A Bittersweet Ending to the Fireworks Festival

Be afraid. Be very afraid . . . especially when this chili padi starts to get frantic. The girl next to me in the crowd sure was. She told me to “calm down” and she’s a complete stranger.

You know those moments you have when you are so close to something great but yet so far away? I experienced one of those moments today. I eventually did get to my goal, but not before turning into a frantic broken tape recorder and learning to compact my tiny little body and squeeze into whatever miniscule place is possible.

Why you ask? Today marks the end of the Singapore Fireworks Festival, and last year’s favorites, Team France, are hosting tonight’s fireworks event: Celebration of Life. Indeed there was much to celebrate! After that fantabulous munificent display of fireworks, it was not difficult to understand why they were the favorites last year. Team Singapore’s fireworks display, was sadly (sad as it IS our own country and the display was held on the eve of National Day – you would expect it to be a real bang) a speck of glitter in the sky in comparison to tonight’s. I was blown away. Team France’s precision timing and unique fireworks and great choreography placed them a few notches above the Singapore one. I can’t comment on the displays by Team Italy and Team New Caledonia because I didn’t see them.

They had lovely multi-coloured fireworks (I know some of you out there are thinking there’s nothing special about this. Let me clarify. When I say multi-coloured fireworks, I mean the same tube of fireworks explodes with a bang, and not one but a multitude of colours emerge, speckling the sky) that formed a huge sphere upon exploding. I think it was the combination of green, yellow and red used that reminded me oddly of Christmas when that particular firework exploded. Very festive indeed. They also had fireworks that came down as curtains which they used much to their choreographic advantage. The ones that I thought were really nice were the ones that exploded-upon-exploding. These fireworks would explode once, releasing a burst of bright yellow into the skyline, and just when the streaks left behind were fading, the tips of the design created would explode and release a spread of yellow once again! Everyone was clearing impressed by the gargantuan spherical fireworks that threatened to dominate the entire sky. Once again the collective echo of “Ooos” and “Wah” could be heard.

The best part was, naturally, the finale. Team France spared no firework on the final display. The sky was literally covered in fireworks! I, suffice to say, was bedazzled. From the positive comments and cheers of joy after it ended, so was everyone else.

To be fair, I had a much better view today. Instead of viewing the display from the Esplanade Park, where the Esplanade Bridge cut off some of the little fireworks that settled at the bottom of the skyline, I had an up-close view from One Fullerton, without any obstruction! Hurray for me. I do admit, perhaps that is why the experience of the show was tons better and why I was more impressed. However, I maintain that the choreography for tonight’s display was unerringly the better of the two.

Every firework seemed perfectly timed. There was one section where some smaller fireworks would explode within larger ones in a synchronized pattern! Plus, the fireworks exploded almost accordingly to the beat of the music. The fireworks display really did complement the music very well, although it would have been better if the music was louder – it would have certainly enhanced the fine experience.

By now you are probably wondering where the “You know those moments you have when you are so close to something great but yet so far away?” comment comes from right? Sit back and relax, because I’ve got a lot of ground to cover. I was with LL and M when we left Suntec City to make our way to One Fullerton. Apparently MC’s boyfriend managed to book a table at One Fullerton at the “Flow” Bar, (it’s relatively new in case you are wondering where you’ve never heard that from,) and invited us to go join them. A great unobstructed place for fireworks watching, away from the sticky, smelly, confines of THE crowd – Yippee! Naturally we took them up on the offer. It was making our way to One Fullerton that was the problem.

First, we had to make our way to Fullerton Hotel by walking through the congested Esplanade Bridge. We were lucky to cross the traffic light from the side of Esplanade Park to Fullerton Hotel, as right after that, the policemen started to stop the crowd and started yelling out in attempt to control the massive mob, “No more crossing allowed. It’s too crowded there!” I doubted they were going to be successful long but I didn’t stick around to find out. We were on a mission to find an alternative route to get to One Fullerton from Fullerton Hotel. What’s that? Cross the road you say? Well, in case you haven’t noticed the men drabbed in navy blue uniform, with luminous yellow jackets that read POLICE on them, you may notice the roads are literally blocked with tape. We eventually went through the underpass. It was snail-moving traffic there.

Emerging at One Fullerton, you would be met by hundreds of people standing around. We weaved our way around the mob, resorted to taking the staircase (after some nice soul suggested this upon hearing my desperate plea to LL that “we need to get through to our table on the other side, just push through the crowd and say excuse me!”) to get across to the other side of the “center” of One Fullerton, only to find they don’t lead anywhere being locked down and all, and walked an entire round around One Fullerton, till we got to the “center” of it. The “center” as classified by MC’s boyfriend, KY, is simply a wide obviously open-spaced area. However, with the massive crowd, it wasn’t so obvious. There was a field of people seated on the floor, forming what I thought looked like the valley of a mountain. The people that stood surrounding those seated, up against the walls, formed the mountains. Mountains and Valleys – homosapien style.

Eventually, we figured (through a broken telephone kind of conversation over the phone in more than comfortable volume with KY) the only way we were going to get through to our table was to drudge through the people in our way. This is where the “so close yet so far” phrase starts to play in your mind, driving you to near insanity.

The situation was as such: There was a huge opening in the sides of the glass wall, like a rectangular huge corridor. There was a mob in front of it. There we were in the mob, with me shouting to LL to “just squeeze through into that open area then we can move a bit up and squeeze through again to weave through the crowd”, which after a while became “just squeeze through to that area there!” then “Squeeze through!” (If by this time you are wondering what in Hell’s name triggered my sentence to two mere words, it was the sight of a couple managing to squeeze their way through relatively amiably whilst we were stuck in the crowd, with the worst view ever, 5 minutes to countdown, with full knowledge that we HAD a legit table somewhere waiting for us, with an excellent unobstructed view, and plenty of space to stretch one’s legs and stand.) I admit. I was a little deranged. This girl, who was the only obstruction between me and the open gap with the bouncers, turned around at one point and told me to calm down. Like I said – I may have come across as deranged. Just a little.

Thanks to my perseverance (maybe it was sixth sense nagging me?) I managed to get close enough to ask one of the bouncers where “Slow Bar” (that’s what I gathered from the poor reception telephone conversation I had with KY). He corrected me and told me I was standing in front of one of its entrances. EUREKA! Now all we have to do is get to our table. You’d think it would be smooth sailing from there on right? WRONG! We were stuck again, behind another, albeit smaller crowd. It only latest a minute though. When one of the waiters broke through the crowd to get to the tables, the entire crowd moved with him. We pushed our way to the front of the crowd (which wasn’t that difficult because everyone was in loose formation, and not packed tightly together like sardines and walking at the same time) and got to another bouncer/waiter.

It took me a gazillion phone calls before I finally got through to MC or KY to ask them what name the table had been booked under to gain entry. Throughout the night, I had been experiencing really bad reception. Seems the whole world decides to use their phones the same time as I. Do crowds have anything to do with reception I wonder? Amusingly, I watched on as some dolled up chick decided to use her contacts to get into the area with the tables by saying she was “Jolyn’s friend” (after she had failed by asking if she could just stand 2 steps closer.) She failed the first time but for some reason, when she mentioned something about drinks, she got through! Much to my irritation. We finally met up with them – one minute before the commencement of the fireworks display.

It was really a bittersweet experience – in exactly that order.