Bah, is that the sound a goat makes?

I called the night a little earlier on Friday so I could have plenty of rest for my first job in a while. The new Bayfront MRT station was opening and there was to be a big celebration, myself and a number of other models were the attraction.  As celebrations for Chinese New Year begins, we were made up to be signs of the Zodiac.

I posted a behind the scenes picture on Facebook. I think the general consensus was SCARY! I know Mom for sure felt that way. The artistic direction was Dave Navarro for make-up. I couldn’t believe how few people know who Dave Navarro is, then again I can probably name a few people back home that don’t either. Think Jane’s Addiction, or he was dating Carmen Electra for a bit.  

After 2 hours of preparation and fixing my hair to 3 or 4 different styles the even was beginning. For the next couple hours, we all stood there taking pictures with people. You would not believe the queue (that’s what they always call lines here) easily 300-400 people lined up at all times to get free stuff and a picture with their Zodiac. The dragon was very popular too as we are entering the year of the dragon. I didn’t have my cell phone on hand so I couldn’t take pictures of all of us. Although I am sure I will receive some digitals from the event coordinator and photographer as we provided email addresses for them.

Here is a quick one of me once we finished:

I have never had this much makeup on in my life; as a result I wouldn’t exactly say I was prepared to take it off. Turns out wet naps and towels can only do so much. Especially eye liner! I am so glad to not wear make up regularly. Fortunately after the event, and a quick gym session, I was heading to Catherine’s for a dinner party and she would have make up remover.

Looking like I had 2 black eyes, I tossed on my shades and headed onto the MRT. Having trouble seeing on the train with glasses on I decided to take them off. When I met up with Bernie to head the rest of the way she immediately spotted all the makeup. She said it looked good, but I certainly didn’t feel comfortable with it all on. The first stop at Catherine’s was to do my makeup/ get it off.

The first time at Catherine’s I couldn’t eat the pizza they had prepared. But in our advanced planning and by me actually informing them this time, rice pasta salad was made and mmm a tuna steak. It was all-delicious!

From Catherine’s the 7 of us headed to their favourite bar Mogumbo’s. I quite enjoyed this place, it wasn’t extremely loud like Attica or LeNoir and they played music I enjoyed. As a result I lost my voice trying to sing, it’s still a little dry right now. It’s either that or I might be getting a little sick.

Have you ever seen a fly wearing a tie?

 Down by the bay. Tuesday was to be an interesting evening. The plan was to meet up with Robyn after work and go on a tour of the marina bay sands followed by an exhilarating game of badminton.  As most days go I didn’t get up to much in the earlier parts of the day.

With that said flash forward to about 6. The two of us met up in the mall part and then headed to the hotel. En route I pulled out my trusty smartphone and decided I wanted to learn more about MBS.  Like it has the world’s longest elevated pool or that it holds 2500 rooms. Not to mention it just looks awesome too. 

After making our way to the lobby, we headed to the Skypark, up here was the renowned pool, 2 restaurants, a club and an overhanging observation deck. Pictures over words, here you go:

Making out way through the hotel after this we stopped at the chairman’s suite. This is a step above the presidential. The crème de la crème. This room was incredible, 4 bedrooms, a private gym with sauna and steam room, pool table, baby grand piano, you name it. And to top it off, a karaoke room!

Time for some good ole fashioned butt kicking on the badminton court. Not quite of course. It was a fun time though. The MBS puts on badminton night for its staff in one of the convention centres when it isn’t booked. I met a number of Robyn’s co-worker friends and had a few awesome games. I still don’t know which is my dominant hand, but like squash I used my left hand.

Feeling hungry after 2 hours of badminton, we grabbed some food in the food hall. I ordered something that sounded disgusting in theory, but I think was a result of poor translation. Ready for it: Chicken and Black fungus rice. It was a chicken dish with black mushrooms, but it was served in this cool bowl with once again too much rice for me.

A fun time and a complete adventure, just what the doctor ordered.

That’s It, Next time I seduce the rich guy

 I really need to keep up with these posts. I say this every time lately. Sunday was another one of those days that I thought to be rather uneventful, but we picked it up and had a grand time.

After posting on my Facebook my desires to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Deb contacted me and let me know that she had complimentary tickets. Score. To this point I had never seen a movie in another country so was actually quite curious about what the experience would be like. This venue was set to be the Grand Cathay Theatres (I may have added grand for dramatic effect). I arrived early to ensure I wouldn’t be lost, naturally.

While walking around the mall I spotted this big white ball. I remembered what my conversation with Mags, was about these white balls. They were to be set adrift in the middle of the Marina Bay and lit up right at midnight on NYE. Your mission should you choose to accept, is to write down your NYE wish, and that I did. I took a picture and was going to post this, but then I remembered that you aren’t supposed to share your wishes as this prevents the glory of magic from actually occurring.  Cool concept anyway though.

In what seemed to be the elevator ride from hell, where it goes down, then up then down then stops on every floor leading to the fifth we made it to our screen. The biggest of them all, big plush seats, carpeted everywhere and the big red curtain hiding the screen. The only huge difference is that theatres here have assigned seating. O and the mandarin subtitles throughout the movie. To be honest though, you don’t notice it after the first 5 minutes. Mission Impossible was good, a little predictable at times, but solid entertainment for a testosterone fill being.

After the movie Deb and I grabbed a bite to eat. I had Umami or eel, which was very meat like I must say, the way it was prepared was nothing out of this world, but satisfying to say the least.

Deb was invited to a house warming and brought me along. This was a great opportunity to meet new people, and that I did. Most of the people at the house warming worked at the Marina Bay Sands and originally came from the US.  And while I hate to be called American myself, I do enjoy running into my fellow North American brothers and sisters. 

This was one of the first times I had an opportunity to chat about hockey with anyone. On that note UFC as well. I discovered there is a MMA gym in Singapore, and decided to check it out later. I also now have a venue to watch the next set of fights, so I no longer need to panic to find it online again.

We had a few drinks, some BBQing, a few rounds of pool and a few games of Rockband. I met a fellow Canadian while I was there as well. He was from Toronto which kind of sucks, but hey he is Canadian so it’s a start. It’s amazing how when you meet someone so close to where you are from (relatively of course) you almost feel like family. It holds true for the people I met at Internations.

Later on in the evening of the their buddies showed up in an Aston Martin V12 Vantage. I became weak in the knees when she purred into the driveway. Randomly his date for the night was one of the models from the Renee L launch on Thursday. Small world I must say.

Splish splash

 Saturday was what I expected to be a very low-key day. I have come to the decision that I am a very lucky guy as things have been popping up for me to experience.  I am so thankful for this opportunity to come to Singapore, for the people I have met and the new things I come across.

I took a walk to the Alexandra hawker centre, enjoyed a Thai dish. I have really been digging Thai since I had the pad Thai last week. Although this time it was a fried Vermicelli Dish. I proceeded to head home and made a last minute decision to pick up some carrots and snow peas. As luck would have it, I came across a kid’s magic show, by D’Amazing Bosco. I couldn’t help but smile and be entertained by this. 

Shortly after getting home, one of my new friends from Internations texted me. Mags from Ireland invited me to come check out the Marina Bay Sands water and lights show. I didn’t even know this existed. To be completely honest I just wanted to go to bed. Adventure doesn’t come to those who sit and wait though, so I took Mags and her mate up on the offer and it was incredible.

I had to take off right after the show and caught the last train home. The plan for Sunday was to meet Rafa and play some basketball. The MRT planned things differently though; the MRT didn’t start until 10 on Sunday due to maintanence. I was supposed to meet Rafa at 8:45, so another time. 

Picture and brain overload! O and video too! 

White people can’t tolerate the heat

 Sorry I couldn’t treat you with 2 posts today, but it was a very long day. As I had mentioned in the previous couple posts, I got the gig for the corporate video and it was expected to be 10-12 hours of “work”. 

Today wasn’t too bad of a start; I needed to be at the Marina Bay area for 10am start time. A quick jump on the train and I am there in less than 30. We were told to meet at #11. Well folks, if you get told to find #11 good luck! There is no address signage for there because well we were actually in a big field overlooking downtown and the Marina Bay sands. After wandering around aimlessly for 5 or 10 minutes I found it. Actually very hard to miss, this was a much bigger production than I expected. Easily 50-60 extras, and 6 of us featured extras.

Shortly after my arrival, with carry on case full of close, I was assigned one of my long sleeve t-shirts and jeans to wear for the day. This entire shoot was to be done outside, in 30-degree weather, that’s the temperature before the humidity so closer to 50 today.

An Aussie woman and myself were to be a couple for some of the shooting. I can’t for the life of me remember her name, but she was wonderful to work with. Very easy for the two of us to chat, I was excited for her and her twin 9-month-old boys. Makes it very easy to smile when you think about that. We were the first set of people filming. The orders were very simple, walk up to the cooking counter, talk with the chef, point at a few things, and receive bowls and walk away smiling.  While doing that they needed extra’s just strolling in the fairgrounds around us. It took a while for the extra’s to look normal in the background so we had to do maybe 5 or 6 takes. A couple different positions for hand-offs etc. This wasn’t to bad, but waiting for things between takes was ridiculous. It was very hot and humid out so I was sweating like a mad man. They put some make up on my face so I wouldn’t be so shiny from sweat. At this point I was feeling like a prince. I had one assistant dabbing my forehead and neck of sweat, with another one waving a hand fan for me. 

 

After that we just hung out for a bit in the shade, while 2 other models filmed stuff with t-shirts. The following part was cool and I hope the pictures turned out. Waiting for them to develop. The goal was to make the big field look like a carnival, so we all had to walk around with balloons, check out the stands and have fun. This was easy as Geri; the girl from South Africa was also there today. Her and I and the Aussie just hung out and checked out things. After who knows how long of doing this, on a count of three we all released balloons. I thought this was interesting as littering in Singapore is a $1000 fine. I reconciled that it’s not littering until it hits the ground, likely miles away. We did a second shoot of the same thing again.

Next up were myself and my girlfriend for the day. I wonder about continuity of the shoot, she had her wedding ring on the entire time and me well, no ring for me. I don’t think they noticed though. Back on task. We were sitting down at a table just hanging out and eating food. Sorry no pic as this was working. The cuisine was delicious and looked incredible as well. Black rice with mixed vegetables and chili beef, or chicken dishes or pork dishes and tofu as well, all incredible.  It was funny too as we were expected to use our chopsticks. I am starting to get a handle on them. Another week or two and I will be snapping a fly out of the air. 

Shortly after finishing these shots, darkness set over the sky, one that would not lift for almost 4 hours. The Aussie and I hurried back to the tents and set up camp. It rained, and then rained some more, then it drizzled, then cats and dogs fell from the sky, you catch my drift. Geri and I chatted quite a bit, where she is living right now there are a lot of beautiful cars in the garage. This conversation was all sparked by our heads turning every time a Maserati, or Ferrari or Lambo zoomed by. Cooped up under the tent it was uncomfortable, sweaty and boring.  But we all survived.

While under the tent I received a text from my agent regarding tomorrow’s gig. We are meeting at a hotel restaurant at 8:45 sharp. Geri got the gig too, so we are meeting at the MRT station then rolling in together. Thankfully, the only thing I need to pack is my black shoes. So flip flops and shorts for tomorrow.

While waiting for the rain to stop, I took my time to chat with one of the women responsible for getting me the job. We had an awesome conversation about food. Singaporean’s love their food.  She recommended a few really good hawker stations and some dishes that are a must to try. My newton station experience the night before she said was nothing on what I can get at a few other places. She was surprised I like the hawker food, as most white people can’t tolerate the hot flavor. Another great conversation, people are so friendly here. As usual, networking. If they are looking for a Caucasian male for a role in something, I just might pop into mind.

Finally after the rain let up, we resume shooting. Only one more thing left, a movie theatre type thing. A big screen was set up, chairs were in place and extras were lined up. Well all except the 6 of us. We were assigned specific seats as couple’s all relatively close to each other. On the screen they put up a trailer for a Korean film, based on WW2. It was funny though that the actors were portraying Russians and they were Asian.  This whole scene took about an hour and a half maybe 2 hours. Many extras struggled to look normal when the camera was that much closer to them. There was one extra that did awesome at getting some of the others to loosen up which was great.

Finally, what I had been waiting to hear all day. IT’S A WRAP. The day was over.

As I rolled out I made sure to thank everyone that had helped along the way. If I remotely had contact with anyone I wanted to express my gratitude. There was an American fellow who was directing people what to do. He was awesome with the food shots earlier and funny with the popcorn/theatre thing. I chatted with him for a little bit about football, we are going to go grab beers before my time is up here. He also expressed that they were very happy with my performance and attitude and that if another role comes up he would give me a shout. Thumbs up!

It was now 8pm I was tired and a little hungry. Lunch was provided and Geri shared her chicken with me so I could have a “man’s portion” and she didn’t like the chicken (rightfully so, it was very almost wet). I had a few granola bars packed with me and drank a ton of water. Ah that reminds me I forgot my 1.5 L bottle there, it was empty and I bet it got recycled (don’t worry it was just a normal bottled water bottle). I stopped by a place called Asian kitchen and splurged on dinner, full service sit down kind of dinner. I ordered this beef (the menu mentioned frank Sinatra in it) and rice and paid $9. It was awesome, another epic meal. Do I have low standards or is the food really that good here. North American food can be so plain and boring, here they are so adventurous with spices and everything is hot. Not unbearable hot but Zach loves kind of hot. 

I finally made it home shortly before 9, exactly 12 hours after I left in the morning. My first stop was to my room to grab my swimsuit and then half hour in the pool. Tonight I did a few laps, did some of the P90x stuff in the water and added something new. Wide claps under water, this just killed my chest. The harder you push the greater the resistance, it was awesome.

Good night everyone, another long day is ahead tomorrow. 

And look another Gecko. Same Place again today.