A Trip To Cardiff - aka Journey To The Centre Of The Whoniverse

[magicom]

This is only my third journal entry of 2009. I'm not exactly prolific, am I?

My recent visit to Cardiff was very Whoniversey and I decided to put together a collection of particularly Doctor Who/Torchwood related pics. The photos are mine, the screencaps come from The Medusa Cascade.

All of the pictures will get somewhat bigger if you click on them, and the commentary contains spoilers for Torchwood: Children of Earth and may contain spoilers for any episodes of Doctor Who or Torchwood that come before that. Enjoy!

I arrived in Cardiff by train (our car had a minor disaster a couple days before we were supposed to leave for Cardiff, necessitating the train ride). If we had driven as planned, I probably wouldn't have visited the train station, though. The same one Mickey Smith arrived at in Boomtown: Cardiff Central.


We didn't go to the Bay until our second morning there, but on the first day, walking through the City Centre, I accidentally found the narrow street Ianto walks in CoE: Day Two after the Hub explodes. It was the only narrow street across from the castle's clock tower, which you can see behind Ianto in some of the shots. This one clearly shows the same buildings that Ianto is walking past:


And the aforementioned clock tower, shown in our photo and a shot from the opening of CoE: Day One.


The building that Jack is shown standing on in Torchwood's opening was near my hotel (Cardiff Centre Ibis - very nice for a budget hotel!):


Also in the City Centre - near the stadium, but visible from much of the centre - the 'Central Server Building' from Exit Wounds. I don't know if that's really what it is, but here you go:


And the British Gas Building (aka Jack asks Ianto out for a date in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang building):

I couldn't find a good shot of the outside, but what's meant to be their logo is shown quite clearly all over the place :)

Aaaannnnd then to the Bay! :D

We walked to the Bay, so the first view we had was similar to our first view of the Plass in Boomtown!



Also in Boomtown, Nine, Rose, Mickey and Jack eat at a restaurant on the Quay:


Back into Torchwood, Jack and co. often found themselves in front of the Millenium Centre, as it tends to dominate the Plass:


The Plass is also home to the INVISIBLE LIFT! :D





The upper level around the Plass leads to the bridge Jack and Ianto ran across in CoE to get to where Gwen was witnessing child weirdness in Day One of CoE:


Child weirdness was going on by the merry go round!


Right! Enough messing around! Let's head down to Mermaid Quay and the tourist office!

It was a little more crowded when we visited than when Gwen was heading to work.



I went to Mermaid Quay last October. Here is a comparison of my pics of the tourist office PRE-Children of Earth and POST-Children of Earth:


The Ianto Shrine from the front and from the top:

IANTOOOOOO :(

Okay.
So then we went for a walk by the Norwegian Church, where Roald Dahl was baptized and Tosh and Tommy frolicked in To The Last Man:


And then took a water taxi from Mermaid Quay, out to the barrage bridge and then to the castle. You might know the barrage bridge as where that kid disappeared in Adrift. If you can remember any of that episode apart from the hothouse scene ;)

And the houses where his mom is supposed to have lived:



We also went to the Doctor Who Exhibition at the Red Dragon Centre. Here are some of my favourite highlights:


Me & the TARDIS! It was locked. I don't have a key :(


Costumes!


MORE costumes!


CAPTAIN JAAAAAAAAAACK!


K9!


Harriet Jones, Former Prime Minister (I knew who she was).


Other squees included the Anne Droid, Daleks in ACTION and UNIT's cute little red caps :D

My whole trip was loads of fun, but the Cardiff experience was awesome! I would totally recommend it to any Whoniverse fan who finds themself in the UK!

Comments

[bluesuit_handy]

K9 is HUGE in person! Normally stuff seems so much smaller when you see it up close, but it was the opposite for me with K9.

I really need to get my Cardiff pictures posted. And my Britain pictures in general. Uuugh, laziness and delays. I wasn't anywhere near as systematic about any of this stuff, especially since I'm still so far behind on Torchwood, but I'm glad I went. Now when I do finally watch it I can freak out about having been there. And I need to watch the episodes of DW where Ten wears the blue suit and freak out about having omgtouchedthat.

[dulcinea]

omfg this is awesome. The Ianto shriiiiiiiine ;____; I'm jealous you touched the TARDIS :\ and Jack's clothes :\

[nomorememory.livejournal.com]

THAT IS SO EPIC.

[billy-shriner.livejournal.com]

Good to see you are about though. Hope you enjoyed your trip to Cardiff - certainly looked like it.

You should post more often!!!

[onceinspired.livejournal.com]

Even though a few others commented with their character journals, I FELT VERY AWKWARD DOING THAT, so I logged in as myself. I don't think Eric would have bothered commenting on someone else's vacation pictures, so YOU GET THE REAL ME INSTEAD. :D

I'm not familiar (other than a few random things) with Torchwood Canon, so having the pictures from the show beside the ones you took was very helpful, otherwise I'd be like, "Oh, cool clock tower thing!" And the clock was very awesome, btw.

I'm also incredibly amused by the costume shops! I kind of want to go down to Louisiana and see if they have TB stuff. XD

I can tell you had fun, lovely. ^^ And we're also glad you're back!

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

Okay, so now it's clear that I must just live vicariously through you. Thanks for posting these pictures! And you paired them with screencaps! How delightfully fangirly of you! :D

You wore Gwen!shoes on the invisible lift! Much as I'm not a huge fan of Gwen, that is awesome. I want to stand on the invisible lift! And great catch on Ianto's narrow street! And IANTOOOOOOO :( Love your from-above picture of his shrine. Even though it makes me all wibbly.

Oh, and I *totally* remember all of Adrift, not just the hothouse scene. WHO DO YOU TAKE ME FOR, SOMEONE WHO JUST WANTS TO SEE JACK AND IANTO SHAGGING? Oh. Right.

Do they have any Ianto suits in the costume section? If not, they need to get on that. Love the UNIT hats! :D