor of Primark. The guy was very helpful and told us that we should wait til the end of our trip to claim the VAT, as there are certain tiers of spending that will get you more of a refund. Oops. This means that in the future, and going forward on this trip, we'll consolidate all the VAT into one, and claim it all at once. Most likely in Edinburgh, as we won't have finished all our shopping til then.
We walked from Marble Arch to Tottenham Court Road for Evita the Musical. Bad idea. Bad idea, especially if you're running low on time, which we were. We've done this walk before, and it felt like it was only 10 minutes back then. Not. It's actually a 40 minute walk, more cuz we were weighed down with all the bags of goodies we purchased from Primark. Should've tubed it. Was kicking myself as I rushed down Oxford street. >.<
I'd purchased these seats months ago. All the good (but reasonably cheap) seats were taken as this is a limited time engagement. Tomorrow's actually the last night Evita will be performed here. Our seats were in aisle ZZ, which is the last row of the ground floor. As it turns out, it was double the leg room of the other rows (excellent, cuz we had all those Primark bags to stow) and it has a curtain-covered railing right in back of it. As it's the last row, we were able to sit on the top of the seats without folding them down and not have to worry about blocking somebody's view. The Dominion Theatre's rows aren't very steep (almost nonexistent actually) and British people are very tall, so if we had sat down in our seats properly, we'd basically be watching the back of the head of the person in front of us.
Brits are very nice. There were at least 4 parties that saw our bags and decided to walk the other way 'round so that we didn't have to get up and move the bags. In the seat ahead of us, a gentleman had sat down there. A couple came up and it turns out he's actually sitting in their seat. The gentleman's confused, so the wife takes the gentleman by hand and leads him to his proper seat. I'd noticed in Primark that when someone wants to get by you, they say "Sorry," not "Excuse me."
I pointed this out to Angel in awe. I feel like in the US, almost no one says "sorry." I do, for some weird reason, so it annoys me that other people don't. I wondered aloud if in the US, it's somehow a sign of weakness to say "sorry."
Angel replied, "Cuz it is."
Angel really loved Evita. Baby kept raving about it after the show finished and as we were walking home. I do agree that the lady playing Evita had a beautiful voice. But I couldn't understand half the time what the chorus was singing, and I couldn't understand Che for a better part of it.
I really should've done some homework on Evita before I came, I guess. I'm still confused--I thought Evita was supposed to be a love story? Between Evita and Che? The movie photo--and the musical photo--both show Evita and Che together. Dude, Evita's holding Che in her embrace! Then where's the love story??? It didn't show up at any time during the musical. I kept waiting for them to get together, but they never did. Che just turned out to be a glorified narrator. wtf.
Baby is a huge Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice fan, so Evita was right up her alley. I really like both ALW and TR, but I just couldn't get into the groove of the Evita songs. Maybe cuz I couldn't understand what they were singing?
The musical showed both sides of Eva Peron; that is, both from her detractors as well as her supporters. Which I guess makes you feel ambiguous about the heroine of the story, as her detractors were really quite harsh in their criticisms--"bitch," "slut," "whore" were words used in the songs. Yeah, it's not PG. They painted her to be an attention-grasping woman who slept around, choosing her partners based on who had the most power. Coco Chanel, anyone?
Her supporters made her seem like a much-revered goddess who gave a voice to the poor of Argentina...though her asides made it seem like she was deliberately courting them in this way, and not really doing it out of the goodness of her heart.
One of Angel's favorite song is "You Must Love Me." I never knew she liked this song, as it's not one of my favorites. I was amazed when she said it's one of her favorites of all time.
The title speaks much of her character, no?
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