OUR KIND OF PERFECT GETAWAY
By Shirley Khoo
We were totally excited when we heard that David will be making another visit to Asia. He has to come to Malaysia for sure, we reckoned. Even Melinda tweeted that the KL visit was being worked at and we were over the moon about that piece of news. When it finally came down to just Singapore & Philippines, we were heartbroken….how’s that for an elevator ride! Its even more heart-wrenching when we found out that its a Nokia Singtel tie up and that purchasing a phone with contract would be the ONLY way to see David’s performance. We live in Malaysia and Perth, no way are we going to purchase three units of N8 phones for this – eventhough we would just about do anything we can within our power to go see David, we are after all go getters and true blue passionate fans of his.
So in between numerous phone calls, my sister (Jennie in Perth) and me (in Kuching) we agreed that it will only be a worthwhile trip if we can get ourselves somehow into the Zouk showcase and of course the autograph signing the next day. Suddenly it dawned on us that Jennie’s husband, Andrew has a contact in Singtel. Our minds then worked at warp speed – we could ask Andrew to contact his buddy at Singtel to beg for entrance pass – YAY! that’s it, we were that desperate and poor Andrew had to give in to our requests. After numerous emails to our possible Singtel hero, no concrete news came in. It was already Wednesday of that same week that David will be in Singapore but Praise God the good news came to us by mid Wed morning that our Singtel connection came through for us….a hero he was in the opinions of six giddy females! WOOHOO!!! My sis and I almost felt our hearts pounding out of our chests the minute we’ve got the news. Frantic phone calls ensued to get our trip organised from booking of airtickets to finding accomodation. We decided to fly off from our different bases on Saturday to meet up in Singapore. With iron-clad budget down the drain, no fuss about flight timings and accomodations – we just HAD to get ourselves into Singapore before Sunday. Along the way, we roped in our mum and brother and consoled ourselves that this was a family trip that was meant to be. Jennie came with her whole family (6 kids in tow). Our brother and Andrew joined us from KL. My mum, daughter and myself flew in from Kuching. Our meeting was indeed a great moment – lots of squealings and huggings from excitement of seeing each other and of course at the thought of seeing David again. I said again here cos it was the same affair when David came for the KL showcase – we were all there.
SUNDAY 14 NOVEMBER 2010
Ahhhh, it was finally the day!!!! When Shu Yee told us she was already in line at Zouk at 11 am, it completely freaked us out. Gosh, by hook or by crook, we had to get our behinds to Zouk this minute. Thank goodness we were just done with feeding everyone (breakfast only), we had to brave the rain to get back to the hotel and quickly grabbed our stuff and head out. Phew! when we reached Zouk, there was only a short line and that would mean we were early…YAY! We didnt know what to expect but we had high expectations that we just might be able to get in front…we were a positive bunch 🙂
After a few hours of straight standing, munching buns for lunch, holding our bladders (no near loo in sight except for a hotel nearby), hot and sweaty but somehow we managed to have so much fun catching up with each other on anything David. This was indeed not a bad affair after all – how can it possibly be when we know we will feast our eyes and ears on David in a matter of hours. When we were finally let into Zouk, it was like a stampede after the security as everyone was trying their best to get near the front of the stage. We managed to park ourselves behind Shu Yee and her sister…technically we were on the 2nd row haha. We were short and our girls were even shorter so we had to strain our necks and just about our whole body. Crowds were pushing us to the front and we were packed like sardines. More waiting for David, our patience visibly thinned, our annoyance was aimed at two media guys who were tall and huge in front of us. They were non fans and told us they will leave soon. The payback was when we screamed on top of our lungs as any good and loyals fans would during David’s set, one of them stuck his fingers into his ears haha – so you guessed it, they stayed all the way through.
Here I would not give the exact minute details of how David was enveloped with such warm welcome the minute he came on stage, the cheering, clappings, screams and etc to how drop dead gorgeous he looked, to how adorable when he made small talk and of course to how his voice soared in that tiny atmosphere as Trace’s earlier recap covered everything.
Then just like that – poof – he was gone. No amount of chanting his name or hoping for a encore would get him to appear again. We were left high and dry so to speak, just like lost puppies but still refused to leave. But leave we did in the end, said our goodbyes and look forward to meeting up the next day.
MONDAY 15 NOVEMBER 2010
Another chance to see David at the autograph signing at Bugis Junction. We knew we had to be there early so we landed ourselves at Bugis Junction by noon. First thing first, we had to buy those Singapore edition of TOSOD. With that out of the way, we went for lunch and then we lost ourselves a bit with shopping until our girls had better sense to tell us they should go down to check if a line has formed. In the next few minutes, we received a call from them to come down as we need to secure our place in the already forming line. Gosh, and that was just 2 pm.
My sister and I rushed as fast as our legs could take us and found them waiting at the sidewalk a short distance from the autograph venue. We met up with Trace and Sheba who were there even earlier – no one is taking any chance 🙂 After a long wait, we were let into the barricade section – somehow we felt like sheep being led into the slaughter house, waiting to be slayed by one David Archuleta! We braved the rain, thank goodness it was just a drizzle and were slowly moving up the line. Security were tight, TOSOD was blasting on the PA system, fans were singing and chatting happily – no one is complaining, it was indeed a Good Place. David appeared right on the dot at 7 pm and immediately got down to signing. Somehow, along the line we managed to position ourselves after Shu Yee, Sheba and Trace. Finally it was our turn, I saw Shu Yee, Sheba and Trace impressing David to come to Malaysia, Malaysia loves you and I suppose every sentence has the word Malaysia in it. My sister managed to tell David that she and her family came from Perth and he said ‘Awesome’, my niece Rachel passed him our gifts, Katrina high fived David, my daughter Eugenie managed to sneak in a video recording on her phone when we approached David and we can hear him singing Falling Stars quite clearly. Whereas for myself, I am just too lame to say anything intelligent to David though I managed to shake his big manly hands and uttered a sheepish thank you – there, I was indeed slayed by him 🙂
After the David encounter, we just had to linger around the venue to watch him interacting with the fans while signing and singing to his songs – such a sight to behold. He left at 8 pm and Rachel had the good sense to wait near the barricade where he came in from and got to hold his hands for a mere few seconds. He seemed to just vanish from our sight and we ran to the other entrance thinking we might catch a final glimpse of David but sadly that was not to be. We were exhausted from all that running and came face to face with Trace at the end of the street corner. She had lost Shu Yee and Sheba in the midst of the chaos but some how those two ladies managed to find us at that spot. We laughed at ourselves, amazed at the length of all us went through to be in Singapore, we compared notes, we let each other in on how our daily lives were David centered in so many ways, group hugged, said a prayer for David for his safe travels to Philippines and back home. Then it dawned on us that we hadnt had dinner. By then, Sheba had to catch a plane back to KL so she didnt join us for dinner. After dinner, as we leave the mall, we had to pass through the autograph stage and we were so drawn to that place that we had to take pictures, laughed, talked more and refused to leave. Sadly,by 10 pm, we had to say our goodbyes to Trace and Shu Yee but not without promising that we will all meet again in KL if David comes for a 2011 concert!
As with all good things, this trip came to an end on 17 November when we left to return to our respective bases. This was certainly without doubt our kind of perfect getaway ANYTIME – even Universal Studios was unable to elicit that much joy out of us 🙂