The Philharmonic Winds was scheduled for an hour's performance. A steady drizzle began just as the man and I arrived slightly before 6pm. The drizzle was heavy. At least it wasn't a howling torrential storm. So it wasn't Big Day Out or Glastonbury. Whatever. We whipped out the ponchos and the brollies. Rain wasn't going to spoil our fun.
The songs were easy on the ear. They did the Asian classics pretty well. But I cringed a little at the band's pop-rock medley. 'Sweet Child O' Mine' and 'Summer of 69' really weren't meant to be played without an electric guitar and a bass.
We lost all our indie cred by dancing to 'YMCA'.
But ummmm....we could tell that the band wasn't tight. Okay, these were amateurs. So yeah. Pretty good already.
The emcee ah, never used his brains. He kept repeating that phrase with gusto, "Let's give a round of applause to the Philharmonic Winds!" Sure. We would all like that. But how were we going to do that while holding up umbrellas? Duh. We gave shouts of encouragement instead.
We were sure the emcee didn't mean it. But straight after one of those phrases, he introduced the band's rendition of Rihanna's 'Umbrella'. Talk about being corny. So we held our brollies, swivelled them around and danced with them a la some Broadway musical. We probably entertained a number of people within the 3m radius.
The drizzle let up at the end of the performance. We got back to the business of eating.
There were lots of wine, whisky and food. Awesome ham n cheese sandwiches, homemade quiche, salad with yummy hearts of palm, curry puffs, peeled sweet pomelos. The man contributed his ramen salad, grilled prawns and squid. Then there was this dude whom we never figured the type for baking, presented us with a box of mean mini lemon meringues. We made him promise to do it again very soon at another house party.
As the shadows lengthened, the babe-who-got-this-party-going plonked herself on the wet mats and lit the lanterns. Then she sliced up the mooncakes and made everyone have a small slice.
By now, no one else was left on the grounds. It was just us. We flitted around with the paper lanterns and sparklers. We couldn't stop giggling. The last time this half of us did this stuff was when we were 10 years old!
The sky cleared. We ran to the far side. OH! We saw the moon!!! A big round shiny orb.
16 comments:
中秋节快乐！！
We just came back from dinner with the in-laws too.. My side of the in-laws (hehe!).. It was fun. Most fun was the constant bitching about the current ongoings on our shore! :)
YMCA????
Sounds like fun!Interesting how I've already read a few posts on carrying lanterns and playing with sparklers! These never outgrow us I think!
so fun! it's like a little private party going on in the rain!
HHmmm... I didn't observe the moon from where I was. When I was really young, my grandma would buy us paper lanterns every yr. And then it became those more fanciful designs that were battery operated. But i think the paper ones are still better - and they light up prettier too!
Argh, I was supposed to bring Latte to BG too! A few friends were playing in the band. But had a family dinner, so couldn't go.
Heh, the food sounds so yummy!!
ooh. kinda a rustic charm in a traditional way. park, paper lanterns and a picnic! it must be so dark in the evening and the paper lanterns shone!
happy mooncake festival! altho late by one day, hope u dun mind!~
nice gathering for mooncake festival ! =p ah..i missed my lantern this year!
jomel: ooh!!! nice!
sinlady: shhhh. ;p
lms: i think so! they always add on the festive mood! i'm not big on it. but as the group, it was fun coz we had foreigners here! for a while, we struggled with the legend of Hou Yi and Chang'er vs passing messages in mooncakes during the Boxer/TaiPing Rebellion!
jazzgal: yah lor!
karma.c: i think i prefer the traditional ones now. no need fancy stuff!
yuling: luckily u didn't! latte would have been soaked. most uncomfortable. it rained exactly an hour 15min for the duration of set-up and the performance.
queenie: yah! very little park lamps. it was fun to see lit lanterns bobbing along! the park was quite empty at 8pm!
elaine: a fun gathering no less!
so fun! It has been ages since I've done something like that!
sweet!
Such an awesome way to spend the mooncake festival .. :) i wished i was in Asia.
sorry, something unrelated to the post. from the sidebar, you posted you're watching "Dead Like Me". It looks good. I like shows with such theme. but i've to ask this (since i'm always home alone with a travelling husband) - is it scary? or is it just mild with nothing too chillingly hair raising? ;P
D
corsage: same here. it was kinda fun. didn't bargain for the rain though. so took it in our stride. we were drenched!
suzie w: heh!
mamabok: can send u lanterns!
D: i'm not a good judge coz i love movies like that alone or otherwise!! well, i think Supernatural is more 'scary' than Dead like Me. it's kinda funny. like Reaper.
So lucky! You saw the moon that night! It rained so hard at our place that we only saw... rain. LOL!
diva: we had to look for the moon! otherwise we'd feel cheated out of a proper mooncake day!
Post a Comment