In the UK, Boxing Day is a huge shopping day, so we couldn't help but join in. After all, the museums and such were closed. We went to the area around Picadilly Circus, which has stores from many of the world's most desirable brands. There was Uniqlo, where £52 will get you a wind and waterproof fleece, some long johns, and selvedge denim jeans (including alterations, finished in an hour). There was also Karl Lagerfeld, Burberry, Coach, and a variety of other stores where £52 will get you... nothing, because you are a poor. Alecia got the fleece and some jeans from Superdry (a Japanese store). Adam also got a button down and bicycle print socks from Charles Tyrwhitt for £22. The exchange rate is really nice.
While waiting for Uniqlo to alter the jeans, we went for Chinese food in the adjacent Chinatown. We found a restaurant that served xiao long bao, which are Shanghai soup dumplings. These are little dumplings full of meat, and a rich broth. You pick them up, put them in a spoon, nibble a hole in the side, and suck out the broth, before adding black vinegar and eating the rest. Adam had been raving about these things since he visited New York City in May and June, and now Alecia knows what all the fuss was about. We also had a spicy noodle soup bowl.
After shopping, and dinner at a Christmas market, we went to see a production of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical In The Heights. This was staged in a temporary theater building constructed over railway tracks so that the set could be wheeled in and out, allowing for two productions to be staged there at once. This also allowed the show to be staged in the round, which was a brilliant choice for a play about street life in Washington Heights in Manhattan. The plot was sort of secondary to Lin-Manuel Miranda's brilliant score, which seamlessly blends the music of the Latin Caribbean countries with New York's thumping hip-hop. It made him a star, and set him on the course to write Hamilton.
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