another ticking over

The last day of another year has rolled around.  It always feels like an opportune time to consider what has been and look forward to what may be ahead.  I haven't really got to the first part of that yet.  Monday was spent looking forward to celebrating the beginning of a new year.  Stephanie and I made late plans to dress up and go out for dinner.  We found a fun sounding restaurant called Inamo.  We both dressed up fancy and got happily got our glamour on and headed into the city to make our 6:30pm booking.  It wasn't till we rocked up, right on time, that we found out there was another Inamo--Inamo St James--a ten minute walk away, which was the one we actually booked at.  So we scooted ourselves around some streets and through Piccadilly Circus to find the right Inamo.  We already knew they needed our table again by 8pm for all the set menu New Year's diners.  We weren't too late and this restaurant had a much nicer atmosphere with more space anyway.

 Inamo is a semi-futuristic dinning experience.  A bit of technological fun.  The tables have a little circle touch pad to the right of your plate and a projector overhead.  With a little bit of finger tapping we chose our food and sent our orders straight to the kitchen.  As you viewed each choice, a picture of the dish would appear on your plate.  Brilliant! We then played around with the 'tablecloth' or table atmosphere as they called it with a variety of picture and pattern selections.  We received our drinks and played games while waiting for our food to arrive.  We were in the middle of a war when our food was placed on the table but that didn't stop us.  We each won a round of Battleships, playing against each other.  After a while my small dish still hadn't arrived so with a tap of my finger I called our waiter.  I brought up my order and showed him I was still waiting for my small dish.  After a pleasant oriental meal amongst photos and chatting we added cocktails to our order as our dessert.  The food was tasty though not the quantity could have been a little more for what we paid but essentially we went there for the experience.  That aspect was certainly worth it.

Leaving the restaurant we wandered back to Piccadilly Circus and then along Regent Street looking at all the lights still up from Christmas.  Eventually when we'd had enough of walking and the cold we located a tube station and got back to my place.  We just watched tv and chatted and hung out eating popcorn and drinking milo until it was almost midnight.  At about 11:55pm we climbed the stairs, and more stairs and a few more stairs and then a ladder and climbed through the skylight in the roof.  There we witnessed 2012 ticking over into 2013.  We couldn't see the main fireworks being set off near the London Eye as well as I'd hoped.  A few too many tall building in the way but we could see the tops of most and the ones that shot up high.  The great part about being on the roof in zone 1 was the surround sound and light show.  Being that you can buy and set off your own fireworks as well as smaller organised ones, there were fireworks going off in a 360° rotation.  Some far in the distance, some quite close but all making a spectacular atmosphere for us.  And we ate chocolate truffles to celebrate the beginning of another year.

So Happy New Year to you all!  I hope it's full of blessings and excitement and fulfilling adventures for you.  I'm not too sure what this year holds for me.  I only have a few plans at this stage but the main one is that I'm heading home.  Today I booked my return flight to Australia.  In April I'll be home again and get to see my family and friends and meet a bunch of new little people.

 ☻ ☺   Welcome to 2013!   ☺ ☻