Adventures Archives - Page 8 of 13 - Antony Simpson is an Author, Blogger, Nurse & Witch.

London Trip, Part 2: The Making of Harry Potter Studio Tour

Sunday 30 November 2014 / Antony Simpson / Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Last Sunday mum and I went to The Making of Harry Potter Studio Tour. We were lucky as it was all Hogwarts in the Snow ready for Christmas. It’s a place that’s better shown than described, so here’s ample photos:

Left to Right: Entrance outside; Entrance Inside with Christmas Tree; Gift shop; Collection of Wands in Gift shop; J.K. Rowling Quote; Cupboard Under The Stairs.	Left to Right: The Great Hall Entrance; Inside The Great Hall; Gryffindor uniforms; costumes for Hagrid and Flich; costumes for Mcgonagall, Dumbledoor and Snape; Sedway, Moody and Trelawny.
Left to Right: Cloke of Invisibility; Yule Ball costumes; Ron’s Yule Ball costume; More costumes; Harry Potter’s costumes; a flaming Christmas pudding.	Left to Right: Gryffindor door common room (top two); Gryffindor dormitories (bottom two).
Left to Right: clock; Wizard’s Chest piece; Wall of Decrees and long ladder; Various magical props; stairwell; Mirror of Erised.	Snape’s (and Later Slughorn’s) Potion class set.
Left: Portraits. Right: Animal Actors.	Dumbledoor’s Office.
Various Doors.	Left to Right: Quidditch display; Horcrux display; Room of Requirement Deatheater prop; Moody’s chest; Remus Suitcase.
Showing how the special effects were made.	Top: The Burrow (two photos). Bottom: Malfoy Manor and Umbridge’s Office.
Top: Might is Magic Statue and Ministry Entrance. Bottom: Ministry interior and Prophecy ball props.	Left to Right (Outside): Me in a Waterproof poncho; Potters’ Cottage; Hogwarts Bridge; The Night Bus.
Left to Right: Various Goblin heads; Fawkes the Phoenix (two photos); Greyback’s face; Werewolve; various props (including Dobby’s head).	Various Magical Creatures.
To scale Actor/Actress Models.	Diagon Alley 1.
Diagon Alley 2: The Weasley’s.	The level of detail for the films was incredible. Design sketches, paper models, product design – everything designed from scratch based on the books.
The Finale – Hogwarts Castle with Snow and a Quote from J.K. Rowling.

We had a great time with The Making of Harry Potter Studio Tour exceeding expectations. If you’re a fan of the films, I recommended you go. It shows you how the films were made, but somehow doesn’t mean that they loose their magic.

Blog soon,

Antony

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London Trip, Part 1 – Shopping, Silly Hats and the Hotel

Saturday 29 November 2014 / Antony Simpson / Leave a Comment

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Last weekend mum and I went on a coach trip to London. The Saturday we went shopping, I bought a few Christmas presents and tried on some silly hats:

silly-hats-collage-London-November2014 — A Collage of Me in Silly Hats (click for full size image)

Then we went to the hotel. It was a Holiday Inn and I was reasonably impressed. It was clean, had friendly staff and had everything we needed. Here are some photos:

hotel-collage-London-November2014 — A Collage of the Hotel (click for full size image)

The Sunday we were going to The Making of Harry Potter Studio Tour and were well excited about. I’ll blog about Harry Potter Studio Tour and share photos in my next post.

Blog soon,

Antony

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We’re off to the Harry Potter Studio Tour!

Friday 21 November 2014 / Antony Simpson / Leave a Comment

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Mum and I are off to Harry Potter Studio Tour this weekend! So expect a Harry Potter Studio Tour-related blog post sometime next week with plenty of photos. Without realising when we booked the trip, we also get to see Hogwarts in the snow.

The coach trip includes: Harry Potter Studio Tour tomorrow, a stay in a hotel overnight and some time to shop in London on Sunday.

Have a great weekend, I know we will.

Antony

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Back To Penrhos Cottage & Visiting Animalarium Borth Zoo

Sunday 28 September 2014 / Antony Simpson / Leave a Comment

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Last weekend a friend and I went to stay at the lovely Penrhos Cottage for some rest and relaxation. I’ve previously stayed at Penrhos Cottage, see my blog post: Mid-Wales, Part 1: The Lovely Penrhos Cottage. We spent the time catching up, enjoying nature, watching TV and reading books. It was great to have no schedule.

On the Saturday I took the opportunity to walk up into the hills and found a private garden with some miniature buildings. I hiked further up the hills and found some abandoned slate ruins. See some photos below:

Private Garden Miniature Buildings 1	Private Garden Miniature Buildings 2
Slate Ruins 1	Slate Ruins 2

On the Sunday we stopped off at Animalarium, Borth’s Zoo on our way home. Animalarium is a small Zoo that also takes in unwanted pets. You can really get close and interact with the animals at this Zoo. You can even buy pots of food and feed some of the animals. This animal interaction makes it an ideal place to take children. Throughout the day it had a number of free talks about some of the animals and some opportunities to see animals getting fed. My friend and I had an enjoyable time, here are some photos of the animals:

Animalarium: Lemur	Animalarium: Monkey 1
Animalarium: Monkey 2	Animalarium: Meerkats 1
Animalarium: Meerkats 2	Animalarium: Goat
Animalarium: Cat
Animalarium: Wallerby	Animalarium: Jaguar – Sunbathing.
Animalarium: Some sort of Bird	Animalarium: Calf
Animalarium: Pythons	Animalarium: Pythons Sign

Animalarium is a small Zoo and as such felt like a place that needs more financial support. My friend and I talked about maybe adopting an animal or two there, it’s something I certainly intend to do when money is less tight.

Hope you enjoyed the update and photos.

Blog soon,

Antony

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