Relaxing weekend

A weekend with Butterfly, romantic river view, scrumptious dim sum and a relaxing get-together with friends...

Lunch with Ozzy, Shazrul & Teratai

Finally invited Shazrul & Teratai and Ozairi over to our place. Have been planning this ever since moving in to our flat in October last year.

Shazrul and Ozzy brought along their DSLR cameras, including mine we had 3 DSLR cameras in the living room. Shazrul let me test out his new L Lense. It was quite heavy. He offered to lend me his 50mm lense, but I had to turn down the offer as exams are approaching. Will probably look around for new lense after my last paper in May.

Ozzy brought along his Mac Book. He showed us quite a number of tricks, especially with the photography software from Nikon - Nikon Capture NX. Shazrul, Johanna & I were really impressed with it.

A stroll along riverside in Canary Wharf

It has been a while since Johanna & I had a stroll on a weekend. We used to do it a lot back in KL at Bukit Kiara Park. Suddenly reminded me of the tau foo fa at the entrance of the park.

After Shazrul & Teratai left, Ozzy & I watched United snatched a draw at Riverside Stadium in the FA Cup quarter-final. Ozzy left immediately after that. Johanna suggested that we visit Khoon Peng in Poplar and have a stroll since we haven't done it for some time. So off we went on the DLR to Poplar. Approaching Poplar, we were greeted by the great night scenery of Canary Wharf. We spent around half an hour at Khoon Peng's place before I suggested that we find out the location of Westferry branch of Royal China Restaurant. We took the DLR towards Westferry and started walking towards Westferry Circus, where the restaurant is suppose to be based on the map. On the way we went past Four Seasons Hotel with many luxury cars parked outside.

Once we passed the hotel, we could get a clear view of the river. Walking down the steps towards the river bank, we found Royal China Restaurant right at the bottom of the flight of steps! Romantic location indeed. We walked around for a while before making our way back from Canary Wharf station. Relaxing night out indeed.

Dim sum with Matthias & Lisi at Lotus Floating Restaurant

I've promised to treat Matthias & Lisi for a meal as a celebration for Chinese New Year, to reciprocate the dinner treat from them for Christmas.

Johanna & I had a great dim sum lunch with her friend Jia Lynn and boyfriend Martin at Lotus Floating Restaurant near Cross Harbour DLR station last Sunday. So I thought it would be great to introduce this place to Matthias since he loves Chinese food. Once again the dim sum lived up to our high expectations. After a heavy lunch, 4 of us had a stroll along the river bank from Westferry Circus (again! But this time during the day) towards Limehouse. On the way we discovered a lot of nice areas for photography, with peaceful canals and yatchs. We took the DLR from Limehouse to Central London for our next outing of the day...

...and the next outing was catching Madam Butterfly at Royal Albert Hall


Having watched Miss Saigon more than 7 years ago, I have always wanted to watch Madam Butterfly. Miss Saigon is a modern adaption of Madam Butterfly - an opera by Italy's Giacomo Puccini premiered in the famous La Scala Theatre of Milan in 1904. It is a tragic tale of a Japanese lady (Cio-Cio-San) who gave up her religion and being disowned by her uncle for her marriage to Lieutenant Pinkerton of the US Navy. Unfortunately Pinkerton did not take the marriage seriously. The greater tragedy was that Cio-Cio-San had a child. Lieutenant Pinkerton left Cio-Cio-San in Japan for many years before returning with his American wife after learning about his son... I'll save the ending for those who would like to watch this opera.

Johanna managed to book 2 stall tickets on row 2 for the last performance of Madam Butterfly at Royal Albert Hall. Her cousin Jonathan was playing for Royal Philharmonic Orchestra which accompanied the opera.

We arrived at Royal Albert Hall just in time due to the congestion in Central London.

The set up for this opera was unique. Instead of performing on stage at one end, the 'stage' was right in the middle of the hall, hence the audience sat all around it. The set up resembled a Japanese house surrounded with water (yes! filled with water) connected by small bridges. There were even ripples in the water.

I was a bit disappointed with Act 1 as I failed to understand what was happening from the acting and singing. Since I had watched Miss Saigon before, I refused to learn the storyline of Madam Butterfly before watching it. I wanted the opera to relate the story to me instead. The part where Cio-Cio-San and Pinkerton fell in love was not clear at all, unlike the similar part in Miss Saigon where Kim and Chris expressed their love for each other. It was also not clear how and why Pinkerton left Japan. In Miss Saigon, Chris left when US troops pulled out of Vietnam war. He wanted to bring Kim along but in vain. There was a touching song - Last night of the world and I still remember vividly the scene where Vietnamese were desperately climbing the fence to get into US Embassy in the hope of achieving their 'American Dream'.

Fortunately, the disproportinately longer Act 2 was a lot better. I realised that Madam Butterfly focused a lot more on the sorrows of Cio-Cio-San waiting for Pinkerton compared to the part Kim waited for Chris in Miss Saigon. Despite knowing the tragic ending of the story, I still felt extremely sad for Cio-Cio-San and her son.

All in all, it was quite a good performance, sans Act 1. The vocals were strong and the singing were more classical than musicals. I also love the set up very much. Unlike Phantom where the underground river was simulated using dry ice, having water around the whole 'stage' was refreshing.

What a lovely way to end the weekend.