My first set of visitors have arrived, Esther & Linda, my mom and her sister. I got them tickets to the Sunday night show since, though the audience can sometimes be mushy, the cast can smell the day off just around the corner and usually pulls out all the stops for the last show of the week. The ladies, of course, loved the show and hooted and cheered appropriately. (Or inappropriately, depending on your point of view)
As my schedule to play tour guide is a little bit limited, and the heat and humidity can be wearing on those who aren't used to it, we've been having some short but intense outings together. A ride on The Singapore Flyer, shopping excursions to Little India and The Arab Quarter, lunches, dinners and even a little time by my pool with a bottle of pink champagne.
Another milestone for this past week was having our, one-hundred-thousandth ticket-holder see the show last night.
I'm going to assume that having 100,000 people see the show in 50-some performances is a good thing.
I decided that since the Internet is full of videos about putting on the complex Lion King make up, I would do a video showing the slightly less complex, though equally tedious process of taking it off after every show.
Oh, and P.S..... Am I the only one that really doesn't give a rat's ass about the royal wedding? Zasu (or as we call him, Tata Zaza) seemed fairly excited to be invited...even bought a new hat.
And so, we have said goodbye to a cast member for the first time. One of our Young Simbas has had to leave the show. The problem with casting the kids in the show, especially the boys, is that they have to be around the age when 'changes' start to happen. Young Leon, who turned 13 while he was with us, started to grow like a radioactive weed (I swear he'd grow an inch in two days) and his voice started to break, making it very difficult for him to sing his song.
It was heart-warming/heart-breaking to witness his farewell speech as his boyish self struggled with the emerging young man. While the young man made a very eloquent, mature speech, saying that he'd learned so much from each one of us and that he'll never forget the experience, the boy cried uncontrollably.
I admit that I also got a bit teary-eyed, as I did when I saw his Facebook status one night which said, "Don't be sad that it's over, be happy that it happend."
Goodbye Leon
Previous to Leon's departure, a new Young Simba, Nicholas, was hired. The first Singaporean in the cast. He rehearsed in the afternoons for a few weeks and, as of last night, has now completed his second performance with us. He's done an admirable job for one so young. I could tell that he was nervous, but he knows his stuff and with a few more shows under his belt, he'll look like an old pro.
Here's a sample of the kind of antics Lyall and I get up to to amuse ourselves in the dressing room...
The daily weather forecast in Singapore is pretty much the same all the time. In fact, our physiotherapist told me that at one point, she thought the weatherman had died and they were just running an old recording every day..."Hot, humid, partly cloudy with rain on some parts of the island." We did have a couple of weeks, however, when you could set your watch by the afternoon monsoon. It never lasts for very long, but it's definatley not your long-walks-in-the-rain kind of rain. I caught this video from my apartment window one lazy afternoon at home.
I just came back from a small, very small, shopping excursion. You know, just picking up a few of those things that one needs to run one's daily life. I should know better by now, but I am continually surprised every single time the cashier tells me the total. Here's what I bought at grocery store:
-fresh flowers -bottle of (cheap) wine -razor blades -dental floss -can of tuna -box of crackers -cheddar cheese (xtra old)
Total cost, S$ 73.82. That's CDN $56.27 by today's exchange rate. Oh, and just so you know, the cheapest thing I got was the fresh flowers,....cut orchids. S$ 5.60 (CDN 4.26) for eight stems. Ridiculously cheap, I know, but they are so common here that even the saddest little public planter box is full of them.
The layout of the grocery stores (and pharmacies for that matter) continue to elude me. Nothing is laid out in any real, recognizable pattern. In the pharmacy, the shelf space tends to be divided by brand name, not product type. So you can't always just stand and look at all your options for, say, shampoo. You have to wander all over the store. I remember my mother used to make her grocery lists in the same order as the aisles of the grocery store. All the produce in one column, the tinned goods in another, frozen in another. Well, doesn't really work here. At my local Cold Storage (local chain), some kinds of cheese are in the dairy case, others are in another case with the cured meats. All things pickled are on the top of a refrigerated unit that displays fresh vegetables. Razor blades are not with the rest of the health/beauty items, but at the front of the store. Cookies and crackers are intermingled on the shelf and the dizzying array of sauces, marinades & dips seems to be crammed in which ever way they fit. Even a quick trip to pick up a loaf of bread can be an adventure!
Really, the continued lesson here is that it is much cheaper, and much easier to eat out...like the Singaporeans do. Given that rents are extremely high, it's nice that food is so plentiful and cheap.
I admit that I've started to covet some of the Lion King merchandise in the lobby shop. So far, I've only purchased a t-shirt for myself, but I was also given one of the dolls, a small likeness of ....well, me.
And here's a pic that had Veronique, who dressed Scar in Paris, in stitches. I was listening to some music during intermission and, of course, had to put my reading glasses on in order to see the play list on my phone.
She kept repeating, and giggling, "Scar lunettes, Scar lunettes." Actually, I think I look a bit like a crazed Princess Leia.
Singapore has a massive campaign against Dengue Fever going on at the moment. Makes sense really, what with this being a rainy, tropical country, it's a perfect breeding ground for the little mozzies. I discovered this add at the bus stop across the street from my apartment. It was the huge, 3D mosquito that caught my eye, bearing in mind that this is one of the few cities in the world that can get away with something like that on street level since vandalism and graffiti are virtually non-existent here.
In the entire time I've been here, I don't think I've seen a single mosquito. In fact, it's rare that I see any insects at all. The odd cockroach in a street garbage can perhaps, a dragon-fly now and then, but pest-control and fogging are rampant. Singaporean don't care for the bugs.
I'm going to assume that having 100,000 people see the show in 50-some performances is a good thing.
