fully autographed album by asere, with a big discount too. it pays to rub shoulders with the artistes 

backstage pass autographed by apache indian, photo with heineken girl. talk about souveniers 

the work of three days 

jose (guajiro) reyes pevez from the cuban group asere. 

Lior!! check it out, thats a handmade maple simon & patrick he's using 

all the way from israel. idan raichel and his manager 

Woo!!!! Apache Indian himself in my left!!! BOOM SHAKALAK!!! 

he plays the sax, he's in apache indian, he gave me an autograph, he took a posed for a pic. and i still don't know his name 

right luke, they're all yours 

its all good clean family fun!..well somewhat anyway 

wa eh si brother brother sia 

meet big nate! 

how cool is this. sax solo from apache indian 

the most unlikely of jewelry sellers. nuryana, rubin and me 

ravibhandu ensemble and drumming legend bill cobham. one of the coolest mashups man 

oh yeah, i believe in fairies 

meet mahawele, all the way from sri lanka 

ok ok i believe in fairies. but this is ridiculous 

luckily, the only things being opened up were pieces of silver jewlery 

india, a land for all...err....contraptions? 

hey i got sloth boy up and out! 

check it out, yn ay and rubin 

wind your body, wiggle your belly

Womad, Womad, Womad. What can I say!??? The sights, the smell of food cooking on open fires, the SOUNDS, the charged festival atmosphere, the people dancing madly as artiste's from all overthe world rocked the placed like it was going out of style.
Pity that most of the people there weren't locals. Its a festival for Singaporeans, by Singaporeans, with Singaporeans. I suppose most people worry that the line up of artistes are virtual unknowns in Singapore and play genres of music most of them have never heard before. But being unknown in Singapore is way different from being unknown the world over. A pity that a group like Apache Indian, famous throughout Britain and more than 10 years old, has to concede defeat to Jay Chou. Or...*shudder*...Britney Spears.
Our taste in music seems to pale in comparison to the ang mohs. Not that I'm being a bigot or something, but damn, some of them planned their holidays in Singapore just to coincide with Womad, or came down here just for the festival. And they're not afraid to listen to new genres of music, listen to the music of groups they're unfamiliar with, and enjoy it. I'd consider it one of the best 26 bucks I've ever spent.
Can't wait till 2006! I'll be doing this till I'm grey!

womad

Trust me to be stuck manning some stall when all these super ultra happening acts were going on around me. All this funky, getcha-moving music was claring in my ears and there I was trying to peddle jewelry for a couple of Sri Lankan guys who basically had no idea of salesmanship whatsoever. So things essentially went:

'Mmm, that one's really very nice. the flower motifs are really pretty.'

Lady gives me look that says:' who the hell is this quasi gay guy trying to pretend to be sri lankan?'

'Oh no thanks, I'm just browsing'


Shame. The jewlery really is quite nice. Pictures tomorrow if I remember my camera.

cha cha cha

23rd August, 2005. A day that will go down.....with me jumping for JOY!!!!! The day I finally pass my driving test! Woo! I'm just frikkin ecstatic now! I've waited so bloody long for this.
And the circumstances I passed under were amazing. Warmup before the test was decidedly less than encouraging. Was one of the worst driving lessons I've ever had. Well other than the ones in army when I first learnt how to drive and had the instructor threatening to kick me out of the jeep and leave me at the bus stop. Anyway, this particular lesson had my instructor shaking his head and proclaiming my imminent failure. Not exactly the thing to get you all in a tizzy about. As if to understate my unsurprising gloom at this bleak forecast, it started raining like it was going out of style. The only encouraging thing I had to hold on to was that, at least according to my instructor, the testers for today were all really lenient ones.
When I got in the car however, I realised that the rain actually ensured there would be next to zero pedestrians out braving the downpour, not the ones who had anything better to do than get wet anyway. And it gave me an excuse to drive like a crippled turtle taking sloth lessons. So the circuit went beautifully, and somehow the instructor (lets assume he forgot) forgot about the 'S' course and brought me out to the road after I completed those obstacles that didn't slip his mind. Heres where it gets truly amazing. We hit the road and somehow or other, the traffic lights at the first junction we hit, are spoilt! Tester frowns and motions for me to proceed. And lo and behold, it turns out the traffic lights along the entire Teck Whye road are on the blink! Tester starts muttering to himself and then asks me to head back to BBDC. I spent a grand total of 7 minutes outside of the driving centre. The very first person to make it back to the briefing room where I was scared as hell cause the first people who make it back to the room are almost never the ones leaving with smiles. We sit at the table and he penalises me for not slowing down at the spoilt traffic light.....and thats it! Other than the regulatory failures to check blindspot and all, he lets me off with 18 points!!!! I held my breath so long I started feeling dizzy. WOOHOO!!!! FIRST TIME!!!
If only my dad would fulfil my other wish and get me a Mazda MX-5.....

pain. god it hurts 

what, you mean there's more? 

even my number tag couldn't keep up