Saturday 24 December 2011

Mammals With Pouches

Last week, my friend and I ventured to London for a marvelous day out, as we hadn't seen each other in a while.  We went to the Natural History Museum, ate at Ed's Diner, watched 'On The Town', wondered around of Covent Garden; visiting our favourite Tintin and drank lemonade on a street corner. An awesome day it was!

We started the day looking at dinosaurs and remembering school trips, then bought the best dinosaur themed thing ever, dinosaur shaped biscuit cutters! We wondered around the mammals, admiring this creature (on the left) and attempted to see how much we weighed compared to an elephant, but alas the machine wasn't working so we moved on to look at the birds. We especially enjoyed the penguins and the ostrich's feet, but I found the bird I was looking for, the Dodo, soon to be appearing in the upcoming film 'Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists'.

We then went on to the main exhibition, The Wildlife Photography of the Year and it was amazing. Photographers from all over the world documenting wildlife in various categories including young photographers aged 11-17. As well as these photographs on display, there was a slide show of other photographs that didn't quite get in to the exhibition but were still amazing, my friend even spied a seal in there somewhere. Visitors were also given the opportunity to comment on the photographs using interactive screens. Of course we signed them 'Foxo and Foxo from The Great Oak.

Here are a few of our favourites:






Then on to Ed's Diner for some very delicious food and then an attempt to go to the Poetry Cafe for a coffee but alas dear friends it was closed. So we settled for Starbucks until a creepy puppet selling couple sat too close.



We went to see 'On The Town' at the BFI and oh my was it hilarious. For those who don't know the story, 'On The Town' a musical from 1949, directed and starring Gene Kelly is about three sailors who have a days shore leave and basically meet girls, dance around and sing in familiar New York sight seeing tour stops but it was such a laugh. I had only seen the beginning when the sailors sing 'New York New York' and knew the basic plot and who was in it and I was so glad we saw it.



After the film we casually hung around streets, drinking lemonade and talking for ages, you know how foxes are. It was a super day out!

Here is the website for The Wildlife Photographer of the Year, go and see it before it ends:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/index.jsp

Now go and watch The Muppets Christmas Carol! MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!