puchong and a-mei

yesterday...


went down to puchong with mom to aunt's house (mom's sister). had to go down to bukit jalil anyway for a-mei star tour 2009. got free tickets from sally. lucky me. since no one want to accompany me, i dragged mom along. it is her first visit to bukit jalil and she has never been to a concert here.


we reached there in the afternoon and waited for wei to come. it was his day off. gosh, his company is making the employees take one day off a week now and they only work 4 days.


and wei became our unofficial driver for the afternoon.

first visit, to uncle's house (mom's brother) also in puchong. forgot which taman already. there are just so many housing areas here in puchong. i dun think i can find my way to uncle's house if you tell me to go there again tomorrow.

uncle wasn't home but his wife and sons are. oh, his eldest who just finished spm last year got 11 A's. 9A1 and 2 A2. how clever...and he did not apply for any scholarship!!! he only applied for matriculation and he is now waiting to enter form 6. he is adamant to fulfil his ambition of being a veterinarian and he knows there is only one local uni that offers the course which is upm. so in order to enter the uni, he has to do form 6 regardless of how difficult ppl say it is.

the above pic is an extension built just for the dog house. this great dane (scooby doo) whose name is rocky even has his own fan in the house. oh, such comfort. he is very tall but getting old and frail already. he hardly stood up to greet us and oh-so-well-trained. din bark at all. when can my dog be like this?

the interior of the house. the living room is spacious, bigger than the kitchen although aunt bakes a lot. hmmh...they should have made the kitchen bigger. aunt does a lot of baking here and she is a good baker...cookies and cakes. anyone would like to order any?? she does take order and her business during cny is thriving.

next stop: nilam terraces. just 5 mins away to cousin sister's house (kuan). she was not at home, in singapore with the husband, but her son and mother-in-law were. her son, jonathan was in the stroller when we reached. his granny was letting him get some air outside and do some bird watching. gosh, he is such a shy boy. when he saw so many strangers surrounding him, he started crying.

just stayed for a while. then it was to another relative's house. this one, i dun really know who. again mom's side. actually it was to a funeral. mom's aunt passed away on thursday and we were there to pay our respect at their house. it is also in puchong. i have vague recollection of this grand-aunt (i call her that right?) from the photo.

all these visits ended after 5p.m. and it was too late to go anywhere else. so we went back to aunt's house to rest while wei went back to his.

at 7.30p.m. i headed to national sports complex aka bukit jalil stadium for the concert. luckily, there was no rain and no congestion on the road. phew! it was smooth sailing all the way to the carpark.

met sally and ying at the main entrance here. the lanterns were surrounding the vvip and royal box entrance. concerts seldom use this entrance actually and it is not usually on this side of the stadium. i think they used this side yesterday to avoid confusion and congestion at the other normal side where they also had disney princess on ice at putra stadium. i like this side better.

the stage and seats were all under the covered part of the stadium. clever move by the organiser because there was a high possibility of rain and rain it did....around 11.30p.m. i think it was almost full house because the sounds of the audience singing along was really awesome. it was like a major karaoke sing-along session whenever a-mei sang her slow numbers. and the audience really sang melodiously that it brought tears to her eyes.

the most expensive ticket was 298 and cheapest 88...the cheapest would be at tier 3 i think. i wonder what they see from way up high.

at 8.45p.m. sharp, suki from one in a million contest opened the concert with her new number. she just appeared on stage and sang. there was no proper introduction at all. poor thing. but her vocal was quite good. i was surprised. she has improved.

and the concert? well, it was good! very very good! ok, i have to admit that i am not a fan and i dunno how to sing her songs although i have heard them before, so it was actually a bit hard for me to engross myself in the singing and stuff. but a-mei was good, the concert was good, the arrangement was good, the audience was great. man, it was even better than my sammi cheng concert in genting. pathetic but true. the stage display, lighting and props were really a feast for the eyes. well, too much actually. my eyes are still sore from the bright lights that i can't look at the computer screen for long. next time, sunglasses should be provided. she even had a bed with fluffy pillows and fire on stage. how cool was that. in one of the segments, the background was all black except for those hundreds of lights lighting the stage like stars blinking. beautiful. she did a lot of rock numbers as well, but i found that it was her slow numbers which captured the audience more and it was when her vocal really stood out. thanks to the big screens that displayed the lyrics, i could even murmur a few lines ;P

oh, where are the pics? i could only take photos in the first 2 customes sections. she did 8 custome changes. damn the superzealous rela officers! that badass one was rooted few steps away from me all the while! ok....cool down. before the concert began, there was the usual reminders: no sound recording allowed, no video recording allowed, no flash photography allowed and no handphone allowed. so where the hell is the part that says no photography??? i din record anything nor did i use any flash!!!

that rela officer wanted to confiscate my camera and told me that he wanted to give me a talk on copyright. at the entrance before we came in, our bags were checked for camera and the rela did not allow camera saying that they would keep it for me. then a staff from the organiser said that we were allowed to bring digital camera except those with zoom lens.

so where does copyright come in when we only take photos?? copyright for the customes or for the way she posed?? most concerts won't allow recording, yes i understood. but photography? that is too much.

anyway, not to let that experience spoil my night, the concert ended at 12 midnight. yup, a-mei sang more than 3 hours! it was really worth it. oh, there were lots of malaysia boleh shouts and she even sang 2 lines from lagenda. i dun think there is anyone who din enjoy this concert.