Totem | Cirque du Soleil

Ah Valentine's Day.  I have to clarify that I am not crazy over V-day but since I haven't celebrated this for a long time, I guess I am well entitled to write a little post of my V-day with K right? hehe

Actually it's not that we planned to celebrate it big time but I suggested watching Totem by Cirque du Soleil as I think it's one of those you watch once in a lifetime plus it might most probably be more expensive to do so in Singapore.  I mean they have to travel a long way from Canada!  (I still remember us booking the tickets just before we went to Stuttgart for Christmas. And at that time February seemed an awful long time away.)

We booked our tickets for last Saturday's matinee show, 3 days before V-day.  Followed by dinner in a really nice restaurant nearby in High Street Kensington- Babylon at Rooftop Gardens, recommended by Marketa.
http://www.roofgardens.virgin.com/en/the_roof_gardens/babylon

Like everyone, we were very impressed with the acts. We had good seats too, so we could see clearly the performances.  And being a circus, which is usually made up of random acts, they were good in having somewhat of a storyline to the whole show.  Ela went last month with her boyfriend and she highly recommends it so that was a good start I think!  As we were sitting near the stage, I got a bit worried when the performers did gravity defying stunts high above us, some with poles stacked on top of each other and what have you.. I kept thinking "what if they fall.. and land on us or something?!" Silly me because obviously they didn't because they are Cirque du Soleil.

Excitable us before the show

And so it was.  A simple but amazing day consisting of a circus show, dinner, and ending it off by checking out Babylon's rooftop gardens following strong recommendation by our waiter. For starters, I had a crab & avocado salad and K had some deep fried fish cheeks with cucumber and lemon.  For mains, K ordered a steak (as always, he is a massive steak fan) whereas I had their halibut with chorizo which I thought was quite an interesting combi.  By the time it came to desserts, I couldn't eat anymore so we decided to share their 3 layered chocolate cake.

We didn't take many photos at Babylon.  Before dinner we had a round of cocktails and nuts in their posh bar.
And I felt like I was already half full!  Above was the choc dessert we shared. 

Their rooftop gardens would definitely be a very nice place to check out during summer coz it's a proper gardens with ponds and plants, and there is outdoor seating.  But it being winter, the ponds were frozen, parts were still covered with snow.  We explored the live band performance in the heated marquee..hmm to me it was just noisy, had no idea what they were singing.  Groups of people were lounging by the stage, seemingly enjoying the music whilst others stood around holding a drink in their hands talking to their friends.  I mean, more like shouting to their friends trying to override the band on stage.  Hmm not my type of place.. so we moved on.  We checked out their club.  Hmm.. not bad K seemed ready to dance haha but we thought there were pretentious looking people around us- I might be wrong but this is posh side of London after all.  The entrance fee to the rooftop gardens is GBP25 per person - not something I would pay for, no. Man, you would think it's free for us since we dined there, but we still had to pay GBP10 per person for entrance to the rooftop gardens.  But Babylon was enjoyable.  The food though expensive, was well worth it and K was very impressed (almost wanted to go to the kitchen to congratulate the chef).

I took some daily random shots, like I always do.. and here are my top two for the day :)

We took the District line and alighted at South Ken station for a  15min walk to the Royal Albert Hall.

And walked past the Natural History Museum along the way on this cold wintry Saturday afternoon.

Obviously we burnt a hole in our pockets that day so we plan to cook dinner at home everyday for the rest of the month haha