fun
#79: IFG Netball
It’s been a while since I last wrote something, and here’s a milestone that I would most likely never forget.
After not playing netball for months on end, I finally got back on court and the feeling is just so shiok. I had a mini induction back into the sport with Netballuxion but I was way too off form then to rediscover the joy of playing.
I was a bit hesitant to play in IFG. I signed up on impulse because I really wanted to play netball again, but after that, I did have a small case of cold feet because I know I’m not going to be a good player after being out of the sport for so long, and anyway (even when I was playing it in the past), I never really was a good player to begin with. And what’s more, I’m forever stuck in the GS position that requires a heck load of practising, at least for me.
But at the same time, it’s also somewhat like an induction to university life. We don’t exactly find such things happening in high school or JC. There was inter-house and all that, but this was inter-faculty, and that’s something new. And the fact that we actually mingle across years and majors. Besides, I was never really involved in Sports Day and the likes of it in high school/JC. Not as an athlete at least, but a forced supporter (haha). Apart from the one cross country race I was forced into in Y1 and the race relay I was sabotaged into in Y4, I don’t think I actually participated in a sport I actually liked. So there.
I sure do not regret going for IFG. It was so fun to be on court again, and although the initial feeling was a bit unfamiliar, the competitive cells in me took over pretty quick, and I went quite hard going into the game towards the end of the day. Many people who played in IFG were experienced anyway, and more often than not, I find myself against opponents who knew my game better than myself. It was really fun to once again, experience the challenge of overcoming the opponent’s defence (and not always succeeding at it), bodies pushing against one another…everything. Even the nastier moments when I got pretty angry about a particular style of play, I just laughed it off afterwards because we were all there to have fun at the end of the day. (Of course, in the heat of that moment, I did give my RBF for a good 6 minutes. It just so happens my RBF and game face looks about the same. I deeply apologise.)
When it was confirmed that we would be second in the group preliminaries, at the back of my mind, I thought it would be almost impossible to play in the finals. Going into the semi-finals however, we somehow found our groove in that game, and everything that didn’t go right during training was suddenly running like a well-oiled machine. And for the first time, I actually required to be substituted out (haha). So yay, we ended up 2nd and I’m really happy that a team that was formed from various netball upbringings worked so well together.
An experience I’ll never forget.
#78: The West End Experience
Never in my life, had I imagined that I would ever, ever venture into the world of musical theatre. I hardly even knew what it was 4 years ago. But Les Misérables changed everything and I haven’t looked back since.
I’m blessed with parents who didn’t look at me incredulously and shake me when I mentioned it to them, and they agreed to take my family to London, with the musical as an important part of the itinerary. And then, because Miss Saigon is being revived on the West End stage, why not?
With the exchange difference in mind, the prices of the tickets were exorbitant – partly because we opted for good seats, since it didn’t make sense for us to go all the way across the globe to sit in the balcony and watch specks bounce around the stage. But the musicals of similar stature that come here on tour easily fetch 70 dollars and above with the touring cast – it’s the same price in pounds (or less) that we pay to watch them on home-ground.
Arriving at Shaftesbury Avenue was surreal. We took a while to find the theatres since there were so many of them and the place was just lit with different show marquees – both the familiar and the not-so. Like “The Book of Mormon”, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, “Urinetown”… just to name a few (obviously I only remember the familiar ones).
Luck had it that we didn’t catch most of the principal cast members in Les Mis, but the understudies were pretty darn amazing and I surely wasn’t disappointed. I practically know the lyrics and notes to each piece of music in this show, and slip-ups just stood out for me like a sore thumbs. But there’s nothing like live theatre and each mistake just further highlighted the fact that this was all done live – with no lip-sync, no prompters and no NGs.
On the other hand for Miss Saigon, we caught most of the principals for the revival cast – I saw Eva Noblezada, Jon Jon Briones, Alistair Brammer, Rachelle Ann Go, Hugh Maynard and Tamsin Carroll… what am I talking about, that IS the principal cast. Recognised Julia Abueva too, which was cool. Jon Jon Briones seriously stole the entire show for me, I could only see him and him alone when he’s on stage. Fabulous actor and comedian, I never liked the Engineer as much as I did with him in the role. Eva was amazing as well. As a die-hard Lea Salonga fan, I truly believe that Eva makes a conceivable Kim – she seriously makes the character unique to her. (On a side note, I like how most Kims don’t fall into a mould and act the same way. It’s like you see a different Kim every production.)
But the good news is that I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and watching the actors sing their hearts out. The helicopter scene was MAJESTIC. Bui-doi is still my favourite song (aside from the Kim songs) – it’s the only time in the show I was close to tears. I kind of like the fact that Ellen has a song now to ‘explain’ her predicament because it was so easy to hate her in the original production, and this song added another layer to showcase the complexity of her situation. I’d still like to hate her, but I can’t. Okay, maybe I still do, just a bit. I mean, I already could empathise with her in the original production with deeper thought into her plight, but having the song also in a way, gives the actress doing Ellen the opportunity to act out her character better.
The staging has changed, a bit, I think. I know the opening scene has changed – and for the good. You kind of see Kim differently – the desperation cuts through. In the original production, the desperation is something that comes through and builds up across the plot, but for this one, it hits you straight in the face. But the ending doesn’t hit me as painfully as it usually does, and I have no idea why. Maybe because I knew it was gonna happen?
But all that said, my allegiance to Will Chase and Lea Salonga remains. They are THE Chris and THE Kim. Forever. Although Simon Bowman with Lea Salonga in the 25th Anniversary Concert did sway me a bit because they were such cute forty-over-year-olds.
This was such a trashy post filled with nonsense and you should totes ignore any rubbish I wrote that you don’t agree with. I didn’t read this over. And I’m writing this at midnight, so my brain is in hibernation already. Okay, that’s enough, toodles!
#76: The Ba Zang Travels — London
Ba Zang (or 肉粽 in Chinese and meat dumpling in English) – this was basically what I felt like every day while in London during winter. Coming from the sunny, tropical island, cold was never really something that I experience regularly, and the times we actually have to pull out a jacket are far and few between. My definition of “cold” is probably some 16 degree Celsius if the air-conditioner happens to be turned on in the classroom or shopping mall, but cold was never as much of an issue as the heat. Because in the cold, you can snuggle into your jacket and feel nice and warm immediately, but with the heat, the only choice you have is to bear with it. However, this time around, I had to wear an average of 4 layers of clothing and still chattered non-stop. Which makes me feel like a legitimate swollen dumpling day in, day out – not to mention, it looks as if we don’t change clothing in pictures taken because it’s the same down jacket all the time. Wait…who said “cold” wasn’t an issue again?
Anyway, this was initially a SUPER long (I mean like 2000+ words long) post but I think I’ll just cut it short because I can’t even be bothered to read through the entire thing myself to edit my grammar or whatnot. Despite the freezing weather (I don’t think it’s actually THAT cold in the books of others but hey, being someone who is more used to 32 degree Celsius heat, I think “freezing” is a relatively reasonable adjective), we managed to visit quite some places, though we had to duck into cafés very often to grab piping hot chocolate or cappucinos as well as to thaw ourselves.
Platform 9¾
Totally unintentional, but this was our first stop considering that our hotel was near King’s Cross Station. And being a HP geek and all, it was cool to walk in the footsteps of the wizard. Too bad I never got my acceptance letter. Funnily enough, I knew that the scene was at King’s Cross Station, but not exactly its location. We ended up chancing upon it because I had to answer nature’s call…go figure.
London Dungeons
I found this attraction while doing my online homework in preparation for the trip and it sounded real cool on the website so I thought, why not just try it? Furthermore, reviews were great and there were some rides included that made it more interesting. So we went. The actors were awesome and each of them pretty convincing. There was some interaction with the visitors and 4D effects, especially for the Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper sections. I thought that we would get drenched on the boat ride because of what some reviews wrote, and was really worried about it because WINTER and WATER…it’s crazy to even think about it. But we turned out pretty dry (sit in the middle of the boat) so it was an unfounded worry. My parents opted out for the drop ride while my sister and I happily received our “hanging sentence”. I would not say that it was really scary, but pretty exhilarating, though it would have been better if it lasted longer. It is a bit difficult to understand the sequence of events being as clueless about them as we were (my parents and my sister didn’t even hear about Sweeney Todd before).
Imperial War Museum
As it turned out, this place was the attraction that had my family hooked. My initial thoughts were along, museum = tiring + boring, but because I love to read about history and world wars, I knew that I wouldn’t be averse to this place. However, I could not say about how my family would react to it, and was pleasantly surprised to see that they loved it a lot. The exhibits were well-put together, having a proper sequence such that the people who didn’t know much about history could follow the sequence of events well. The WWI exhibit was slightly harder to follow because of how crowded and how big the exhibit was (not exactly HUGE but there was quite a decent collection of artefacts), while the WWII exhibit was on the smaller side and though easier to follow through, had less interesting things to see. For example, they didn’t cover the Eastern front of WWII. We spent about half a day there and still could not finish the entire museum. A personal favourite would be the Holocaust exhibit. There were great interview segments being shown on screens throughout the exhibit that really helps visitors learn from the survivors how those times were. And it inspired my mum to want to watch Schindler’s List again (the first time we watched it, I spent about 2 hours until 2AM googling about the Holocaust so I’m not sure if I’m game for it again HAHA).
Madame Tussauds
Personally, I initially thought that this place was overrated. I mean it’s a pretty expensive place to go in just to see wax figures…right? Turns out, they looked pretty darn real some times, and I got scammed by a wax figure of a photographer, thinking that she was a real person. However, for some of the celebrities, their wax lookalikes weren’t as “live” and they didn’t seem to capture the actual liveliness of the person…I don’t know how to explain it. It just doesn’t look real enough. For example, Emma Watson. I had to look at the plague next to her figure before exclaiming belatedly, “OH MY GOD EMMA WATSON!!” (as if she was a real person – I’m such a dork). Then my family just had to ask, “Who’s that?” and I answered with pure HP geek-iness, “The girl that acted as Hermione Granger.” Have I said it before? My family doesn’t watch much TV or movies so I guess that explains our clueless-ness. The Marvel Superheroes 4D movie was pretty darn amazing though, I will add. Or maybe it’s just me because I love 4D movies.
St James’ Park
My dad was worried that the park wouldn’t look nice in winter because the trees are supposed to be botak (bare) but GUESS WHAT? The park still looks like it came straight out of a movie. Maybe it had something to do with the pinkish-orangish hue of the sky, being sunset when we were there. We walked along the park to Buckingham Palace just to see it (can’t enter in winter) while my sister (and dad to some extent) went on a squirrel photo-shooting spree trying to compare who could take better pictures of a squirrel. We’ve about 10+ in the camera, courtesy of that, and here’s one:
Hampton Court Palace
Because Hampton Court Palace is not really near any tube station, we had to take a train instead. Being a classic dork, I thought the trains may slightly resemble the ones in HP (what a moron…) so when I found out it was more or less like the tube (and our MRT) I was kinda disappointed. Again, the palace was another historical journey that can’t possibly be completed in a day, and we had to skim through parts of the Tudor exhibition and skipped the Baroque part. No doubt a pity, but there was nothing we could do about it. The Palace Gardens were gorgeous and the trees looked so cute being trimmed to identical shapes and sizes. I really wanted to try the Maze but sadly it was closed and anyway, I don’t think we could have squeezed out the time needed. The visit was some sort of a throwback to Year 4 History (which I practically slept through because I didn’t understand anything at all and skipped too many lessons for competitions to be able to catch up), where we learnt about Hapsburg Spain and Tudor England. The minimal knowledge I have of that era as I walked through the palace just shows how much attention I paid to lessons then. (Oops.) But we saw a replica of the crown. Which is cool. Though nothing compared to what we’ll see at the Tower of London.
Tower of London
It was, once again, impossible to complete the visit in the short 2 hours we gave for this place (I honestly don’t know what’s with us and only touring places halfway through, but it’s truly frustrating). The cruise, that we took as our form of transport for the day, had a guide cum safety guy who did a pretty nice introduction of the buildings and iconic landmarks we came across along River Thames, such as the HMS Belfast, London Bridge (is falling down – sorry, I had to!), Tower Bridge, Big Ben… yadayada. He was pretty funny when introducing the Tower of London and went something like, “People always ask me, where’s the Bloody Tower? And I’ll reply them, ‘Well, you can’t bloody see the Bloody Tower because it’s blocked by the bloody trees!'” Okay, maybe I’m weird and you don’t find it funny, because I don’t recall anyone laughing then either. (Sighs.) The highlight of the trip was easily, seeing the Crown Jewels with my own two eyes. I thought that the glitzy crowns and ornaments would blind me and not be that awe-inducing but WAS I WRONG! They were shiny of course, but not to the extent of making your eyes hurt. With exquisite and such intricate designs on each item, the whole gallery was filled with so much gold and my mouth was probably hanging wide open as I took in every single orb, staff, crown and sword in the place. And you know with just one look that those things are VERY expensive.
London Eye
BLAHBLAHBLAH. I’m kidding. But I never liked ferris wheels much so take my words with a pinch of salt (I realised this anti-ferris wheel sentiment when I was 10 and never sat in one ever since). On the ride up to the top, I was pretty amazed by how much I could see and the view of the city skyline in the night. Strategically placed near Westminster, the skyline was dotted with many lights and looked rather gorgeous. But as with all ferris wheels, such astonishment lasts for about 10 minutes, and for the rest of the ride, you basically see the same thing again, and again, and again…and again, and again, and again. Before we hit the top of the Eye, I was hoping we would be able to get off soon. I didn’t even realise that we were past the top till we were about a quarter of the way down. Yup, that’s how gradual the wheel was moving – expected, but there’s really not much to see after a while since it is not like the skyline would change all of a sudden to something different. I feigned a bit of excitement since we paid good money to get on it but ultimately, I still don’t like ferris wheels.
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That’s all for London, folks! Stay tuned to the next few (maybe 3?) parts of the Ba Zang Travels and I totally lied to you at the start because that above, is no short post. At this point, I’m close to 2000 words already.
Toodles!
#75: Being A Kid Again
While I was supposed to be looking at temporary jobs for my break, I fell in line with many other kids and the young at heart at Universal Studios Singapore 2 days ago. My relatives were here for a holiday and as a good host (What? I’m trying alright!) – and a person that hadn’t been to USS since its opening – I tagged along. But there’s always a mental note that I’ll have to look for my job, so if anything, that’s the one thing I won’t forget.
My main job for the day was to be a water bottle holder for my little cousin, who spontaneously looked for me the whole day whenever she wanted her bottle or wanted me to carry it. It was really cute because by the end of the day, she began to look for me more often whether or not it had to do with water, and I remember that she didn’t warm up to me so well on our short trips to my grandparents place when she was younger, so I felt really happy that I could have more fun with the little monsters this time. My side job, which I was much less successful at, was to help my uncles and grandparents manage the 3 kids – who are really funny and cute, but active no less.
Let’s start from the top. I began my morning on a pretty bad note, forgetting to bring item after item to my uncle’s place, and my poor dad had to make 2 extra trips back home to get them. But at the end of the day, I still forgot my spectacles so I had to survive the day without my extra pair of eyes. I coincidentally met my Chinese teacher from Year 3 as well, and it was a very harsh reminder of how bad my Chinese standards are – and how much help I would need to brush it up again.
We arrived at USS rather late, in part thanks to my morning stupidity, and I felt pretty bummed out that the sun was shining EXTREMELY brightly and it was close to noon already. I mean, the USS tickets are honestly not cheap at all, and not being there once the gates open is a waste. Furthermore, given it’s the holidays now, the queues at USS were VERY, VERY long, and I do not exaggerate. On average, we had to wait half an hour for a ride, and even up to an hour for the overhead ride (I don’t know the actual name) in Jurassic Park at the Lost World. We queued for an especially long time at the Transformers ride too, though I do not know for how long, exactly. The lines just snaked forever and everyone grew a bit restless when we entered chamber after chamber, only to be greeted with another 3 more lines each time. The only thought in my head the whole time was, “this ride had better be darn good to warrant all the queue time.”
Having long wait times already meant that we would not be able to experience most of the rides, so things can’t get worse… right? But lo and behold, at around the evening hour, the high heavens opened up the flood gates and it rained heavily but intermittently until 8 plus. We had thought that the rain stopped at around 7+ and rushed out of the restaurant we were hiding in, only for it to start pouring again. This happened about twice, I think. Anyhow, we sort of gave up and decided to head home.
But by some stroke of luck, the rain stopped again and we rushed off to this mini roller-coaster ride we’ve been eyeing since entering the park. To my utmost surprise, the 3 kids showed no fear at all, and even my smallest cousin (whose water bottle is my responsibility) wanted to go again and was completely unfazed by the swift turns made by the car – bearing in mind that she had cried after the Transformers ride because I think those robots and jerking scared the wits out of her.
We didn’t actually take many of the rides, but one of the more memorable ones would be the Mummy ride, which was rather thrilling though not particularly fear-inducing. I like the speed and the suspense of the dark, and after the ride ended, I really wanted to go again, barring the 25-minute queue.
In all seriousness, it would be much better to visit USS during the off-peak months, which I presume, would have shorter queues and wait times. You’ll probably get to play more of the rides and enjoy more of the park entertainment as well, which was rather crowd-drawing. There was a quartet (imitating the Jersey Boys, maybe?) that had quite a crowd and were pretty funny in their antics, but we couldn’t stay for long, in part due to the downcast sky.
The best part was however, the fact that my grandparents got on the rides with us – yes, roller-coasters and all – and we all just had a really good time being “kids” together with all the other (actual and legit) kids.
The beauty of amusement parks, in general, is that no matter your age, you’ll never feel out of place, because we all know that there’s a kid in us waiting to be felt again.
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