Shu Ting-Chingay: The Parade of Dreams

Chingay's certainly an experience! Honestly, before this year, i've not been to a single chingay parade before (i've not even watdched it on TV!). Always got it mixed up with the river HOng BAo (or something like that).

About 1/3 or more of our class signed up as volunteers to do float-waving.. A brainless job actually. Dione and i were really lucky to be on this gorgeous float with huge flowers, rainbow masks and flashing bulbs. It was sponsored by CosmoProv and was called some Paradise thing.. I was a purple orchid and Dione was some butterfly monster. Yea MONSTER coz her head-gear was something like those the power rangers wore, just that it had bright yellow feelers sticking out from it.

So basically we WAVED, smiled like crazy cheshire cats till we had facial cramps and danced from Orchard (wheelock place) to Chinatown and then to Kallang. (on the float of course) The floats bobbed along at snail's pace at Orchard. It was terrible!!! Coz we had to wave enthusiastically like idiots to a whole street of staring people and flashing cameras. It stopped every 200m or so for closer scrutiny of the crowd. The worst part was that not many people waved back! We could only rely on those toddlers, screaming kids and hyper crowd motivators for some "waving amusement". I dared Didi to blow a flying kiss to any police officer on duty (for a free drink!) but they were either all avoiding eye-contact on purpose, too busy with security, or just weren't interested in the floats (what some may call "professional"?!). But there was this bunch of policemen at the CK Tangs junction who were really friendly and a Sikh officer even asked Dione to "fly". haha yea right.

So soon enough, we managed to pass (and hopefully entertain) the crowds. Those floats are really hot to stand in coz the huge generators are just below where we stand with air vents blowing hot air at us. So to avoid the extreme heat, we had to try and lean outwards to catch the occasional breeze.Speaking of breeze, my orchid hat almost got blown away a couple of times. how embarrassing!!

There were 5 of us on our float. J1s: Didi, I. J2s:Ming Shen, Uni, Sarah. The J2s said that they spotted alot of RJ folks among the crowd at Orchard.. REALLY? I couldn't recognise a single person! No fun!

haha oh wells, my Chingay journey ends here with lots of random thoughts. Would I go back again next year for more waving and pretty costumes? Yea, why not? It was really fun while it lasted. The great company helped! Thanks guys for making it so enjoyable!

Oh by the way, Didi had some pretty scary/nasty/flattering experiences at Chingay.. go ask her about it. *Tsk*