And what a way to end the Holidays with an awesome 4th of July celebration at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena with a bunch of people from church. It's a great American adventure to experience a true and traditional 4th of July celebration. I have a load of pics from the event.
I think Malaysian Merdeka celebrations ought to be like this. What happens is everyone goes out to a nice public park or venue and just chill the whole day. They bring baseball gloves and footballs and frisbees and volleyball nets and badminton portables and all sorts of stuff to entertain themselves. Then there's the inevitable Barbeque grill set up almost everywhere and the great smell of hotdogs and burgers wafting in the air. People bring their own little blankets to lay on the grass and umbrellas and coolers to keep the afternoon heat at bay. Except for me of course - being the Malaysian I am, I happily walked around in the baking sun (with protection of course) while in my jeans - to which most of the people there gave me nothing but bug eyed or dropped jaw expressions.
It's just so much fun. And it's a whole day thing. Not just some midnight count down - and there's no midnight fireworks by the way... I just thought about it and realised how much sense it made. Why the heck do Malaysians have fireworks on midnight of the 30th/31st? When I asked why the Americans didn't have fireworks on midnight they just replied simply 'the fireworks are on the 4th of July' and it just makes sense. Instead of a bunch of people going to a crowded public location to catch midnight fireworks, and then treading through the traffic until the wee hours of the morning, and getting home only at 3am, people here just have the darn fireworks on the day itself as soon as the sun goes down. Then everyone packs up and leave and we're all home before midnight. That makes so much more sense to me.
So if you're an event organiser for Merdeka day, take my advice and just shoot the darn fireworks at 8pm on the 31st... There's nothing wrong with that. Scrap the stupid parade and let everyone relax in a humongous public park and drink beer. That's more of a celebration. Rather than seeing a bunch of people walk down a road with multi coloured uniforms, singing a dumb song every year that sounds exactly the same as the previous year. (They seriously need to hire some better composers for each Merdeka song every year)
Anyway, without further ado, here are the pictures from my final BIG adventure during the holidays.
So here we are at the Rose Bowl!
And here are some random pics of the surroundings - the crowds of people gathered around the big inflatables, mobile stations of games and bungee thingies and lots and lots of food! And the people with their tents all set up for a day of relaxation and fun!
And here's our spot in the golf course outside the Bowl.
The spot kinda grew larger over the course of the evening as more people came in.
Our view of the Bowl.
So what on earth did we do for the whole afternoon? (we got there at like 4 o'clock, and the fireworks only started and like 9:15) Well, we played volleyball and threw some football around... and ULTIMATE FRISBEE!
Nothing can truly prepare you for the madness that is Ultimate Frisbee. The whole world needs to play this.
Ultimate Frisbee - a sport like no other.
The 'Spot' as it started to get dark.
As you can see, it grew quite a bit.
And now for a bunch of unnecessary pictures of fireworks!
It is of course a stupid and futile attempt to capture fireworks on still pictures.. which is why I have ...
VIDEO!!!
I do apologise for the tilting in the first video.. I totally forgot what it would turn out like when I tilted the camera.. tilt your heads and enjoy.
Since my camera isn't geared for high quality video, the sound is equally crappy and the colour isn't really defined. But imagine the reds and blues and greens 10 times more vivid... an awesome fireworks show.
And here's the aftermath
That's what the sky looked like once it was finished.
And that, my dear friends, is how you end with a BANG!
*THE END*
*roll credits*
-Stay tuned for a real treat in the next update! Cheers!
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