Fantastic Friday

12/06/2004

It was a fabulous Friday
During lunch, CL, DP and I headed to Chinatown for some beef noodles and photo taking. It was good fun, we braved the scorching heat for blue skies and fascinating architecture.

12 hours later
Doesn’t this look familiar?

We walked from Far East Square, then went over to Club Street and then South Bridge Road. Along the way I caught some familiar sights, since KF and I just went for another photo shoot around the same area some nights back.

A room with a view
Window to the world

I like the shot of the window, and I think I’ll try to convert that to black and white using some techniques I read in a magazine.

Then – surprise!
After we got back to the office, I received an SMS from a close friend. She said she just delivered a baby boy, and both her son and she was doing great. I replied to tell her I didn’t even know she was expecting a baby, but that I was really happy for her.

Has it been so long?

Swinging!
In the evening KF and I went to our first performance at the Esplanade, thanks to my friend Sue who not only provided us with a place to stay when we visited LA – twice – but also sent us the tickets because she was out of the country and couldn’t make it.

It was the Count Basie Orchestra and it was divine. The Esplanade is such a nice place – it’s so pristine on the inside, and the Concert Hall was a sight to behold. I would’ve taken photos, but they didn’t allow any photography. I’m glad I caught the performance, it’s one of those things you need to savour to really feel alive. Or at least that’s what I think. When Butch Miles, the drummer did his solo – Drum Thing – it was like for that 4 minutes life was described in those drumbeats and it was such a lovely journey. I particularly enjoyed the version of Skylark they performed with singer Byron Murrell.

Even Mr Weird-Dance-Music-Lover Chang enjoyed the performance. I was a little skeptical that he might like it, since he doesn’t listen to jazz or anything that pre-dates ’80s music, but he came out of it also feeling an emotional response to the music, which was fantastic. I think it’s the whole point of watching a live performance.

I can’t say much about the acoustics of the concert hall, it sounded great, not too amplified and distorted. But then again, I won’t really be able to tell, so perhaps ignorance really is bliss.