Monday, October 15, 2007

The Booth-opo-ben Day (Part Five)

So we had to choose. Would we travel home with Ben on his birthday, or would we carry on with our search that was going to take ages and leave him to travel home on his own?

After Ben had gone, we set off for the Old Kent Road - the square on the Monopoly board that is completely cut off from the rest. It's in the south and we would need a bus to get there. And when we arrived at Elephant and Castle it was pitch black. It dawned on us that it may have been better to do the ones we didn't know earlier in the day. But we HAD to do this. We found a bus that seemed right and got off where we thought the Old Kent Road might be. We walked for ages and didn't see a single sign - before we detected the OLD KENT ROAD Surgery (23/26) -A-ha! Our proof. So here we are:Unfortunately a bus came along at the exact same time and blocked the word 'Old'. Now, people might think we just went to the much-easier-to-get-to New Kent Road. That wouldn't do. So I took another photo to prove it:Old Kent Road is the cheapest property on the board at £60, and none of us had ever been there, so we didn't know what to expect, but it was fine! I'm gonna keep buying that baby (it's only £2 when people land on it, but it all adds up). However, it was pitch black and none of us actually know what it looks like.

Three places to go... It was dark and late and we were tired! So we got on the tube to Covent Garden and walked to BOW STREET (24/26). This picture's pretty dark, but hopefully you can make us out!

What we all really wanted right now was a massive walk through London. And that's what we got! FLEET STREET (25/26):A little clearer:And we were done - apart from the one station we'd already been to and didn't need to return to. Other than to get a photo. Argh. Big walk ahead (via McDonald's for Katie), tube journey and then big walk and we got to FENCHURCH STREET STATION (26/26).WE'D DONE IT!! The whole thing had taken us 15 hours (I'm including the journey home in that to make it slightly more dramatic - but it's fairly dramatic anyway!), but we'd achieved it and visited every place on the Monopoly board in one day - and seen some of the places where the early day Salvation Army worked - and celebrated Ben's birthday!

We was chuffed.

It just so happened that a nice Australian family were walking past as we finished our 'crawl' - and they took this celebratory photo of us. And didn't even ask about the moustache. It does look pretty real...It was a very cool day.

What's next then??

10 comments:

Katie said...

Haha how fake is my smile in that first photo?! Turns out there's only so many times you can pose for a photograph. What do you men 'Old Kent Road was fine'- do you not remember all those police signs saying things like 'Can you help... fatal shooting here at 5pm on Tuesday'?

I wanted to go to Pizza Express, not McDonalds! For the last time!

Very good summary (I'm not sure summary is the right word as every detail seems to have been included) of our day, it was exhausting but lots of fun. Thanks John! :-D

Graeme said...

Very entertaining John, but without wishing to throw a spanner in the works, did you not visit an Electricity Station, Water Works and a Prison???!!!! ;-)

Pat-rick said...

It's really well done John. Congratulations! :-D
It was very fun!
See you next time!
Pat

Mitchenstein said...

I ALMOST didn't publish your comment Graehme... I knew someone would say that! (Although I had thought it would be Andy).

No, we didn't find those, but we had decided before the day started that we wouldn't be able to get those done as well as see the William Booth stuff. Just seeing the places we knew how to find took us like, 15 hours - we'd have taken a week to find those other things!

And we never would have found a Community Chest or 'Go' square.

And certainly no Free Parking.

Mitchenstein said...

Looking at my keyboard I can't quite understand how I managed to type Graeme's name like that...

Pat-rick said...

Da moechte ich doch gerade mal erwaehnen, dass du neulich einen Kommentar von mir nicht veroeffentlicht hast und ich habe keine Ahnung warum! Aber die Tatsache, dass ich das schreibe fuehrt wahrscheinlich dazu, dass dieser auch nicht veroeffentlicht wird...
Nunja, wann machen wir nochmal was? Will mal was ordentliches machen am Wochenende! :-D
mach's gut!
Pat

Mitchenstein said...

Hey Patrick!

(Patrick was saying that he left a comment I didn't publish, and he wants to know why!)

I have only ever rejected ONE comment and that was from a guy called Ivan who liked 'what I was doing with my site'. I don't believe he was a real person (sorry if you're reading this Ivan). But other than that I've never rejected comments - but I know that others have left comments on here that have never come to me, so if you do leave a comment and it's not there by the next day, leave it again, because I won't have got it. What did it say?!

And yes, we have to meet up soon!

(Entschuldigung, dass ich auf Englisch geschrieben habe, aber du bist nicht der Erste, der solche Probleme hier gehabt hat - mach's gut!)

Graeme said...

Hmmm, I'm not sure how you managed to spell my name like that either Joxcrersdcsdjnsdghn

Heather's place said...

Hi - very impressive.

We had a go but didn't make it all and some of our photos were taken from the bus.

There are couple here but the rest are on facebook.

http://heathersplace99.blogspot.com/2007/10/playing-monopoly.html

To be honest the two pushchairs and assorted small children didn't really help on our quest.

But we had a good day.

Being a bit of a control freak I'm itching to go back and do it all next time.

If it wasn't for those pesky kids...

philipp hutter said...

hey....
just saw your comment...

badankt...ja...is echt super hier und das bloggen macht doch spass:)

aber du bist mein vorbildblogger...!

liebe grüsse and be blessed too!