~ journey to Mocca ~

27 January 2006
Chinese New Year Fireworks

we fixed the mac (and it worked), wiped everything out, partitioned the HD and installed the OSX again last night. this morning, the mac actually booted nicely. it worked! this afternoon, we installed the necessary softwares and put all our fonts.

we were told by Indi that Mocca will be performing in the outdoor stadium of Esplanade. so, we put the mac to sleep and left for Mocca. well, the trip to Esplanade was a nightmare of itself. first, the line for taxi in Holland Village was soooo loooong, and when we tried to call for taxi, all we got is busy tone one after another. so, we decided to take the train… at that time, we weren’t sure which bus will take us to Esplanade (we later found out that there are at least two busses that we could easily take from Holland V.).

after a hurry walk to the train station, we then stopped at the Raffles Place station. it should be a relatively short walk crossing the bridge to get to Esplanade. but it turned out that there is a huuuuge carnival type of thing to celebrate Chinese New Year under the bridge. it took us around half an hour to cross from one road side of the bridge to the other (which is where the esplanade located), because the staff in the carnival gave us run-around. the first staff said that we could cross under the bridge (there is a tunnel). when we got to the tunnel, the cop there said that the tunnel is closed, just for tonight. so we had to walk back up to the bridge and cross the street on the traffic light. as we walked back, the path that we originally walked, all the sudden were closed. we asked another staff if we could go to the other side of the closed path, and she said that we had to wait for 20 minutes, because the minister is arriving. arrggg… we realized that there is no other way to go other than wait for the damn minister to cross… as we waited (i think the minister was late), people from the other side of the path bursted into the closed path impatiently… yay! so, we followed.

finally after half an hour circling around the carnival, we arrived at the Esplanade’s outdoor stadium, which, of course, totally full… so we couldn’t even sit and watch Mocca. we just sat on the side of the stadium and listen to the band.

it was our first time to listen to Mocca performing live. they’re probably one of the Indonesian bands that we like, mostly because they make good music. in my opinion, though, the vocal could’ve been better if it has more texture. it was kinda plain. but, whoever their songwriter is, he/she rocks.

in the middle of the performance, there was a fireworks (which photo is on the top of this page) shooting from the bridge across the Esplanade… it’s the Chinese new year fireworks, hooray! we finally can see something! and i thought it was neat to see Mocca performing with fireworks shooting behind their stage… it was a very nice setting.