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

[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

[magicom.livejournal.com]

Gwen stole *my* shoes, the cow!! I've been a red Chucks girl for years. Gwen, she is fickle, with a pair of blue ones and red ones and green ones and black ones. They really DO make a lot of money at Torchwood! :P But, in honesty, I was quite pleased to find a picture of her on the lift in red Chucks to put against the picture of me in MY red Chucks on the lift. Quite pleased indeed.

The shrine totally made me wibble. Totally. Anyway, there was a farmers market up above the tourist office and my husband was checking out the extensive selection of fresh cheeses and I didn't want to get coerced into trying a sample of some weird Himilayan goat cheese with sun-dried something-or-other mixed in, so I looked over the railing and THE SHRINE! So I took the aerial view picture, which I think turned out rather nicely. So you all can thank weird cheese for that one :D

NO Ianto suits. No Torchwood. Just Doctor Who. I was sad. Torchwood needs more love from the DW establishment. It gets screwed by The Man. And then they all get killed :(

Ianto's street SO made my day though :D I believe it's called Womanby, but it is now OFFICIALLY (in my mind) Ianto Avenue.

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

Gwen, that bitch! >:(

A farmers market, fresh cheese, and the tourist office? I wouldn't have known where to turn. That is the way to do it, Cardiff. Nicely played. And yes, thank you, weird cheese, for the aerial view picture ;D

Torchwood is just the ugly stepchild of DW. Which is NOT OKAY. But it explains the suckage of days 4-5, I suppose. (I think a case could be made for at least one Ianto suit in the DW exhibit - after all, he was on DW once. I WANT THE SUITS.)

[magicom.livejournal.com]

It is definitely NOT OKAY. *grumble grumble*

Oooh, was he ever on Doctor Who. And in the yummy pink shirt and a waistcoat. That needs to be in the museum RIGHT NOW.

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

*gasp* I LOVE YOUR ICON.

That DW getup is definitely museum material.

[magicom.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I got it from redscharlach.livejournal.com. She has a whole bunch of TW and DW cartoony little icons she's made.

I think Ianto's suit should be in the Journey's End room next to Jack's costume.

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

Thanks - shall have to check her out.

Should be. Or, it still should be on Ianto, is where it should be. Jack is just dreaming. This is a very long dream.

[magicom.livejournal.com]

Yes. Jack ought to stop answering weird phone calls.

The suit is still on Ianto. That's why it's not in the museum. He's probably wearing it while he sits by Jack's bedside, waiting for him to snap out of it. Then he'll be badass and track down and taser the person responsible in the head.

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

Yes. And he's making this random, cute, rambly speech about how he's probably just a blip in time but he loves watching Jack sleep, anyway. And yes again with the badassery and the tasering. Because Ianto + taser gun = OTP.

[magicom.livejournal.com]

Eeeeeeeeeeeeee you got one too :D

I think he's also doing a Sukodu or something, because Jack's been unconscious for quite a while. Unless it's one of those things where it's a week in his dream, but, in reality, it was, like, half an hour.

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

I snagged a few from her. I just could not resist. :D

Ianto would get through a Sudoku in something like 0.5 seconds. I hope he brought an entire book of them.

[magicom.livejournal.com]

The diabolical ones, because anything less would be too easy.

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

But of course. He's also probably devising an entirely new filing system for the Hub archives.

WHICH I AM ALSO IN DENIAL ABOUT BEING DESTROYED.

[magicom.livejournal.com]

OMG Coat!Love.

Of course the Hub wasn't killed. Jack dreamed it!

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

We all love the coat.

And everything was Jack's dream...except Ianto in construction gear. That must always be real.

[magicom.livejournal.com]

I expect Jack has seen it on him before, hence the need for it to be in his dream :D I mean, they have some pretty kinky prop play going on in their bedroom.

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. We certainly can't expect them to keep on using that UNIT cap forever.

[magicom.livejournal.com]

They'd get bored! Avante Garde does not repeat itself :P

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

And it takes work to keep up with innovative :D

[magicom.livejournal.com]

It does! It's sort of impressive that they've been sleeping together for over a year and a half and aren't bored yet. They seem to have set the bar fairly high fairly early!

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

Well, when they started with stopwatch games...

[magicom.livejournal.com]

Really. Where are you supposed to go from there? Well, apparently it involves sports equipment, military uniforms and Every. Room. In. The. Hub.

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

But of course. And there have to be more rooms in the Hub than we've seen. The thing is underground! It could go on forever!

[magicom.livejournal.com]

And probably does! The sublevels seem rather labyrinthine!

[cloudillusion.livejournal.com]

Naked hide and seek takes on a whole new meaning.