Welcome 2011

On New Year's Eve, we joined some friends at the Float @ Marina Bay. The Float consists of half a stadium of seating built on land. These stands face a huge platform floating on the water. The platform has a stage for concerts and events, and just beyond that, a soccer field. Yes, a soccer field floating on the river. Of course it's attached and very solid, so it doesn't drift away or bob up and down. It's quite a sight nonetheless. This floating sports field is a temporary solution until Singapore's national stadium is completed in a few years.

Starting at 7:30 on New Year's Eve, musical acts began playing for an ever-growing crowd at the Float, building up to a huge fireworks display at midnight. The acts were local and regional favorites, like David Tao (huge star from Taiwan), local duo Jack and Rai, and Singapore Idol winner Sezairi Sezali. OK, I've never heard of any of these people, and it seemed like the crowd was only vaguely familiar with them, but they all did covers of some decent songs, and we were a captive audience.

 Spheres floating on the river reflected colored light to give the city skyline a dream-like quality.

The impressive architecture of the Marina Bay Sands Resort looks good in any light.

The clear highlight was the fireworks at midnight.

Without a tripod and a quality camera, it is difficult to take decent photos of fireworks. Luckily, someone videotaped them and uploaded the show to YouTube. Enjoy!



The lowlight of the night was trying to get home. The streets around the area were closed to traffic for the evening, but in order to keep the streets open for emergency traffic (I assume), barricades were placed alongside the streets to keep pedestrians on the sidewalks. This meant tens of thousands of people squeezing past one another and against these unmovable barricades, with completely deserted streets just inches away. Then, at some of the crosswalks, police were not allowing any pedestrians to cross for multiple green lights. However, they neglected to inform the throngs that were building up behind these waiting folks, leaving everyone to keep pressing against one another in what could have been a real nightmare scenario. I hate to think what would have happened if there had been some kind of scare, or if a child had lost a parent's hand, or if someone would have collapsed from heat exhaustion and been trampled. In order to try to avoid all of this congestion, we walked two stations past our original goal, and in the opposite direction of home, just to get into a station and on a train.

Despite all of that, it was a fun evening. I always love fireworks, and since I can see them again on YouTube, that will be my lasting memory of the night. These fireworks did not begin to compare to fireworks I've seen in Osaka, Yamanashi or Kumamoto (the latter two were 4 hour-long competitions), but they helped us ring in a happy 2011.