NYE at Marina Bay and wish balls
Trip Start
Jul 01, 2009
1
20
50
Trip End
Sep 20, 2010
Marina Bay, Singapore
Friday, January 1, 2010
Over the past few months we've been watching boats out in the marina, filling up the bay, with these white balls. "What are those things floating out there?" So I Google it and found out that they started this tradition last year, to have people write their New Year's wishes on white, blown up, beach balls. Then they strategically (?!) place them out in the bay and the idea is to light them up with a spectrum of colored super powered light beams.
One night, we went out to dinner and had drinks at the Ice bar. While we were walking back, around the Esplanade, we saw people writing on the balls and the line was pretty much non-existent to get them. Although it's not great for the environment...I'm sure the plastic balls are tossed away...we thought it'd be a fun way to be apart of the community and to think about our New Years wishes (did I mention it was free...I'm a sucker for free). So we jotted down all the wishes we could think of and one of those balls out there was ours. (Not that you could tell as there had to have been thousands of balls!)
On the day of, I was apprehensive in leaving our apartment b/c we had received a letter that our building would be expecting high volumes of traffic coming through. Early in the day, they had the red ropes up and extra security. I caved though b/c being holed up in the apartment all day wasn't really ideal.
A few days earlier, we went out and bought glow sticks and jewelry. So we hit the town, glowing! The museums were open to the public (something they do often during holidays) so we had a look at the Asian Civilsations Museum. It was great! They had the exterior of the building lit up with a kaleidoscope of colors, they were giving out free Coca-Cola's and rum, there were performers, a radio station dj and loads of people roaming around.
We pressed on down the Quay's and when we got to Clarke Quay, there was a circus theme of "The Ultimate Circus Mayhem!" They had performers walking through the crowds, including clowns, flame blowers, a scary snake guy (the snake was scary...not the guy), a band and people in costume. I was gettin' pumped!
We wanted to take in the whole scene but we were getting pressed for time so we took a trishaw back to our place. It was the parent's first trip in a trishaw, which was a fun way to see the growing crowds of people and feel the excitement! Luckily by the time we got back to our place, there was no line to get in the elevators and we were whisked straight up to our apartment.
As we waited for the fireworks, we pulled out our spread of food and champagne. We took some last minute 2009 pictures. Then, Steve prepped our webcam and a DSLR to capture the fireworks. We climbed out onto our mini clothes drying balcony and watched all the people below us lining up for a view and BOOM, the show began!
The fireworks lasted about 8 minutes. Not the best we've seen as there were no special fireworks (no hearts, smiley faces, etc) but we had a first! From the 50th floor, we were actually looking down on the fireworks and the view of Marina Bay. Breathtaking!
Comments
Hey Wendy, Steve,
Sounds like you guys are having fun in SEAsia. Thanks for keeping a weblog so we can live vicariously through you guys.
Hi Ronnie...we are loving SE Asia...going to Cambodia, Bali and Phuket from next week...Steve and our parents will be coming with to Cambodia and I'll be with my mom for the other bits. I've still got to update HK but we are at 888 pictures on the blog and being a lucky number, I'm waiting a bit...I'm weird, I am aware...glad you enjoy the blog! :)