After spending the Christmas at a host family at Bedford, I went to Stratford-upon-Avon. Stratford-upon-Avon is the birthplace (see pictures just below) and home town of William Shakespeare. It is a very small but lovely town.

At the time of my arrival, it was just after the Christmas. The decorations of Christmas could still be found everywhere on the streets.

The “must-do” program in Stratford-upon-Avon is watching a Shakespeare’ play performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company there. I had decided to see a musical called “Merry Wivies” adapted from a Shakespeare play, instead of a play. The reason was simple: the actors and actresses would speak old English used at the time of Shakespeare which I could not understand, whereas for a musical, even though I could not understand what they said, I could still be entertained by the songs they sang. My thought was later proved to be correct.

By the time I purchased the ticket of the musical, there was only one student ticket left for that day and the next day but student ticket did not mean it must be cheap - it costed 24 pounds! I had no choice but bought it - that was a “must-do” program there! Fortunately my seat was facing the centre of the stage at the circle of the theatre and had a good view of the stage. That night, the whole theatre house was full, even though the tickets were very expensive.

The performances of the Royal Shakespeare Company usually took place in the main Royal Shakespeare Theatre (see the picture on the left most above) and the adjacent Swan Theatre. The musical I watched was peformed at the former. However, the aisle between rows of seats was too narrow and even worse than the economy seats in air planes. In the latter, you probably can strengthen or extend forward your legs to a certain extent. However, in that theatre, your legs will have no chance to move, not even an inch. Sitting like this for three hours, even for me, a short and small person, was unbearable. You can imagine how miserable the other people will be who are much bigger and taller than me. Why did the theatre charge high price for tickets but not provide even a reasonable sitting environment?

Stratford-upon-Avon is a popular town for tourists. There were many shops there. One clothing shop was called “White Stuff” and its symbol was a Chinese character in white color meaning “clothes” inside two circles (see the picture in the middle above). However, white clothes are taboos for the Chinese because only white clothes (traditionally only white clothes, but nowadays both white and black clothes) are worn at funerals. This is very different from the west where white clothes are worn at the weddings - a celebration event. I really wonder whether the designer of the symbol was aware of this when he/she decided to use that Chinese character in the symbol.

The theatres were built beside the River Avon. Along the river bank, there were many swans and Canadian geese (they are two closely related species and all under the waterfowl subfamily of Anserinae but the former are usually bigger than the latter). Even the emblem of the district council of Stratford-upon-Avon has two swans (see the picture in the middle above)!

The Canadian geese, since they were introduced to Britain in 1665, had grown too many and are now causing the problem of ecological balance. A sign was set up there to request people not to feed them. Of course many people ignored the advice as their heart was always full of “love”.

Here came the stunt prince, “I walk on two feet but stand on one foot only. Do not imitate me without proper training.”