Back from the beach!

And so the missus & I took a break from work/performance/cats/KL and went to Patong beach in Phuket.

I shall not blog much about it, since most of the time was spent eating the oh-so-expensive food there. Instead I shall just share some photos I took. For more pics you can head on to the missus' blog, by the way.


First, I really don't understand how one can give such a discount:

We went for Thai massage twice at this nice little place which was conveniently situated directly across the road from our hotel. The place is called Sweet Lemongrass Massage.

This is where we stayed for  4 days- Seeka Boutique Resort. Quite convenient since they provide free transportation to the beach or the main shopping mall Jungceylon Shopping Mall.

The reception desk.

Another shot of Sweet Lemongrass Massage, at night. I do recommend this if you stay nearby. It's got great ambiance.

The beach in the evening...

Traffic is quite heavy most of the time.

This is the famous Bangla Road, where all the pubs are located. The road is closed to vehicles daily from 6pm.

Jungceylon Shopping Mall. I wonder why bother shopping there...

If anyone wants to buy some genuine imitation clothes in Patong, this is the place to go.

Interestingly, there is a bar on wheels.

We had our last dinner in Patong at Hard Rock Cafe. IMHO, the place is just overpriced.

In case you couldn't see it in the earlier picture, the place to go shopping in Patong is the OTOP Shopping Paradise.

Note: If you go to this restaurant, they will "paksa" to eat.

The pool at our hotel.

Yes, you can rent motorcycles & even big vehicles!

The beautiful beach: no sign of the damages made by the tsunami in 2004.

What language is this? Saw a lot of signs in this language over there.

We took the bus from Patong to Phuket Town bus terminal for 35 baht each. Then we hopped on the Airport bus for 90 baht each to the airport. The expensive alternative would be taking a taxi from Patong to the airport for 700 baht.

Anyhow, it allowed us to spend a few hours walking around Phuket town. To be honest, Phuket town is SO QUIET. Good thing, though, that the food is so much cheaper.

The Phad Thai is only 40 baht. Good luck finding food that cheap in Patong. Even the sweet coconuts there cost 50-60 baht.

We also chanced upon this fashion expo near the bus terminal. With more options & better pricing, I reckon tourists should just forget about shopping in Patong & come to Phuket town instead.

We spent about 2 hours in town before we took the bus to the airport.

Next holiday destination: SYDNEY 2013!!!!

We won big... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Short + Sweet Musical just ended last night and sadly I did not get to see any of the performances live. But I was delighted to hear the fantastic news from Pentas 2 that our musical was the biggest winner in the festival, sweeping 7 awards, including best overall production & best director!

Kudos to the cast & crew for their efforts. In all honesty, their creative input helped to make our script better and I am still smiling from the big win!

Below are the pictures taken by Dustyhawk during one of the performances. scroll to the bottom for the video:)

The cast, directors & the musicians!!!!

Thank you S+S Malaysia 2012... next: S+S Malaysia 2013!!!

S+S Musical 2012

Last year I managed to take part in Short + Sweet Musical & Theatre. Initially I was planning to participate again as performer in S+S Musical & try directing in S+S Theatre, but due to my commitment to Dama Orchestra's Empress Wu. I still hope to at least try directing next year. In the mean time, I am pleased that my collaboration with wifey has resulted in our participation in this year's S+S Musical as lyricists & composers instead:)

Basically it's a very simple story of a family awaiting the return of the son from his studies abroad, and the surprise they got when the son comes home looking a little different. Probably just like me when I returned home from my studies with a blonde hair. Only thing is, the family in the musical are chinese vampires.

We were give a preview of how the songs would sound like last Monday and it was really hilarious! It also feels great to see your writing come to life. The sad part is I won't be able to see the final product live as Empress Wu starts its run a day after S+S Musical begins.

Ah Pa(Freddy Tan, also the director) & Ah Ma(Anrie Too)

Ah Girl(Lynn Goh- we rewrote the musical to include a daughter just for her)

S+S Musical starts Wed 26 Sept and the last show is on Sat 29 Sept, and the last show will be the results show as well. I do hope our submission will win some awards. If you are free, do go support S+S Musical. There will be 6 10-min musical competing and ours is the last piece. You get to vote for your favourite musical and the piece with the highest number of votes will win the Audience Choice Award.

Go to our FB event page for more information!

An Epic Musical not to be missed!

We are 3 weeks away from entering Pentas 1 of klpac, and mind you, it's been one epic journey.

Wifey & I are performance in our 2nd consecutive musicals(first one being Dec 2011's Malaysian Girls) and it is really exciting working with Dama Orchestra.They set their expectations quite high and it seems to me that they are really afraid to let their audience down. All this while, we have heard a lot of good things about them from both audience & performers and now we can understand why.

Did you know that they hired not 1 but 2 dialect teachers for this musical? One for English, and another for Mandarin. Our dialogues are in English but our songs are in Mandarin. Also, we have to pronounce the names of places & people according to the Chinese tones. They want to make sure that our pronunciation is accurate.

Other than that, we have our choreographer who taught us on Tang dynasty mannerism & gestures. Also, apparently our costume designer went to China to do some research and hand made all our costumes for the show. Talk about being detailed!

The songs sound great, and I especially like the battle songs because it really sets the mood, thanks to the excellent musical arrangement.

We are performing 25 shows but 18 shows have already been bought by various organizations. Do try to catch us in one of the 7 public shows. We may add more public shows but it's not confirmed yet. For information of the show dates &  time, please go to the FB event page here.

Hope to see some familiar faces at the lobby after the show:)