Farewell to London (for now)... and back to New York City

David and I managed to squeeze in some good social outings (a.k.a. partying) with our London friends before we left the city... one of the more solid night outs of which was Friday, the night before we returned to New York. We had drinks with Valerie, Katie, and Magnus at Bam Bou, joined briefly by David's old dance friend Ryan. I have known Valerie and Katie for 9 years now, and drinks with the two of them on a good night means seemingly endless rounds of cocktails. The rounds go round and round in a deceptively swift fashion, because we have engaging conversation and comic storytellings -- and Friday was no exception. I had a handicap of having had only about 4 hours of sleep that day and generally exhausted from the final week of casting... compounded by yet another handicap of my being stupid enough to think that a vodka martini straight up was the way to go. I felt fine through the cocktails, fine through the wine shared at dinner. Then there was a sly and possibly lethal shot of alcohol David made me and Valerie try after dinner at a near by lounge club, a concoction of tequila, rum and sambuca (Katie and Magnus had smartly gone home by then). And yet I felt well enough to suggest that we go to our apartment for more wine, seeing that London bars close early (which should have been a sign).

We had a good hanging out with Valerie at our place... and then I expired. Like a wind-up toy -- I was finished, and thus turned off and fell asleep on the couch amidst the hanging out. David put me to bed, and Val and David continue to chat, until they decided that they would like to commemorate the evening by taking photos:

The two as***les took this photo with me passed out! Even managed to put the camera on timer so that they could be fully in the shot. (I can't quite understand how perky the two of them can be, having drank all night. Obviously, I am just too delicate to keep up.)

And then the two got artsy, took out my velcro rollers and put it on and around me and on themselves and took this:

I never woke up and didn't know this had taken place until David showed me the photos. (They'd taken 6 of these "Tomoko passed out with velcro rollers and Val and David hovering" pics.)


Very funny, you two.

(These photos *are* really funny, actually. Lucky for them I have a very good sense of humor.)

We had a great night, and will miss Val and the rest of our London friends. Hopefully, we will be back again soon enough.

For those of you wondering, we ended up flying Delta, NOT Silverjet, and the flight was far better and provided plenty of edible food.

Now, we're back in New York, where it is muggy. The weather has been an odd mix, on and off between torrential rain and clear blue skies and sunshine. It's good to be home. We got up early today (jet-lag), went to Whole Foods to buy food, hit the gym, and had a late lunch at Casa Mono, walked around downtown and then came home to unpack. We'll have an early night tonight, as we go back to casting the US Tour tomorrow, bright and early.

mango madness! silliness in London

David and I bought a few seriously massive mangoes at the supermarket today... in our delirium of being jet-lagged, tired, and just plain silly/stupid in London, we concocted the above photo.

Good times. x

A bike fall, saving bar of chocolate & a funny sign, in no particular order

Because we come home from work past midnight, the mornings our only time to procure any food items for our house. And so this morning, we decided to hop on our bikes and do a few grocery shopping before being picked up for work. It's rainy and slick out, however, which results in slow traffic of cars as well as bicycles on the narrow and busy Amsterdam streets. After leaving the Natuurwinkel, there was a big truck stopped in the middle of the street, which caused a dense traffic of bicycles, going both directions, on the even narrower, remaining portion of the street not taken up by the said truck. As I weaved my way through, a car appeared to my right -- to dodge the car, I tried to ride onto the pavement... but being wet and slippery, my bike skidded down.

My first bike fall! I have not fallen off a bicycle since I was a kid. Luckily, my fall onto the pavement was somewhat broken by a slightly chubby pedestrian -- unluckily for her, but she was concerned and nice and, while shocked that a girl had literally flown into her, she seemed fine. The scrape tore the top of my boots, made a hole in my favorite leggings, and gave me a good knee scrape.

It's an Amsterdam war wound.

My pink bicycle survived with just a slight bend in the handles, which David fixed up. And I didn't scrape anything other than my knee, which was lucky. It may have helped that I was wearing my long, Canadian Goose down coat, which makes me look like a Michelin Woman but keeps me very warm and, evidently, well-cushioned.

Now, onto a random yet important note about our days here in Holland: we have discovered a food item vital to our surviving long work days. We have discovered Vivani Feine Bitter GrunTee. It is organic dark chocolate with green tea. They have been on sale at the Natuurwinkel and we have bought bars and bars of them, keeping them in our cupboard as if they were bars of gold.

I am not a huge chocolate eater, but this bar of chocolate is addictive. David consumes bars of chocolate over a rehearsal period, as they are easy to carry, easy to eat, and provide a lot of energy.

And yet another random tid bit. There was a sign in the theater foyer last night, which gave me a chuckle:

I must say that the toilets in the Beatrix Theater are immaculately clean, lovely to use. And we have discovered why... they get deep cleaned!

Holiday Sun Protection

No, no, it's not the Blue Spider-Man. It's David Scotchford, in his sun-protection gear.

In preparation for our holiday in Mustique, where we hope to spend much of our week swimming and snorkeling, David and I have purchased sun-protective clothing. Snorkeling exposes one's body, particularly our backs, our necks, basically, our back-sides, to sun exposure (and sun reflection on the water). As David is sun sensitive, we must go to the Caribbean and approach our water activities with caution. Enter Solumbra, a company that specializes in 30+ SPF Sun Protective Clothing and Accessories.

Here, David models the Solumbra water jacket as well as trousers (or, perhaps more accurately, leggings), as well as a balaclava and hat. The wrap-around sunglasses were a free gift. I only purchased the water jacket, as I don't need the full gear, only a good bottle of sun block (being more tan-efficient than Aussie David).

**David will wear his swim trunks OVER these leggings, in case you were wondering.

I think I shall call David in his Solumbra gear the sombrero-wearing snorkeling super-hero, SOLUMBRERO.

Here David models a sun protective shirt as he looks for crime above and beyond Central Park South.

And here are his sun-protective trousers... basically, civilian wear for Solumbrero.

(He sort of slightly looks like a bee keeper, also.)

Photoshoot with champagne bottles

Today we drafted the invitation for my impending 28th birthday. To this end we took a series of silly photos of ourselves with champagne bottles using Mac PhotoBooth (the "Warhol" effect) -- we hope to use one of the pics in the final invitation. We took quite a few and of them there were some solidly silly and perhaps campy/theatrical ones, so we thought we'd post some of our faves here.

Note that I tend to hit my "model mark" (ha ha) pretty consistently while David, being the less predictable and more experimental performer of the two, tries a few poses:

Leap-frogging to and through London

(David on EOS flight to London - looking very much like a poster boy for the airline.)

A little summary of our time in London so far:

The EOS flight to London was excellent. The airline shares its lounge with Emirates, and the food and drink selection available to its guests were the best we have experienced on any airline. The airplane itself had fantastic seats (only 48 seats on an aircraft that normally would accommodate 220) and great service. The food on the plane was unimpressive -- I've flown to London on Virgin Atlantic Upper Class and that trip set the standard for me in terms of airline food excellence (if such a thing exists) -- this did not compare. David and I had a wonderful time on the flight, however, and were excited to be on it. Due to our excitement we did not get much rest, as we chatted and drank and laughed merrily for much of the flight. We did manage to sleep maybe an hour or so, and were actually able to fit both of ourselves on one seat. David asked permission from the flight attendants for us do so, and they said it was fine so long as we buckled up. This we did. It was like being at university again, squeezing onto a twin-size bed... except it was a fully reclining Business Class seat and the flight attendants make your bed. As one might imagine, just how much space we had on this EOS flight was most evident to us when we were able to sleep side by side with each other comfortably. (Don't worry, we were perfectly innocent, not at all scandalous or sketchy.)

We arrived on Thursday, which we spent walking about London after our usual debacle of changing hotel rooms. The first room we checked into was very dark and depressing. Luckily, we were able to change rooms - the room we are in now is bright and airier, which makes all the difference. Since I will be staying in this room for 10 days, most of which are without David and by myself, it was important for me to feel happy about my room. The hotel was very accommodating and sweet about our changing, which made the change easier. That night, as I wrote in the previous blog, we went to Roka and had wonderful food and shochu.

Friday morning, I went to a massage therapist recommended by Fabi. It was my first deep tissue massage therapy, and it was excellent. I will have another session next week, coupled with sessions with Fabi. After the massage therapy, I went for my first day of London re-cast auditions while David ran errands and prepared for his European casting tour, which he begins on Monday (tomorrow). We didn't see too many people who are right for our show at the auditions, so we hope this coming week will yield more potential. That night we went to see the show, which was thrilling, since we had not seen it since it opened. As I blogged before, the show is in excellent shape, has gotten tighter and tidier, and the audience continues to be passionate and responsive. It made us proud to be sitting in the theatre amidst such a fervent audience, to be part of a production that gives so much joy to people and has so much heart and soul.

Yesterday -- Saturday -- we slept in. We needed the sleep. We completely crashed and did not wake up until well past 3pm. When we did wake up, we managed to decide on where to take our holiday, over which we have been mulling for some time. We are quite happy about our final decision -- we are going to the Cotton House on Mustique Island in the Grenadines. We have done careful research of various Caribbean islands, beaches, resorts and snorkeling locations, and think this is the best choice for us this year. We have to finish sending in the forms and such, tying up loose ends, but are delighted to have settled on a plan.

In the evening, we met up with our friend Val and went to dinner at Yauatcha, which was lovely. We drank fabulous cocktails and ate delicious dim-sum style dishes. Our favorite was tea-smoked silver cod, which we had never had before; the tea-smoked organic ribs, which we have had before at Yauacha and is one of its signature dishes, were also gorgeous. Since we woke up late, we had not eaten anything all day, which turned out to be a good thing as there was a lot of dishes we wanted to try.

(Val, me and David at Yauatcha.)

After dinner, we met up with the Dirty Dancing cast at Nell's Pub, a pub to which many West End theatre performers go to socialize after their shows. We were happy to see the cast members and to catch up with them, especially the Australians, whom we have known for a long time. As the pub closed, the party moved to Adam Street, which is a membership-only private club. As one of the perks of being a part of Dirty Dancing, we can go to Adam Street without personal memberships. Adam Street is a great club/lounge, never crowded, lots of interesting people and fabulous bartenders who concoct beautiful martinis. David had been there years ago with Kylie Minogue, apparently, and we have been there a few times since working on Dirty Dancing on the West End. Always a good time. And always could lead to a very late night! We carried on after Adam Street to Heaven, a giant gay club and one of the last clubs to close in London. It is considered one of the most famous gay clubs in the world. A group of us went to Heaven and danced up a storm, stayed out until it was almost light out -- around 4am. It was one of those nights that just keeps going... and while we were slightly tired this morning, it was a fantastic night out. The best part was that Ben Mingay, the beer-drinking, motorcycle-riding bloke-of-all-blokes-type Aussie, lead the group to Heaven, and he is the last person one would expect to willingly go to a gay club -- he had earlier been talking about how his girlfriend, Nadia, was going to a gay club with a bunch of girlfriends and he'd decided he'd rather drink beer at the local pub than to do that... well, the night took a different unexpected turn! (We think he had fun, though). David and I meandered back to our hotel from Heaven, behaving like our usual silly, drunken selves, picking up awful pizza to eat (all that dancing made us hungry), and I even did a leap frog over a road post. Unfortunately, we do not have a photographic record of my phenomenal leap frogging, but we do have our meandering photos through London dawn:

(David being silly in the streets of London at wee hours of the morning, after clubbing the night away...)

(Tomoko being silly in the streets of London at wee hours of the morning, after clubbing the night away...)

And so we had a nice weekend. The weather has turned a bit cold with drizzling rain. Today we have had a relaxing Sunday, going to a late-ish leisurely lunch, doing a bit of shopping, spending some quality time before David leaves tomorrow for Dusseldorf. We have not been apart in a while, so this is slightly sad, but we shall manage. I am hoping to meet up with him this coming weekend in Hamburg, as I have the weekend off before I head to Amsterdam. Ironically, of all the cities David will be in as he looks for dance talent through Europe (including Zurich, Vienna, Paris, and Rome, to mention the lovely ones), on the days I have off and am able to fly to see him, he will be in HAMBURG. Alas. So it goes.

I suppose I could always eat chicken wings (see blog entry about chicken wings for more information).

TM

So far in Amsterdam...

(Artsy "mirror-effect" photo of David at the Mansion)

Our fourth night in Amsterdam -- so far, we've had a fantastic time and have found some good people for our Dutch production. The weather has been beautiful, and we are enjoying a sunny, warm spring here.

David and I are in love with Amsterdam. The city is gorgeous and laid-back, very tranquil, yet it has an urban buzz that keeps us engaged. The people here are lovely and open, too, and that most of them speak fabulous English (in addition to about 4 other languages) and are attractive don't hurt.

As we always seem to do in Amsterdam, we have eaten very well on this trip. On the first night, we had a gorgeous meal at a Moroccan restaurant, where we ate wonderful seafood tagine. The ingredients were fresh and, while simple, spiced perfectly, not overwhelmingly as some tagines we've had have leaned toward. On Monday night - our second night - David and I went to Blue Pepper, which is supposedly one of the best and most original restaurants in Amsterdam. The restaurant serves a contemporary Indonesian cuisine. It was my first experience with Indonesian food. Apparently, there is a large Indonesian population in the Netherlands and so there are many Indonesian restaurants in Amsterdam. David and I had never tried Indonesian food here, however, as I am not very tolerant of spicy food and David was concerned that there would be little for me to eat from an Indonesian menu. We were pleasantly surprised at Blue Pepper -- the dishes all had heat to them, but I could eat them just fine. The spiciness was one that enhanced the flavors within the dish and added a physical sensation, as opposed to one that killed all palate sensations and thus rendered the dish un-tastable for a spiciness-intolerant like myself. Last night, we went to Mansion, which was a terrific experience. The Mansion is a restaurant/lounge club space in the form of, of course, a "mansion." We had beautiful "modern yet authentic" Chinese cuisine. Delicious, delicious food! All our dishes were wonderful, and the intimate, glamorous atmosphere made us feel great after a long day of casting. We ate well and drank margaritas (in martini glasses) and took some silly photos.

(Below...David and Tomoko lick margarita surfaces as a acting exercise for "committing to silliness.")

New work computer...

My computer at work has been acting out recently (or rather, basically not working) -- so I've got a new Mac desktop! And it has the built-in camera with my favoritest program, Photobooth. We have taken a photo of ourselves on it, with "Cartoon" effect.