Thursday, August 09, 2007

A sliver of patriotism

Happy National Day Singapore!!!

Ah yes you can see by now that I am rather patriotic over my adopted country (even more patriotic than my birth country) even so that I tried getting tickets for the parade itself, a bid rather unsuccessful. They have a live telecast of it on most of the local channels anyway and lots of re-runs - overkill. Okay, well I did what most people who didn't get the tickets would do, I went to the venue itself, not to gatecrash (note: the parade here is usually held in closed venues for only the lucky few to enjoy) but to catch a glimpse of it from outside.

I was in the mood to take photos initially but, well, it appears that the whole area around the venue itself is packed with people having the same mentality as I did. Eventually I met a few familiar faces and took a ton of photos with them. (Okay, so I'm also a cam-whore at times) Then the shit happened, with the number of people crushing me from all sides, my dear and everso faithful Sony camera fell into the wrath of the choppy river below the bridge - as I was about to take a shot of some military boats on the river. This is also the second time I let a camera fall into a body of water, after my old Digital Rebel XT fell into a river over in Thailand. Oh and I went straight home after that cause I wasn't really happy about losing another camera and all the priceless moments captured in the photos inside it. I think I spent like 15 minutes or so trying to get out from the crowd but luckily enough I was home just in time for the night-time part of the parade being telecasted on tv. So I took out the ice cream, turned on the tv and just forget about the fallen camera - at least I still have my Nikon D40x DSLR.

Oh and no pics for this post, sorry. Maybe I'll hotlink some images of the parade from teh internetz on another post. Umm so the parade was fun I guess but I must say the night-time parade was like a man in need of Viagra - it was utterly disappointing and well, shameful. There were fun bits including little school children in cute little costumes of sea creatures dancing to choreography but failing terribly to follow through. They were so adorable I wish I had children.

There rest of the parade were mass dances, tacky outfits, a lobster on skates (what the fuck does that have to do with Singapore, which means Lion nation), there was one performer who totally owned the whole parade platform whom I met at a drama event for the theater groups of Singapore, there was bad lip syncing too but I guess the last straw was the wtf moment when it ended and I thought it never even started. There was also no storytelling in this parade, an absence so greatly missed from the ones of years passed. Ah oh well I really should stop dissing the parade knowing all too well I am just an imported citizen.

So that's it for the parade, I can't say I didn't enjoy it, neither could I say I didn't but I guess the fact that I was watching it alone in an empty home made me a more of a bitch.

No comments: