Celebrating SG50 early

As you know, we like to beat the crowd. But not with a stick.

Watching planes and fireworks has always been an exciting thing for us and the kids. When you look up into the sky at things either whizzing past, or at objects being blown up into balls of fire, it never fails to evoke a sense of wonder, excitement and curiosity as to how much it all costs. The children, in my mind, would think - wow, maybe one day I will be a pilot, or I can't wait to start playing with fire.

For the second week in a row, we made our way to the Marina Barrage at approximately 6.30pm to catch the helicopters, planes and jets (I know planes and jets are kinda the same thing, but some of them are propeller driven), playing ball and frisbee while waiting for one of the two gigantic national flags to be flown past to kick off the airshow. Both times, we were not disappointed, except for the fact that the pilots refuse to wave back at us - but who can blame them given they have to focus on not crashing into the aircraft in front of them. There are also these crazy people that try to fly their oversized kites just minutes before five F-15s threaten to fly into the casino and it's fun to watch these volunteers with lanyards run around shouting "GET IT DOWN ON THE GROUND NOW!!"

This weekend, Shannon brought her own kite and the moment the many planes completed their runs (those lanyard guys are gone by this point), her kite, along with almost a hundred others, went up. She threw the kite, and it literally went straight up. The constant wind took the fun out of flying kites. There was no need to run around like a raving lunatic.

Then we made the trek down to Marina Bay to watch the fireworks. We walked this time - given our collective need for a more structured exercise regime. We got there ten minutes before the start of the display, which is almost as long as the time that everyone spent in the toilet along the way.

I think there is a certain about of deliberateness to the way the organisers conduct rehearsals every Saturday for 6-7 straight weekends before the real day. What they are trying to say is "go and watch the planes and fireworks during those rehearsals so that on the real day you wouldn't cause a bloody jam in the city area" but they can't say that because the word "bloody" is a bit rude. But seriously, go catch it before the rest of Singapore figures it out, which might already be too late.

These last two Saturday evenings were fantastic. Great weather, great show. And all that without the use of a stick.