Decided to take a look at SG's latest attraction yesterday with E.W before we walked over to Esplanade for our concert. Took the Circle Line and alighted at Promenade Station. Saw a new shopping mall "PARCO", which is like any other Japanese department stores. The restaurants are located at the 3rd level, while other stuffs are pretty standard ( a mix of mid-range to high-end goods).
After a 10 mins walk, Marina Bay Sands hotel wld appear before your eyes. The hotel section is separated from the casino & mall sections by "Bayfront Bridge" (海湾桥). Instead of walking for 10 mins, you can take buses 97, 106 & 133 and alight directly in front of the hotel.
Children paintings at the Youth Olympic Park.
From the park, you wld see the "The Float @ Marina Bay" (滨海湾浮动舞台). In the background is our CBD area (中央商业区).
What can you see next? Singapore Flyer (新加坡摩天观景轮) and Benjamin Sheares Bridge (薛尔思桥).
One of the highlights of the trip, "The Helix" (螺旋桥). It is a pedestrian bridge linking Marina Centre with Marina South in the Marina Bay area.
The Helix. This is the new hot spot for photography lovers. Saw so many people carrying their DSLRs...
The Float @ Marina Bay, with the hotels as the backdrop.
Construction is still going on though...
The hotel with Sands Sky Park right on top.
The entrance of the casino. Cld see lots of ppl gambling inside...but well, have to pay $100 bucks leh.
The shopping area, which is called "The Shoppes at MBS". Mid-range shops are at the ground floor, while the rest are high-end branded shops. Saw Chanel covering 3 floors, and there are others like Gucci, Coach, Ferragamo, Hermes etc...
The promenade area. You get to see nice views at the Bay...
Esplanade & Swissotel The Stamford.
CBD & the evening sky.--Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Ensemble with SSO @ Esplanade Concert Hall--
I thought I was kinda disappointed with some of the pieces performed by The Silk Rd Ensemble (Yo-Yo Ma is one of the members). It's not that their performances were not good. In fact, they were casual yet professional in their playing. The problem lies with their music pieces, as some of them lacked a main melody or they were just simply playing some notes with difficult techniques. It was hard to connect with the music and to some extent, boring. SSO was not there as an orchestra, but rather as guests as some of them were involved in the last 2 pieces after the intermission. SSO's music director Lan Shui was the conductor for the 4th piece, "Night Music: Voice in the Leaves".
The concert opened with "Silk Road Suite", which included 4 pieces. The piece was "Mountains are Far Away", followed by "Phoenix Rising", "Summer in the high grassland" & "Ascending Bird". The suite was probably my favourite, as I liked the whole ensemble playing together.
The 2nd piece was "Wine Madness", and their Sheng player gave an introduction in Mandarin. The rhythm of the song was not too bad, and the Sheng player was very expressive.
E.W & I started to have "problems" with the 3rd piece, "Ritmos Anchinos". There were 3 movements in this piece, "Harawi para Colquipocro"; "Charangos de Chincha" & "Kachampa". The music piece is a hybrid between Chinese and Andean, but I did not like the fusion, as I cld not connect with it. 断断续续的音乐, 再加上乐手们都在玩高音,有点刺耳.
The 4th piece was equally hard to appreciate. 没有主旋律的乐章,听起来很辛苦.
Finally, the last piece brought some justice to the ensemble. "Air to Air" was cheerful & fun in general. You cld see that the musicians enjoyed themselves and they interacted with each other while playing their instruments.
The ensemble performed 2 more encore pieces for the audiences. The pieces were relatively short, but they were energetic & melodious.
I left the concert hall with mixed feelings...which was quite a pity.
I think I wld really want to see Yo-Yo Ma performing Western pieces someday, and I've yet to attend a real SSO concert!
--Happy Labour Day--
Finally can connect with this holiday. Hahaha!
