Celine Dion

Celine Dion initially scheduled her Indianapolis concert on November 9th. Back then, I couldn't make it since I wanted to watch this with Pei Ying, and she was still in Ann Arbor. However, due to a "timely" throat infection, Celine Dion was forced to reschedule the concert. It was postponed to December 21st, an excellent time because firstly, Pei Ying would be at Indy at that time and secondly, the fact that the concert fell on the 21st made it a conveniently perfect anniversary gift :)

It was a super cold day (temperature was around -25 degree celcius after wind chill). The concert was supposed to start at 8, but some joker (literally, stand-up comedian) took the stage instead of the real main character. He did a great job entertaining the audience, and did very good impersonations of celebrities like Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Jim Carrey, Michael Jackson, George Bush and more. Too bad I don't remember (to be exact, didn't catch) his name.

Celine Dion probably figured that the Indianapolis fans didn't mind waiting for another hour after having waited for a month for this concert. She showed up at 9pm, but promptly made all the waiting worthwhile. Clad in a mini-dress, she brought out the first song of the night, I Drove All Night. She would go on and performed classic hits like Taking Chances, The Power of Love, Because You Loved Me, To Love You More, It’s All Coming Back to Me Now, All By Myself, The Prayer, and Fade Away. Of course, how would a Celine Dion concert be complete without My Heart Will Go On? We had to wait until the second encore performance for that song.

Overall, the concert was great. The stage-work was fantastic, with lots of moving parts and lights displays (erm I guess I don't know how else to describe it) Most importantly, her voice was just superb. It is usual in the Asian world that singers, especially those Taiwanese ones (ok being opinionated and based on my limited observance), perform notably worse from their recordings, and sometimes have to resort to "caused-by-being-overwhelmed-crying" to cover up their bad-karaoke-like singing. If they sing exactly like the recording, it is only because they are lip-syncing. But Celine Dion's performance was just professional. Her command of voice was perfect, and her performance moving. I was thrilled to have seen this best selling female artist of all time live.

I have been You-Tubing her All By Myself since, and it is my new favorite song now.

A few pictures:

:)

The comedian taking the stage

 

Drum roll...

Finally!!

Standing on the piano..

That's the best my 6X optical zoom can do...

Celine Dion and violinist (To Love You More, Py's favorite)

Wonder Woman cape??

My Heart Will Go On (flutist playing Titanic theme)

Just realized I've posted a tonne of pictures...well forgive me for being excited about my first concert :)

NBA - Pacers VS Warriors (Dec 17)

This was my 3rd NBA game, and I finally got to be much closer to all the action since I got courtside tickets for a good deal (company's discount). Basically nothing much to be excited anymore, except that this was my first NBA game with Pei Ying. Pacers won in the end, which makes 3 wins (home team) out of the 3 NBA games I watched.

Got to see the hawd cheerleaders up close!! Oops better behave myself...

Pacers...couldn't find a better picture to post actually. Been realizing that recently I have been taking shittily blurry pictures...why??

Final score >> 127 :: 120

Thanksgiving 2008

Wanted to name this post "Mackinaw trip", but decided against it since technically we (Siew Gee, Jason, Pei Ying and I) didn't even set foot on the island. Throughout the holidays, we stayed in Mackinaw city but didn't get the chance to visit the island due to suspended ferry service during Thanksgiving.

So where did we go? We went to Sleeping Bear Dunes (my second time) and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Upper Peninsula. It really wasn't the best time to visit those places, since it was snowing quite heavily.

I was actually excited of re-visiting the Sleeping Bear Dunes because I wanted to re-create the timeless photo taken by Chooi KK. It is my favorite photo and I have been using it for the profile picture of my facebook account. Some of my friends actually thought it was a cartoon poster rather than a real photo of me (note: no photoshop invovled):

Sadly, this time around I couldn't manage to have a profile-picture-worthy photo taken:

Ok enough of me...let's look at some other photos:

Kids running down the slope...

Lake Michigan

Of course, what's Thanksgiving without turkey?? That night, Pei Ying and I ordered Thanksgiving special for dinner, while Siew Gee and Jason each had some "fishy" stuff:

 

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore reminded us of Yosemite, since we went to both places during winter times. I think the lack of blue sky ruined the views once again.

Doesn't it look like a castle?

"Castle" up close

 

Waterfalls...

Initially we decided to go Mackinaw Island on Saturday, but unfortunately there was no ferry service. So we just hang around and take a few photos:

Mackinaw bridge

And that concludes our short trip....

Christmas Spectacular Starring the Rockettes

About two weeks ago (11.22.2008, which strangely feels like ages away, possibly due to my deteriorating memory), I got the chance to watch the Christmas Spectacular Starring the Rockettes, thanks to Pei Ying's aunty B-Lee.

I started out the day by playing some badminton with Wei Ping, Billy and Jason in CCRB. Right after that, we (plus Pei Ying and few more people) drove to Novi to get Ajishin for lunch. The noodles was again heavenly, especially after the long wait in line. We split ways after lunch, with just Nabil, Pei Ying and I heading to Detroit to catch the show.

The Rockettes is a precision dance group which performs in Radio City New York. Every year they have this Radio City Christmas Spectacular at the Radio City Music Hall and also some other American cities including Detroit. The venue of the Detroit performance was Joe Louis Arena, the home for the Detroit's ice hockey team.

The Rockettes' famous routine includes the eye-high leg kick, not unlike those kicks in the french Can Can (got this feeling although I am not familiar with that). Also, I enjoyed the toy soldiers performance a lot. Overall, it was a great show and a great way to kick off the holiday mood for the season.

Some photos (courtesy of Nabil):

The stage

Opening scene

The Rockettes!!

Amazing Toy Soldiers Performance

The bus actually moves, and the background was actually a screen that shows the New York streets

Santas. One comment: I hate it when Christmas shows have to somehow squeeze in the "I Believe" cheesy theme...

After the show we went back to AA and had dinner with Seng Khai and friends. Had another badminton session in NCRB before calling it a day. It was a tiring but satisfying day I'd say...