famille recently held a team away day in London. The primary planned events of the day were to visit the Van Gogh immersive experience, have dinner at the Sky Garden and to get to know each other better as I (Naomi) am new to the team.
The day started off with me travelling on the train to meet the others in plenty of time for the Van Gogh immersive experience. We headed for an impromptu visit to a cosy café. The café had a rustic and modern feeling and they made a very nice homemade smoothie that I enjoyed and also a festive mince pie. In the time we were in the café I was able to get to know the team better and enjoyed listening to lots of stories. After finishing up my smoothie, it was time to go to the Van Gogh immersive experience.
Arriving at the Van Gogh immersive experience
The Van Gogh Experience was marvellous, and we all agreed that the VIP Virtual reality experience was the most fantastic. A fascinating ten minutes as it transported you back in time to the place where Van Gogh lived and painted some of his famous work. Before the immersive experience, there was a room with lots of information and videos talking about his work and life. I learnt far more about him. One of the quotes that stood out to me was “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together”.
As part of the immersive experience, you could go into a room and colour in a picture of one of the famous works of Van Gogh. This was very therapeutic and calming whilst doing the colouring and the ambient music created a relaxing atmosphere. After the colouring, we put our pieces of paper on the walls like others had done before us.
An Immersive Starry Night
Then we all walked through to the room with all the walls that had projections of Van Gogh’s work in an immersive video which incorporated over 200 pieces of his work. The lights of the projectors were over you and the seating in the room. The experience was on a large scale as the projections moved around us.
Afterwards we headed to Old Spitalfield Market where we had drinks and a sharing platter before moving on for dinner at the Sky Garden.
Arriving at the Sky Garden
When we arrived at the Sky Garden, there was a security check and we had to leave the posters that we had got from the Van Gogh immersive experience in the foyer. Thankfully, we remembered them at the end of the night! We went to the 35th floor to look at the gardens after the security check. However, that night when we were there most of the gardens were not open as a VIP event was happening (sad for us) although we could still enjoy the amazing views of London at night with all the glistening lights.
After this, we enjoyed a drink from the bar and then chatted more before going upstairs to the restaurant. Amazingly, we got a table next to the glass, so we had a twinkling view. This made the evening extraordinary. I got a nice-looking glass and drink after asking the server which cocktail he recommended. However, in contrast, Debbie and Abi’s cocktails arrived in glasses that were modelled on Easter Island heads which didn’t really allow them to appreciate their cocktails. Then we ordered the main courses and when they came, mine was the prettiest looking again! We laughed about mine being more attractive than theirs. However, they said their meals were extremely tasty. I can say that it was absolutely superb and I would love to go back again.
Due to timings of trains we weren’t able to have pudding as we would have missed our last train going home so the team day away was finished but Debbie has said we’ll have to go out for puddings nearer Christmas! The day was an utterly incredible experience and also a very important time to get to know each other better.
Author: Naomi