Chingay 2011.
February 13, 2011 § Leave a Comment
So Derek and I received free tickets to Chingay from @visitsingapore on Twitter (courtesy of our boss @claudia10 who volunteered us for tickets). It was an interesting experience to watch Chingay as an adult (according to Derek, the last time he watched it live he was 80cm high… so he says).
Derek’s working on our Chingay entry for rediscover.sg now so do look out for it. 
In the meantime, here’s some of my own pictures from the event. I was on the 70-200mm f2.8 L IS markII… it is a freaking amazing lens my friends, and so definitely the next major purchase I’m going to make. (Rented it this time around). Derek was on his 24-70mm f2.8 and doing video, because he said I was bullying him with my big lens.
Our seats weren’t great, we were behind the staircase rail and at the second last row from the back. Our footage and photos are hence pretty limited by the little silver of space we were standing in and trying our best not to capture too many humans from the rows in front in our shots (with limited success).
But otherwise, it was a nice experience, one I haven’t had in a long, long time, a little bit like watching NDP. There were lots of tourists enjoying the festivities and pretty fireworks too.
Fight ah!
Excited kid.
The lights on the red section (more expensive tickets), where the main bulk of the action took place. We were in the yellow section.
Another excited angmoh kid!
And another one!
What I liked: Enthusiastic participants! Even though Singaporean audiences are generally a passive lot, there are some performers whom you really don’t mind sharing a smile with.
Not sure where this particular group of dancers were from, they were one of the earlier ones.
A ‘Stingray’ from the Resorts World contingent.
I think this is from Segment 2, Thiruvizha Melam.
The National Danish Performance Team members were doing flips and flips and more flips!
There were quite a few belly dancing groups too.
Think this is probably a group from NUS or SIM. Nice energy and smiles!
This grandma was in her evening best and carrying herself very elegantly.
Mexican contingent!
Malay community performing arts. Love it when performers really bring you in with their high energy and smiles.
What I liked the most: This particular, super high energy Jap contingent! Not sure if they were really Jap, but if you told me they were I’d believe it because the energy in their item was many times that of every other group that went past. Budo, presented by Nippon Damannaka Festival.
Outfits that (almost) knocked my socks off: Some of the outfits that were insanely aunty/crazy.
Edna Mod gone wrong?
Not a flattering fit!
Harley girls… But well, they ARE Harley girls you know, so I cannot comment.
This one, honestly, was a little bit scary in many ways.
I admire this grandma for prancing around in that outfit, but she didn’t smile once. Nope.
Erm…
Outfits that were pretty funky: The animals! Somehow the seahorse cracked me up because I couldn’t imagine walking around in it.
Didn’t your momma ever teach you not to touch animals with rabid glowing eyes?
Zebra with a lot of stripes.
The seahorsies they do not look too pleased.
O hai Singapore Garrison: 501st Legion! You guys seem to be everywhere!
And yep, that’s my summary of the night’s festivities. There were fireworks too.
No great pictures of the fireworks because my 70-200mm was too close to capture anything wide. (And also I wasn’t expecting them, didn’t know there’d be fireworks!) Apart from the fireworks, they also released a whole bunch of balloon lanterns that seemed to be very Tangled inspired (for the non Disney fans, yes I am talking about the latest Disney animated remake of Rapunzel). But it was either a last minute addition or not well co-ordinated because the performers seemed a little unsure about when and whether they were supposed to release the balloon lanterns at all.
If you want to see more pictures of Chingay 2011, they’re up on my Facebook album.
Till the next entry, which I hope won’t be too long from now.
Signing out!
Lizzy.
