I decided to go and watch Phantom of the Opera in Esplanade Theatre in Spore's Big Durian only one week before the show. I called Wonder Woman (WW) to see if her entourage could fit me in. She confirmed that there is still place and I should call the organiser to settle the rest of the details.
All this while, SISTIC's website showed me that the tickets for the 22nd April night was plenty. So I only bothered to book it on the Wednesday before... to my horror! after going all the way 'into' the website to book the tickets, I found out that there were no seats available! What a darn lousy website- it 'bluffed' me... waaahhh! I called the hotline and was told the same story!
I still wanted to go anyway.. even if I did not get to watch the show, there are other things to be done in that short 2 days one night jaunt into Asia Lite (that is what Marido calls Singapore).
So, at 12.30 am on Sunday morning, I had an sms from PH, a guy I have not ever met who was supposed to pick me up to take me to another person's house (whom I also never met), stating that he has had a bit too much to drink and hopes that he will wake up at the designated time. I woke up at 5 am and by 5.15 am, I was walking to the car park and spotted PH's black Honda. He got out of the car, a large looming shadow in the night (or should I say very early morning) and stuck out his hand and put his car keys in my hand and said "i think you should drive".
Yicks! I don't even know the guy! We drove in silence. I kept sneaking sideway glances at him. He was so tall that his head reached the roof of the car! And the mixture of his bald head, thick eyebrows and prominent nose seemed sinister in the darkness.
After I passed the Sg Buloh tol, he turned to me and said "We need to make a pitstop- pull over there." When I stopped the car, he jumped out and started puking over the guard rails. Oh dear... I quickly scanned his car for tissues and when I found them, I ran over to the other side of the car and mutely handed them to him. He just took them without a word as well.
Later, we stopped at the petrol station and he handed me his credit card. Since I was so used to Caltex, which needed a signature of the card holder... I looked dubiously at him and screeched "You mean you want me to forge your signature!". He looked amused "Just slot the card into the machine. There is no need for signatures." Duh! I felt stupid.
When we reached Valencia (a gated and guarded housing estate in the north), I parked the car and met the 2nd unknown person of the morning...whilst he calmly walked off to the trees for another puking session. I had to take his wallet and handphone out of the car for him. You know... for first time impression.. that was a really interesting one that I would not forget for a long time. What a heck of a pick up! You meet the guy for the first time, he hands you his car keys, then he passes you his credit card, allows you to mess around with his wallet and phone.... cool.. minus the puking of course!
But I digress, this write-up was supposed to be about Phantom of the Opera. I managed to get last minutes tickets that appeared miraculously on the screen of the ticket seller. Amazing! Don't ask why.. I just accepted it.
Phantom was not as impressive as I expected it to be. The lead female singing was a little bland.. and the phantom was prancing around like Batman and sometimes like a sissy. At the batman scenes, instead of feeling some 'fear' I was laughing terbahak bahak cos it was hilarious! All in all,..I felt so appreciative to be able to watch it. The wonder of the music, props and singing combination was lethal. I gotta watch Mz Saigon in future. And I am going to get Martin Guerre CD too.
In the picture above, there is the chandelier that everyone was talking about which was supposed to come crashing down but didn't. Below is the pix of saya at the entrance of the show!
