Natural history museum

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The number and range of shops here is incredible. None of us have had enough of looking at them yet. Today we checked out east village and soho. East village was quite grungy and a little scary.  It was the first time since being here I've noticed dodgy people on the streets.  Being Sunday a lot of businesses were closed with their graffitied roller doors down which didn't help the feel of the place.   Soho was much more upmarket and only a shortish walk away. 

The natural history museum was very very impressive starting with the two huge dinosaur skeletons in the foyer before even paying to go in.  Normally displays of stuffed animals would be boring but the realistic settings and poses of the huge range from every continent was enlightening.  It was better than a zoo.  We saw the space show in the planetarium which was entertaining and informative about the creation of the universe. The two must sees were the life sized blue whale (massive) and the star of India -biggest sapphire which was polished and round rather than a cut stone like I would have thought. The whole mineral and gem section was fascinating and would have loved to look at closer but we were all tiring by that point.  It's a museum you could keep going back to over and over there is so much to see and take in. 

We were successful in getting show tickets today. Not for our first choice of Rock of Ages but for American Idiot by Greenday. It was awesome - like a rock concert only better because of the story, dancing, stage set and enthusiastic crowd.  The storyline and themes were a bit adult (not that we had any idea when booking -we just liked greendays music) so I got nervous going in when an usher questioned the suitability of taking Sophia in but we were committed to it by then.  She loved it anyway with the music and aerobatics and the adult stuff passed her by - luckily. 

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