Friday, July 19, 2013

Day 15: Cardiff: Doctor Who Experience

Today was another early morning. Patricia and I had a 9:15 train to Cardiff to catch. We made it this time though, which plenty of time to spare! We got some food at EAT, a very tasty food place. I had a piece of fudge because I don't eat sandwiches.

The train was a pretty relaxing ride. The coach was mostly empty, so I slept pretty good. I sleep better in trains that I do in planes!

We got to Cardiff a bit before noon and couldn't check in to our hotel until 2. We decided to go get lunch first at this little pub that was right outside the station and right across the road from our hotel. I ended up getting ham, eggs, and chips for like £4! It was really good too.

We had tickets for the Doctor Who Experience between 1 and 2, so we decided to try our luch and see if we could check in early. It worked in Paris! We got into our hotel and they did have a room ready, so we were about to check in around 12:30. We're on the smoking floor, but the room doesn't smell bad, so no complaints.

We then began the mile and a half walk to the Doctor Who Experience. There were a lot of signs, but none pointing toward DWE, though. We ended up following signs to Cardiff Bay until we came across our first pointer telling us we were going the right way.

Follow the Daleks!
These evil dudes led us the entire way to the Experience, but then they tried to exterminate us. It was a trap!

We're there!!
When we got in, we showed the desk our tickets and he told us that another round of people were going in ten minutes. We looked around the lobby and waited. When they started letting people line up, we hopped in. The guy scanned our tickets and the machine blurped. The guy frowned and tried again. Once again, we got a blurp, not a beep. He looked at it and apparently the tickets I bought yesterday were FOR yesterday. Luckily it was a quiet day, so we were able to just get in line and they let us go on through.

The Experience part was a walk through "Save the Doctor" mission. Spoiler-free, we walked through the TARDIS, saw some Daleks, saw some Angels, and of course, won!

We couldn't take pictures until the exhibit part, but there, we could take as many as we wanted!

The really neat part was probably over 90% of the things in the exhibition was original. There were like three replicas that I saw and they were screwdrivers. Some things were refurbished originals, but the majority were straight up original.

Nine's costume
Ten's costume 
One of the early Doctor's console. I think it was the 70s and 80s.
The TARDIS
Ten's TARDIS 
Idris and the junk TARDIS
TARDIS and half of a wax Matt Smith
Inside Ten's TARDIS
Another console
Villains and good guys

It's an Ood!
The Face of Boe aka Captain Jack Harkness 
Huh?
The original cradle
This is the shell of a Dalek. People would sit in there and move the plunger, whisk, and eye stalk around to make the Dalek, well, Dalek.
This is a lot scarier than the yellow one.
Daleks!
Oswin Dalek
Don't blink
K9 
These peg dolls were just as creepy here as they were on TV
Uh oh. I've been upgraded.
The stunt double wigs! The hair looks so perfect!
From the episodes with the White House
After we finished in the museum part, we headed to the store. It was filled with so much that I wanted to buy. In the end, I settled for a TARDIS shirt, a Oyster Pass holder, and a pack of comic book style post cards with villains on it.

From there, we started heading back to the hotel. I got ice cream and we ended up passing a few more Doctor Who places.

Here is a filming location being turned into a carnival
And another one
See! It's the TARDIS!

I just think the Millennium Centre is beautiful. It's Welsh on one side and English on the other.
After we got back to the hotel, Patricia decided to go check out an antique store we had passed. I stayed in the room and relaxed. When she got back, we did nothing for a bit and then headed off to find dinner. When she went antiqueing, she had seen a lot of little cafe type places, so we went that direction to find dinner.

But wait!

All of these little cafe type places were pubs and EVERYONE knows that you don't get dinner in a pub. They're for lunch! We passed twenty pubs until we finally found a restaurant. We ended up at a Harvesters. It was kind of like an Applebee's. It was really good!

I've learnt that 2/3 of the time, a European milkshake is just milk in the flavour that you ask for. The 1/3 of the time it is an actual milkshake is when you're in a 50's style American diner. 
Unlimited salad that we didn't even have to pay for! It was included! That's pineapple on top  :)
This was the best chicken I've had so far! But the peas were lacking. They used to be my favorite vegetable, but they were awful! It's a good thing they aren't paleo, because I don't think I could eat them again.
I almost wish I could spend the whole weekend here. It's such a sleepy little town and the food is really cheap. Plus I like seeing all of these Doctor Who places. The diner where Amy, Rory, and River went after seeing the Doctor die is down by the experience, but I didn't know it until we'd walked the mile and a half back to the hotel. We didn't feel like walking back, though I would have LOVED to eat dinner there. Next time! 

Tomorrow is another big day, but it's a secret until the post. Unless you see on Facebook, but whatevs. 



1 comment:

  1. Hey! I'm also a college student from TX (Dallas) and I'd really like to talk to you about your study abroad program. I just got back from London and I'm really interested in studying abroad at some point next year. I really hope this doesn't come off as super creepy or something (lol), but if you could give me a moment of your time, that would be awesome!
    Thanks!
    Sammie B.
    Twitter: @sammieleelee
    Email: Sammylb93@hotmail.com
    PS. So jealous you got to go to the DW Experience!

    ReplyDelete