Wicked!

The Bad: Slipping on the wet floor of the Metro station entrance in Hollywood in full view of a ton of people.

The Good: Winning the lottery for front row tickets to catch "Wicked!" the musical for just $25.

The lottery system works like this:

Two and a half hours before the show, the lottery is open to people who would write their names and put it in the lottery box. A limited pairs of front row tickets are sold for $25 each to the person whose name gets picked out. The rest have to buy tickets at a regular/discounted price.

I screamed and jumped hysterically, as per the instructions of the ticketing manager who drew my name out. I admit it was a tad bit embarrassing but I was just following instructions. Besides, it was my first attempt at the lottery and I wasn't expecting to strike gold considering my bad track record for such things. So, you can imagine the sort of excitement that surged through excitable me when I heard "Wu Winston" being called out.

I was trembling as I received two nice green badges that read "I won the Wicked lottery!" and got my front row Orchestra seats A178 and 179, right in front, smack in the middle just behind the Orchestra pit.

I gave up my seat to Jonathan for the first half of the show, because I'm such a nice brother, but decided that I should too experience this once in a lifetime opportunity.

It is OH SO DIFFERENT to be in the front row. Even though you don't get to see the whole stage, you get to go up close to the actors and really see their facial expressions. You get to enjoy the details and textures of the costumes, hear the difference in the sound that you experience - I now understand why front row seats are so coveted despite the fact that your view is somewhat limited.

Words can't describe the feeling and thrill that you get from watching musicals up close. From the vocals to the script, Wicked was a story that humanised the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz. The show shed a humorous and human side to the wicked witch who wasn't wicked to begin with and never was. Great music, great plot, great sound, great lights, great cast, great voices, great everything. I'm so thankful that I didn't give this the miss and that I struck the lottery.

More shopping to do over the next couple of days... We are so screwed because neither do we have adequate luggage space nor car space.

Crap.

America - Day 1

It's 11.03pm at home, approximately 7.00am here.

And so, we arrived safely in Los Angeles having spent 6+8 hours on board SQ12 from Singapore-Narita-LAX (that explains the 6). I can safely proclaim that I've been to Japan and tried their takopachi and mini-pancakes, albeit within the confines of the airport. Narita was a little sparse but I got to play with the famed automatic toilet bowls. "Strong deodouriser" and the strange looking button with a picture of an ass and a sprout of water shooting into it. -_____-" I shan't illustrate so that everyone can use their imagination.

The flight to Narita was smooth sailing and the aircrew sprang Gloria a birthday surprise with cheese cake and ice-cream from first-class and took her around the plane to have a look. Unfortunately, the cockpit was off-limits due to 911. There's a picture of her which looks like she had her hand on a steward's *ass*. The caption: Look at my FINE specimen is so apt. I spent most of the 7 hours watching the Bourne Supremacy, Bourne Ultimatum and Rattatouie and looking out for hot air stewardesses :P.

The ride from Narita - LAX was a little rough though, but I survived it, by stuffing myself continuously with food and watching 881 - anything that could take my mind off the boat-esque conditions that I was in. Gloria and Jonathan didn't feel so good though and someone puked in the toilet sink and filled it up with sour-smelling brownish-orangy curddled stuff. Gross. And Gloria got another cheese cake which was delightful. However, she was not in the mood to try it - her apple juice stuck at her oesophagus.

America has that familiar smell and America smells like "America". I call it, the "American smell" and I'm serious. The air is cool (a little dry though) and so fresh! America. I love America! I hearts America!

We spent the day otherwise settling in, renting the car (I love the GPS system) trying to overcome jet lag and checking in. Shopped a little at Target to get the essentials and had our first meal in America: Chinese takeout. Haha. The hotel is located in the suburbs and is really warm and cosy with huge beds and comfy sheets and it's so nice to sleep in.

Auntie Kathleen dropped by for dinner to welcome us and brought us around the place. I haven't seen her in a decade and a half and I whole-heartedly agree with the "I'm so old" statement.

I wanted to watch ANTM on tv but dinner took over. Sigh. I hope to do so next week. Cross my fingers.

I SO want to go shopping - I haven't seen any A&F, Banana Republic; H&M or Gap yet but I'm looking forward to it.

It's universal studios today. HOLLYWOOD HERE I COME!

Day 2

Day 2:

We visited Universal Studios yesterday, which was relatively near to our hotel. The weather was gloomy the whole day and it rained a little. The food we had for lunch sucked too.

From my last visit there, about 15 years ago, some things remained the same, some changed for the worse. The special effects studio was left mostly unchanged - Backdraft etc. etc. Unfortunately, they took away the ET ride and replaced it with Jurassic Park, which wasn't too bad, and the mummy, a high speed rollercoaster that caused Jonathan to feel whoozy the rest of the day. I had fun though on those two - adrenaline high...whee! House of Horros was fun - just to see Gloria and Jonathan get freaked out by the wandering "ghosts". Gloria clung to me like a Koala bear and almost refused to walk through a room full of hanging corpses.

Jet lag was still evident and by 6, we were all half-dead - partly because the sky was dark and because our body clock was tuned to the wee hours of the morning in Singapore....

Day 3

Talk about shop till you drop. Headed out to Camarillo Premium Outlets today to do factory outlet shopping and it definitely was a shopper's paradise. The sight of Banana Republic was enough to drive me into a frenzy and that was our first stop. L/s tees, s/s tees, pullovers, polos - you name it, I may have bought it. Everything was going at about half price (JAW DROPPING!) and it was so cheap as compared to Singapore. So I practically swiped everything that appealed to me to try on since there were so many fitting rooms. Lunch was at one of the food courts there and I had this monstrosity of a slice of pizza. It was huge... and I saw a family order an entire pizza which was even BIGGER than my body - no kidding man. Everything here is seriously life-sized, including the amount of carbos they serve. Anyway, We visited Levi's, Kenneth Cole, Armani, cK, Gap, Coach (mom gladly blew a few hundred dollars), Adidas and Nike (nothing much), Guess, Hugo Boss (too expensive) just to name a few of the MANY MANY shops there. But at the end of the 8 hour shopping marathon, BR still won everything else so we went back to get 2 more of those gorgeous pullovers/jackets which were so nice to touch. I took the chance to grab a few more pieces that I left behind and to use the 15% gift card that we got at GAP. It was awesome.

Four of us chalked up a grand total of about 1k. :D

Levi's was really cheap too and I got a pair of really nice-fitting brown jeans. WHEEE!
THe extra luggage that we brought along is now packed and we're just into our third day. Whoppee. And I seemed to have gotten my family hooked onto Banana Republic. Oh no...
And Gloria, for the first time in her entire life, seems to like shopping.

Ah, I Love wONDERFul, CONSUMERISTIC, CHEAP AmerICA. :)

Coming back was a little nerve-wrecking. It's absolutely stressful being the vehicle commander, keeping an eye on the road since my mom is like a partially blind bat at night and on the GPS system to inform of when to turn. Plus the possibility of running out of gas raised the stress levels. We settled on Taco Bell for dinner since at 10.15 everything was closed. So burritoes and tacos it was.

Another day, another night. Mom snores. REALLY loud. Gloria keeps complaining that she can feel the bed vibrate (they're sharing the same bed).

Okay, time for bed. Church tomorrow and maybe a visit to Chinatown. Maybe even more shopping :D.