Today started real slow. Got up… I don’t know when, had breakfast at the hostel and just chatted with the other guests staying at River City Inn.
I only stepped out in the afternoon to meet up with my friend Aimee and her fiance for lunch. After much pondering, we sat down at a seafood restaurant on Boat Quay.
It was a nice lazy lunch as I was in no hurry to enter the F1 circuit and didn’t care much for collecting today’s Fanzone passes like I did yesterday. I felt relaxed with tummy full and sipping on chilled beer. Well, relaxed until the bill came. I knew the chilli crab was pricey but I was willing to pay for it beforehand. The fish you see above cost SG$88 (Rs. 3,400) — which we felt was a ripoff as it wasn’t even that tasty! It was the price we had to pay for making the mistake of not finding out the cost before ordering.
Alas, we paid our SG$300 (Rs. 11k/$240/€180) bill — the most expensive meal I’ve had on this trip so far.
I parted ways with Aimee and her fiance, and made my way in to the F1 circuit.
It was 4:30pm, but I still walked straight to the Padang grounds to see if the Fanzone passes were still available.
Trouble is, I didn’t know what to do to pass time now. There was nothing on the schedule for Zone 4 I was very keen on witnessing, except for the Rick Astley gig.
Rick Astley ended his concert with the song everybody knew (okay, some still didn’t — they probably don’t spend too much time on the internet I presume). He even brought on a special guest for “Never Gonna Give You Up”…
(You can watch the final performance of Rick Astley’s set here)
It was a fun concert. Rick Astley knew the cheesiness of his 80’s pop music in today’s times but he didn’t mind indulging in the campiness of it all. After the concert, as I packed my bags, there were many middle-aged women in the audience who all spoke of how young they suddenly felt seeing their teenage idol perform. Rick Astley was a nice addition to the Singapore GP’s entertainment line-up.
Here’s a brief video I took:
I was pretty close to him and I just wanted to shake Rick Astley’s hand and tell him he still sounded amazing, but there were more ‘real fans’ eager to have a few seconds with him, so I stepped back, let them take my place and I walked back to the F1 circuit.
As I took the escalator down to the basement parking, I saw a familiar looking man taking a photo of a blonde woman posing with one of the security men.
As Shakira left the stage, her latest hit “Rabiosa” came on the speakers — which sucked, because I expected her to perform it, in either English or Spanish! She didn’t perform many other hits like “Did It Again” or “Objection (Tango),” so it wasn’t a full fledged concert. Who knows, maybe Shakira had to be at some other event.
The experience in the F1 car simulator was alright. You go around the Singapore Grand Prix track and experience the bumps, the breaking and the jerks that one experiences (when you drive badly :P).
For someone who ranks witnessing the Rio Carnival pretty high on his travel wishlist, it was a good experience to see real samba dancing in all its exotica. It’s like the organizers didn’t want to leave anything out as far as world-class entertainment went!
I had dinner from the circuit itself and went back to the Padang grounds for the final act in Saturday’s concert line-up.
Tomorrow was going to be the big day — the Sunday race, and Linkin Park!