Chingay 2007

Can't remember when was the last time I watch Chingay on TV. But this year is the first time I attended the event.

The event was pretty grand and there were actually a lot of audience along the road, be it tourists or locals. There was fireworks at the start and end of the parade as well. Just take a look at the pics... :)

During pre-parade

The President

First float with Singapore Lions Captain, Aide Iskandar

Float with Team Singapore's athletic James Wong

Some of the parade performers

The end of the road

After the CNY...

Over the CNY period, I had

• 4 days of rest
• played 3 mahjong sessions
  
• went 2 house visits
• watched 1 movie

And nothing but a bigger paunch to show for (from the eating spree)... :D

Twins Mission

This is really a movie with twins, as the title suggests, i.e. Twins, who aren't twins in real life, and of course 5 pairs of real twins... :). However, don't be fooled by the poster, as Twins weren't exactly the main lead for the show. The last movie I watched that features the group was House of Fury. Coincidentally, the movie was shown on cable a couple of days back.

Anyway back to this movie, the story was about a 天珠 which was being transported to Hong Kong and protected by a group of Tibetan Lamas, including Sammo Hung and Wu Jing. Along the way, the item was lost when an attempt to steal it has been foiled (expectedly...). And the group behind the attempt was 双子门. The members of 双子门 were all twins. Then the plot goes into the usual flow of goodies vs the baddies to recover the lost item, where in the end the good triumph. The ending though suggested that there would be a sequel to the film.

Overall the show was good for entertainment, with the usual funny scenes and fights scenes, aided by some CGs. But certain scene were quite unrealistic, like when Gilian was stopped by a locked door during one scene didn't think of breaking the glass door to go through it，but was later shattered during the fight... And how coincidental that Wu Jing took a toy car model to the hospital to look for his (twin) brother and met Jess Zhang's character who drove the exact same model of the car.

Even if the plot wasn't exciting, there were still some pretty babes in the show to entice audience (maybe... :P). Like Jess Zhang, (former?) girlfriend of Dickie Cheung. She plays a rich girl who wants to get her hands on the 天珠 which is believed to have mystical power in helping cancer patient recovers (her sister was struck down with cancer). There was also the evil twin ladies, played by Mona & Lisa (who?). And of course Charlene and Gilian.

Happy Chinese New Year

Wishing everyone a happy chinese new year. Enjoy the long weekends.

Sally Yeh's Concert

The last time I went to a concert was some 8 years back with my army friends. It was A Mei's concert at National Stadium in September 1999. And last night, I went for Sally Yeh's concert at Suntec Convention Hall with S. I was glad that this concert was held here rather than at the Indoor Stadium, which I found inaccessible.

It was nearly a sell-out and as I observed, the crowds was a mature one... :P

I must admit that I am not a big fan of her, and only knew her mandarin songs and a handful of cantonese one. But I was pleasantly surprised at how the concert turned out.

The show started at about 830pm and it began with a series of cantonese songs. It was followed by some mandarin songs, including classic tunes by another artiste like 用心良苦 by Phil Chang and 哭纱 by 黄莺莺, and english songs, like Unchained Melody. Her voice was really powerful, as showcased when she perform the tune, 王昭君. And the diva really did well to get the crowd going, who were really quiet at the beginning of the show, barring those in center block at the front row (I think the people there were from her fan club).

In the middle of the show, she was throwing out some Piggie soft toys (which carries her autograph) from stage, since this year would be the year of the Pig. Unfortunately it wasn't far enough to reach where we were seating. By this time, the crowd was getting into the mood already. And there was a man who was dancing right before Sally, just below the center stage, during one of the songs.

During the encore, Sally appeared offstage, escorted by a sea of bodyguards. She circled along the perimeter of the front block (where the CAT A seats were) before going on stage for a final performance. And I managed to see her up close, like within a metre... :O. At the same time, she was still throwing out the Piggie soft toys. This time, one of them landed at a row in front of our seats... So lucky!!

And a lot of fans were invited to dance on stage for her final song of the day. The crowds were really high by this time. And there was still time for her to give away some signed shuttle cock to the fans, by swatting them into the crowds. Once again, I didn't get my hands on any of them.

The concert lasted for about 2.5 hours, and I thought it was a bit too short. One down side about the concert was that George Lam didn't turned up, :(. I was hoping they could do 选择 live on stage. By the end of it though, the crowd still couldn't get enough of her.

New Nite Owl Service

There is this new Nite Owl service by SBS Transit, which started at the end of last year. And I was glad as one of the new service route passed by my house, thereby offering me one more option. The existing NR serivce only stopped by some 20 minutes walking distance from my house.

However, it seems that not many people were using this service, as I found out last night. After I boarded the bus at Esplanade, I was expecting a substantial crowd to board the bus along the way, from Boat Quay to Clarke Quay, MS and all the way to Orchard Road. To my surprise, there weren't that many people getting on the bus (was it because the night is still young or the people were not travelling in my direction?).

One thing I noted was that there wasn't any indication at the bus stop that there is this Nite Owls in service, at least not all the bus stops along the way. So the people might not know about this service. I only spotted a little board at a bus stop, by chance, along Orchard Road regarding this and later went on to the SBS Transit website to find out more.

It is stated that this service would be ongoing for 3 months. But I certainly hope that it could be extended beyond that period... :)

Your Aim, My Aim

No prizes for guessing where I saw this... :)

Project SuperStar 2 Grand Final

Went to Project SuperStar Grand Final at Singapore Indoor Stadium. It seems like I've never been to Kallang for quite some time liao. And didn't even know that Kallang Leisure Park was torn down.

Went to Kallang without having dinner, and had to walk about 15 ~ 20 minutes from the MRT station. Bad move... There is only restaurants over there, like Thai Village, No Signboard and Jumbo. Had to make do with some sandwich from 7-Eleven in the end. Met Grace, who was also attending the event.

Had to queue up to go into the indoor stadium. And the process was slowed down by the spot checks on the bags of the people going in. There were stalls selling food and drinks in the stadium, but the price was like double from the outside.

The crowd were dressed in a sea of blue and red. I sat at the red camp, which was suppose to support Diya. Though I supported no one in particular for this final, I just follow suit when the surrounding crowd started a cheer.

The crowd was noisy but not rowdy. And the performances of the 2 finalists were pretty good most of the time, especially the acoustic duet 天天夜夜.

And there were also guest performances by the previous winner Kelvin Tan and the winner of PSS Malaysia and Vietnam.

And Gary Cao Ge (remember Superwoman, and now Superman... :D)was also worth mentioning. His voice was pretty powerful IMO.

I thought this years' contest weren't as dramatic or hyped up than last year's. In the end, Daren triumph over Diya, garnering about 60% of the votes, and won a 2-year contract with Werner Music. We shall see how the new superstar fares.