Cardiff Trip Day 2

[galadriel1010]

And oh look, I'm back to being exhausted by travel. I could barely think last night, let alone write a diary entry.


The problem with hostels is the people you're sharing the room with. Most of the time they're great - I only had two nights on my Australia trip that I would say were bad roomie nights, and one of those was because they were all men and I didn't realise.

Last night was one of the really bad ones. Worse than the previous worst, whcih was the Swedish girls who talked loudly until 3 in the morning.

We had a snorer. We had a snorer who didn't stop until past 7 in the morning, by which point my alarm was due to go off in under an hour. Putting my pillow over my head made the volume not physically painful, but she drowned out the traffic. So yeah, no sleep at all.

Having said all of this, the room itself is great. Two en suite showers and an en suite toilet, plus a row of sinks actually in the room, each bed has an individual light, the lockers are massive and the beds are among the comfiest I've ever slept in. The staff are great as well, and the cooked breakfast is worth paying for if you think you can get up in time (they stop serving at 9am).

I had the cooked breakfast and left the hostel at about 9.30 to walk across to the entrance to Cathays Cemetary, where I could catch the bus to Tesco. It's quite a long way over there, but the buses come at half hour intervals, so I had plenty of time to go in, get some lunch and flowers and get back out to catch the next one along, which took me down to Mermaid Quay.

First stop was Tesco down there for batteries (although I appear to have left my camera in Halifax :/), and then I went down to the memorial to leave the flowers. I got him red roses.

I still love going down there, because it's so much our place. I would classify visiting the Shrine as a truly authentic tourist experience, because there's no performance or staging going on. It's just us, and we did it because we wanted to for our own benefit. That's all kinds of awesome.

From the Shrine I went for a walk around the Bay to the Norwegian Church (which they're refurbishing) and tried to find the TI office down there, which appears to have moved or closed. Back along the Bay to Mermaid Quay again, where I wandered up the Plass and stood on the lift. It still didn't move.

I popped into the Milennium Centre TI office, where I bought a postcard for littleni and chatted to the assistant about Doctor Who and Torchwood tourists. One of the first things she suggested was visiting the Shrine, which is very cool in terms of its tourist value, and she told me that they get letters for the Shrine delivered there occasionally, and that they take them down to add to the collection.

She also gave me the email address of the person to talk to regarding tourism research in Cardiff, so yay for actually getting research done.

After that I meant to go up into town to do the museum, but I got on a bus going the wrong way and sort of gave up. I was so tired that I decided to see it as a message, especially as it was raining as well, and went to Tesco and then home. Bought the first issue of Baked and Delicious, which came with a set of 6 silicone cupcake moulds and a recipe for bitter chocolate puddings, amongst other things.

Got some more writing done back at the hostel and made it to 5000 words on my casestory fic, which is nowhere near enough but good going for a week's work. I need to get into the NaNo stride and get 2000 words a day, ideally.

Forced myself to stay up until a sensible time for bed before I collapsed into my pit.

Next entry

If you would like a postcard from Cardiff, I will need your address. PM me or something.

Comments

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

I always feel bad about being cross with people who are snoring, because they can't help it. With my parents I now get more annoyed with my mum, because she ends up spending the night in my (empty, these days) bed, but she won't just start the night there. She knows he snores, she knows he can't help it, and yet she still sleeps in the same bed as him and then complains about it in the morning.

I'm pretty sure that this woman must have known that she snores, though (she's married, and he must have told her considering how loud she is), and yet she went for a shared dorn that could have had 15 other people in it, which I don't think is quite on.

Most of the time it doesn't bother me that must, but when it's painful... *shrugs* she moved on, I slept for hours last night. It all works out in the end.

I hate the negative attitudes towards the shrine :( They make me so sad. it's such a special Torchwood place, somewhere we made together and that we can share, but because the fandom is so divisive and divided that scorn has to be poured on it. Sucks to them, I say.

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

Exactly why I get my own room. I do think it's simply not on. You have to find the extra money. I do it all the time, and I don't like paying out but I can't bear the thought of keeping people awake.

I literally read people saying that about the shrine in the past few weeks, and I did challenge one post (can't remember where it was now) and the person was saying it's gone on too long, and it's mental etc etc. I just said I really didn't see how it's doing hard and I think it's sweet. i see it's now on the Dr Who tour. Which is great!

[ms-bekahrose.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the thread hi-jack, but...

There was (very recently), a HUGE argument on the Torchwood facebook page over the shrine. One of the Mods of the facebook page, went all out saying that the fans who post stuff are mental and was even going on about how GDL thought they were mental as well. Never before have I been so angry with a moderator of a discussion board. The things he was "quoting" GDL (and other members of the cast) as saying, were taken completely out of context as well as calling him on his arrogant "People who visit the shrine have a serious mental instability problem" b/s.

The way I see it, the shrine is a huge part of the tourism of Cardiff, just like the DW tour and the former Exhibition. The fact that it's a fan-created thing shouldn't detract. Bloody hell, the neighbourhood where Neighbours exteriors are filmed gets bus loads of tourists through there every day, and people do the same thing and no one calls them 'mental' or tells them to 'get over it' or that they should stop.

I just... I don't see the bad in the shrine. It's one of the reasons I'd like to go to Cardiff (aside from the whole 'I'm a huge nerd and want to travel the UK and look at castles thing).

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

Hi-jack away! It's encouraged on this journal :D

The admin of one of the Facebook pages is seriously anti anything to do with the SIJ campaign, or anyone who didn't like CoE. They've deleted posts that show negative attitudes towards the new series, but left absuive comments from some of the other fans towards the campaign up. It makes me so cross.

But you're right about it being a tourist draw. I want to do an essay on the importance of community attractions and pilgrimage, and the shrine will be one of the things I point at (along with cairns on hilltops and the Royal wedding)

[ms-bekahrose.livejournal.com]

I think that would be Chris. He seems like a right twat. Not to mention that the information he seems to pass on is always incorrect. Best example: Today (yesterday) they posted a video from Cannes where John was talking about Captain Jack and how the character has always had the potential to go to dark places and then he was fan-boying over working with Pullman, and Bill Pullman was talking about his character and his relationship with the rest of the cast and crew, and it was labelled Jack and Rex.

It really pisses me off, that for a group that claims they like to engage with all the fans, and encourage discussion, they seem to be the first to jump all over anyone with a different opinion.

The times that I've been told off for calling attention to things they'd rather were swept under the rug, I've come back swinging with links to interviews with RTD himself. Ahh, evidence... seems to shut them up a bit.

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

I think he got fired from running the page at some point, but he seems to be back. Not cool, and not good marketing.

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

OK, maybe GDL does think it's mental, but I really doubt it! Let's face it, if anyone played a character who died, and then had a shrine made to them that lasted a long time, and was well maintained, that is hugely flattering. I'm sure that he may have met mental fans over the years, but that is a different thing, and I really doubt the mod of the Facebook page actually knows him, because the last thing you would do if you knew an actor like that is quote them calling their own fans mental. You simply wouldn't dream of it. I have to avoid that Facebook page because I can't bear all the miracle day business, the page makes me feel properly depressed.

I do hope someone actually posted on the page that the shrine is officially part of the DW tour, and that the tourist info people like it.

The really daft thing is, I've been to Cardiff a couple of times for work since the shrine was there, and both times forgot to go see it, I was even killing time last time I went, only when I got on the train I remembered. Quite glad it's still there, I think I'll be back there over the next few months..

[ms-bekahrose.livejournal.com]

He was definitely called out (the Mod), over mis-quoting GDL like that, and not just by me, but, by one of the ladies behind SIJ and several big-time Blue Gillespie fans. And it truly was a mis-quote. From reading people's accounts of hearing him talk from places like SDCC and The Hub and even SupaNova, here in Brisbane last year, I think the term 'mental' is more a colloquialism than a slur, like the Mod was implying.

I hang out at the facebook page, because I love seeing the pictures and, am looking forward to MD, but, it's reaching a point where, I'm regretting being excited for MD, especially where the facebook page is concerned. It seems like 'Ianto', 'Tosh' and 'Owen' are becoming worse than the worst kind of swear words over there, and Heaven forbid if anyone has an opinion on RTD or the BBC or Starz.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the shrine will still be around in a couple of years when I finish Uni. It's on my list of 'Things I MUST See.'

[fide-et-spe.livejournal.com]

Well "mental" can be used to describe someone in an affectionate way, although even then it means you think the person is eccentric at the very least. I'm sure that if he used it when talking to fans that would have to be the sense he meant, not in complete lunatic.

I'm not really interested in Miracle Day, I do tend to think that if RTD had left it, with CoE being the end, then made a US version of the show as a spin off, that would have been more palatable. I mean I may not have watched, as I've yet to see a US remake of a British show that I like, but I hate that they try and make out it's the same show, when it isn't at all.

Sometimes when I do venture to look at comms that are all excited and celebrating MD, I feel it's like 1984, where you rewrite history or something, and it's forbidden to care about the past, or bring it up.

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

I always say, when people say that the Shrine has gone on too long, that I'll stop going to see it and taking thing to it about 100 years after people stop visiting the Sherlock Holmes museum.

And let's not get into people visiting the Globe Theatre.