Saturday, March 1, 2008

康之《上海之夜》

The much awaited musical Shanghai Nights commenced its 2-night run on 8th Feb. Being part of the Huayi Festival, they coincided it with CNY and thus I wasn't able to watch all 3 performances. Only decided to watch the last show on 9th Feb night. Candy and Ada came all the way from HK to watch all 3 performances! Kudos to them for being such ardent supporters! Ruiwen also came from Taiwan but she also only watched the last night's show.

Met up with Candy, Ada, Ruiwen, Xiuwen, Yammie and Celestine at Gallery Hotel where Candy was staying before adjourning for dinner at MOF at Marina Square. The hotel room was quite a let down cos I was expecting the nice themed-type rooms I've always read about Gallery Hotel. Unfortunately I think those are only for the suites and Candy's room was just a standard room. Felt quite heartache for them cos it's not cheap to stay there and it wasn't exactly a very convenient location. They chose to stay there cos we thought Hong was going to be there too! Sigh.

After a dinner with slow and bad service, we rushed to Esplanade hurriedly lest the doors closed on us, as apparently they start at 8pm on the dot. Grabbed a few program booklets on the way. Then we felt like some cheapos cos we each grabbed like more than 5. Wahahaha.

The musical was entertaining on the whole but Mindee Ong's singing left more to be desired. Her stage acting was commendable, after all she is quite a good actress but her role required some good singing to deliver and completely bring out the character and it's angst. Somehow, I felt that because of this, Hong also fell short in his portrayal of his character. It felt as if he was holding back something, afraid to unleash his full potential in case he overshadows her with his singing prowess. Nonetheless, that aside, his first foray into musicals is very commendable. Considering that he is not mandarin speaking, he was able to deliver his lines with conviction and clarity. One DJ on his blog commented that william so aside, he was taken aback by the other casts' pronunciation of words. But hello, I think Hong did the best job in terms of pronunciation, especially given the fact that he is cantonese speaking. So give him credit where it's due ok? I'm so proud of Hong in his success of his first ever musical. =)

After the musical, Candy told us that she had arranged with Hong's assistant to meet with Hong before he goes for his post-musical celebration. While waiting, Candy and I saw some people coming out from another exit at the carpark, so we went there to have a look first in case we missed him. Hung around there for awhile and when we almost walked off, Hong appeared from the door. We quickly motioned for Xiuwen to call the rest over while Hong entertained an autograph request from some guy.

When Hong came to us, he immediately asked us, is there aircon inside? ( cos we were at the carpark where it's quite warm). We replied got ah, and he quickly chased us in, saying then still don't go in??? So hot here! Faint.....Anyway once inside, Candy and I gave him a hug to congratulate him and we all started chatting. Hong as usual was super patient, even though the car was waiting to bring him to the celebration. He started the ball rolling with the autographs and photo taking. And we continued to chat along the way.

Once I asked his SG assistant if Hong bullied him. And Hong quickly jumped in and said hey, you should ask if HE bullied ME! Then he playfully "scolded" me "你这个臭婆娘!" . I was like what????????!!!!!!!! Then Candy chided him back with a "臭男人!" and I added on "你才是猪八戒呢!" haha! I think if people didn't know him, they would think how come he is so rude! But if you understand Hong well, you would notice that he will only say such things to his friends or people he knew well. If it's fans that he respected he wouldn't be so unpolite. Haha. So, do I count myself lucky or what ah? Haha. Cos Xiuwen and Celestine heard him and told me softly "You happy liao la?" Hahaha scolded also happy meh? I felt like beating him lor.....=p

Anyway before that his assistant actually mentioned to Candy that Hong didn't want to let us know where his post-musical celebration was going to be as he was afraid that wherever they go will be dangerous. We were like huh????? Dangerous?? In Singapore??? Faint. So while chatting with Hong, I asked him, so where in SG is dangerous ah? Then he errrr......and replied iya i know it's at clarke quay la but where exactly I'm also not sure lor.....was that a hint?? But I didn't want to press him la, cos we weren't exactly interested to know since we weren't intending to follow him anyway. We had already planned to go to Clarke Quay to meet Alvin from Lunar, cos Candy wanted to pass him some stuff. So when I heard Hong mention Clarke Quay, I told Candy maybe he's going to Lunar too? Hmmm....

After quite some time spent with us, Hong finally left after giving each and every one of us a big hug. Hehe. That is Hong for you, always so obliging and without airs. Not like some other celebrities who probably run away the moment they see fans approaching hahaha.

Our next stop was Clarke Quay but as Alvin was only coming to work at 1230am, we went to Coffee Club to have a drink first. When we met Alvin outside Lunar, he insisted we got a chop to go in so that Candy can have a look inside. But as Ada and Ruiwen were still sitting at Coffee Club, we went back to them first and waited for Alvin to finish his first set. When he came to look for us at 130am, he again asked us to go in and have a look la. I was wondering why he was so persistent but I didn't think much of it la. He probably just wanted them to have a look a how a SG pub looked like. Anyways, after some chatting , we decided to move our butts and go to Lunar. Alvin even reminded us to take the lift up to the 2nd floor to have a look.

When we arrived at the second floor, my eyes scanned around in the dark and before I could even focus on anyone, Candy suddenly went "Ah Hong!". And sure enough, Hong was distinctly in sight at the far end of the 2nd floor. We strolled towards him, wondering whether to catch his attention, cos we didn't want him to think we were stalking him. Then he looked up and saw us and surprisingly, he actually smiled and waved at us! I think he was also surprised that we actually found him. Hahahaha. And and, he actually walked over to us from his crowd and stood there to chat with us for quite awhile leh! He smelt of peanuts although he said he drank alot hahaha. Anyway it was so noisy it made it so hard to chit chat with him. And he was standing next to me so I had to make small talk. Faint. Then there was a little dead air for awhile before he excused himself to rejoin his group. Whew! Luckily we didn't go in and bump into him earlier, if not I really dunno how to deal with the dead air in the noisy surroundings! Shortly after, he left with some guys and we actually sent him off to the lift haha. Then we made our way back to the hotel by foot, strolling along Clarke Quay etc in the wee hours of the morning. After sending them back, I took a cab home myself and only slept like hours later cos I was still enthralled with the whole exciting and eventful night.

Now for the pics.....

Something small I made from scratch for Hong

using the many brochures and booklets I koped from Sistic. I thought this would make a memory gift for him. I reminded him not to throw it away when I gave it to him. He said no la! Wahaha.