...goes the weasel

Monday, August 11, 2008

The Fifth One (aka The National Day One)

Well, as you can probably read, this one is about the national day, which befell upon us on Saturday, 9th aug. And as usual, I, unlike many other Singaporeans on that fateful day, was not sitting in front of the tv, eagerly awaiting for the parade to start. I was at the esplanade park, just metres away from the floating platform, eagerly awaiting for the parade to start.

Let's wind back to the day before the national day, however, as there is something else rather important that occurred on that day as well. I was involved in the national day celebrations in Ngee Ann. A royal waste of time. But I certainly hope the short presentation helped to improve our already very good impression in the principal's eyes. Basically, the plot was that there were 4 different news stations, and the 4 get switched around, resulting in one finishing the other's sentences, providing, or at least I hope, some comedy. The audience seemed to like it though. It was kinda a waste of time, all four of us involved actually didn't want to commit any time into this thing, because exams are around the corner, and our involvement wasn't really necessary. They could've just gotten any other random cca to gather a group and perform. And I was told that I would be going up on stage to utter a few lines only two weeks before the event itself! The script, meanwhile, was handed to me only one week before we were due to perform. So you could imagine how disgruntled we were.

That's not say it was all doom and gloom. There were several bright moments in the rehearsals. Such as the hot chick in the dance group. We christened her 'St Margs'. Simply because she was wearing a St Margs' PE shirt on the first day of rehearsal. She was the reason why we all turned up for the combined rehearsals. Okay, I might exaggerating a little, but it wouldn't be an understatement to say that our day brightened up considerably upon seeing her.

Anyway, the performance itself wasn't too shabby, the audience managed to get the jokes, turns out the powerpoint slides did much to help them understand the jokes. Or maybe they were just amused by the pictures. Either way, we exited to rapturous applause. Brilliant.




National Day. A day of red and white, a day where many swell with pride, and for the Esplanade park, a day of banglas.

That's right, me, ky, ys and nick decided to bravely go to the Esplanade, in hopes of seeing some decent fireworks and attempt to soak in the atmosphere of the national day. What we didn't count on, though, was the banglas. We arrived at city hall mrt and were immediately treated with a sea of people, all presumably heading for the parade. Apparently Citylink Mall was entirely jammed up, so we had to take the overground route to the Esplanade. There was a constant group of people just following us, and as always, several illegal stalls set up, selling drinks and titbits, hoping to profit from Singaporeans and foreigners hungry from the walk, while entirely disregarding the numbers of police just patrolling around.

We hurridly made our way towards the durians, only to be treated with yet another mess of people. Somehow, we managed to squeeze ourselves into the crowd, facing the future IRs, and stationed ourselves under a tree (highly appropriate given our surroundings) to avoid the trickling of rain, just in time to see the paratroopers drop down.


The pics aren't the best, I took em with my phone. Guess there's no such thing as the best of both worlds then. It was a pretty good spot, we could see the large screen of the floating platform, and we probably could've seen the fireworks erupting from the cranes at the future IRs. So we shoulda stayed there. Too bad then, that I suggested that we move forward, and try and squeeze in with the banglas, and attempt to get an even better view.




With the fly-by of the planes, everybody looked up. And thus, stopped moving. Oh joy. So we spent alot more time up there.


Eventually, though, we managed to up to Marina Square and slacked there for awhile, before snapping some pics of the fireworks. Went for steak after. Expensive stuff. Cost me about 45 bucks. But there was unlimited drinks, so that made up quite abit. Went drinking after, at where else, Persepolis.

by wc at 6:24 PM |