Lightheaded and weak

I am feeling lightheaded and week everyday in this past week. I am not sure if this is due to hypotension (because I am still recovering from blood donation last Sunday), hypoglycemia, or I am simply unwell. I still could go to gym without fainting or feeling giddy though.

My concern about hypoglycemia may be unfounded too. I just started replacing my breakfast from 2 pieces of bread to 2 pieces of banana and my dinner from L-men cereal to red dragon fruit. I checked online that 1 banana contains about 100kcal so that is comparable to my bread previously. I just hope it is just a matter of time for my body to adapt and next week will be alright.

Because of the lightheadedneess, I had McD for dinner twice last week. For the first one, I decided to only try the new Hersheys McFlurry. On the second one, I got Hersheys Sundae and the new menu Crispy Fish Sandwich. On Saturday, I also had Fatburger at Novena which has been tempting me every time I walk pass it on Saturdays. I think it is a more worth it than McD haha.. I would not mind trying it again especially for the hotdog and the multiple patties.

I moved Sagitarius Aiolos' box to storage space in order to make space for Cancer Deathmask. I think I still have space for 2 more Tsume statues before I run out of my storage space. It is still quite a long way to go. I ordered Deathmask in late 2017 and it only arrives now almost 2 years later. There has not been any further Saint Seiya announcement from Tsume. By the time they announce something, it will be another 2-3 years until the release. Hahaha.. Oh ya but maybe because I skipped Athena HQS+ which I think is too big and the rest of the statues are only HQS.

Still plenty of space lol

One funny thing that happened this week is when my boss shared her dream of me asking for a marriage leave. That dream is so far of from reality but I suppose if it happens in the dream, I may have a chance in real life too.

I went to a talk titled "Can I go heaven without Mass?" on Thursday. Although I do not get the answer that I want to hear, it serves as good remember why I need to attend Mass. Oops wrong! I should say celebrate Mass instead of attend Mass as what was shared in previous talk last week. The focus is on God and not on me. I should not be expecting to get 'things' in return as the purpose to be present for God. After all, the Mass is the way of worship that Jesus wants, has instructed, and has revealed during the Last Supper. Another thing I learn is that the offertory is not only to offer my money but also to offer my whole life with the goods and the bads.

There are 10 reasons shared by Father and of course I cannot remember all. Haha.. Nevertheless, no matter how hardened my heart is, there is one reason that I can never deny. I need to celebrate Mass simply because I am a sinner. This does not remove the need for confession because while we can get forgiveness when we ask for it, only confession can absolve the sins. To put it more crudely, if I don't go for confession, I am just a forgiven sinner but I am still a sinner.

Things are easier said than done because after the Mass today, I felt so sian because somehow the choir was changing all the songs to the boring versions. Hoooo... Reminder that it is for God, and not for me.

Vision in life

Work overseas trip is usually tiring so I am very happy that this latest trip has been the least tiring. I managed to do all the appraisal and I do not have any outstanding homework to do. Hehe.. In fact, I don't mind to travel again for year-end appraisal since it is much easier and fruitful to do appraisal face-to-face instead of through internet calls. The ability to see people's response and body language is priceless and very important.

I enjoyed the flight back since the new B787-10 plane feels more spacious. I did not manage to sleep thanks to the asshole in front of me who leaned back to the maximum. Plane makers should seriously limit the leaning back angle since there are plenty inconsiderate fucking assholes around. I continued Fall in Love at First Kiss and then watched a Japanese movie Cheer Boys!! (yes there are 2 exclamation marks). Separate posts on the movies later on.

I was considering to go to the gym but I succumbed to sleep in the end. Luckily in the evening, I successfully fought the laziness and attended parish formation talk with the title the Mass is Boring. Thank God it was quite a fruitful session and I come back with new perspective and appreciation of the Mass. Some information are not new as I think I have learnt them before during RCIY which obviously I have forgotten now since I have not been a good Catholic.

I want to be patient and positive but I think I need to rant about my current boss. Haiz.. This is the second time in the past month that I feel very irritated. If you want something to be done your way, you might as well say. Don't expect others to think like you do or know what you want. Then when they don't ask or they have different ideas, you get angry with them. Ridiculous leh. I need to relax and be patient myself since I know she can be moody anyways. As long as I am not the direct target of her unhappiness, I shall just be patient.

My lower back, my shoulders, and my neck are becoming my weak points preventing me to exercise as regularly as I would like to. I don't know if I injured myself of if I am doing the movements wrongly. One thing for sure, I am not going to push myself hard and I will just aim alternate day exercise just to make sure that I am not being sedentary. My gym membership is ending soon and after that I need to decide what to do next :( Sad. I am actually okay to go gym regularly but no my body does not seem to allow it.

Yesterday I had a random encounter at church which troubled me a bit. I wanted to buy a book that was being promoted so I asked the price to one person. Suddenly the person next to him (not the one I was talking to) asked me a random question "Are you also asking questions about your vision in life?". I was stunned and asked him back what was his random question all about. He simply replied "Don't worry. You will get your answer soon.".

Wow.. many questions were triggered in my mind. Is this some divine message from God? Is my emo-ness and lack of energy to live that obvious? Am I going to die soon since that what I have been thinking of (but now come to think of it, I feel a bit scared)? Or am I going to find a girlfriend soon? I am also anxious thinking about what if I am called to a religious life instead? No point thinking much about this and I will just keep myself open to whatever God has in place with me.

My blood donation was supposed to be on Wednesday but because of my trip, I only managed to do it today. I think it turned out to be a blessing in disguise since it is actually a nice Sunday routine to go for morning mass, gym, and then blood donation. It was not too busy at 10am and the staff were pretty chatty. I learnt that they are also affected by the haze since when the PSI crosses 100, they will have to decline the younger donors as they need to ensure the younger donors remain healthy first. It was my third donation this year so I received a T-shirt souvenir. Woah.. my initial thought was Red Cross is very rich to give T-shirt as souvenir but then I realised if people are wearing the T-shirt, it will help to spread the message and promote blood donation to the public. That is quite an effective advertising. While the design is not that wow, I am okay to wear the T-shirt outside if not because of the tag line at the back of the T-shirt: 3 donations = 9 lives saved. I am okay to promote blood donation but to show off (that I have made 3 donations) is a turn off -_-" Haha but perhaps that is just my own thinking since other people will not know if that tag line means I have donated 3 times this year. Lol.

Kingdom

The first time I know about Kingdom is from their figures (Figuarts ZERO). They were discounted so I was tempted to buy. In the end I never bought any of the figures or checked out the manga because I am not a fan of the art style. I am aware of the movie when I saw some promotional materials during my trip to Japan this April. I wanted to watch it, despite not knowing anything about it, because historical war movie like this should be quite exciting. Too bad I missed it as it was released on the same week when I had to travel to Manila in June. It comes to a full circle now that I watched it on my flight to Manila last Sunday.

I find lack of originality with the plot: two war orphans dreaming of getting out of poverty by joining military, one gets chosen (unknowingly as a double for the king due to their physical similarities) and ends up dying due to some palace intrigues and this causes his to avenge, the friend ends up helping the dethroned king to claim back the throne, the king getting help from hidden tribe which used to be old ally of the kingdom but was betrayed. It feels like a mix and match of plots of various manga/anime/movie previously. I guess it is sort of unavoidable for a story based on war and history.

Kingdom is based on the story of Qin dynasty which unified China. Some of the characters are based on historical characters but with Japanese name. Shin is Li Xin and Eisei is based on Qin Shi Huang. The movie ends with Eisei returning to claim his rightful throne. I googled and found out that the manga is still ongoing and is currently at volume 55. Wow.. I guess the manga really continues all the way until the Qin dynasty is established.

After watching, I don't find the movie that exciting but I also don't regret spending time watching it. But one thing for sure, it still does not pique my interest to check out the manga. Hahaha...

Cannot swim

I woke up on Saturday morning to prepare myself for Novena, gym, and packing for my trip. Everything changed because of another bloody cockroach in my room. It is a second one in a week and it was a wake up call to thoroughly clean my room. There may be a nest or an unrealized food waste somewhere. I removed all the boxes under my bed and tadaa… the culprit is actually the luggages under the bed. One had small black things which I presumed to be the eggs and the other had another cockroach at the underside. Even when I dragged the luggage out to the living room to have more space for cleaning, the cockroach still comfortably hanging on to it and I only saw it when I flipped over the luggage to clean the underside.

I still managed to go for Novena but I skipped gym altogether since I felt my right shoulder did not feel fully alright. I asked my landlady about what I thought to be cockroach repellant. It turns out to be cockroach bait. Haiz.. It will actually INVITE cockroach to eat the bait, bring it to the nest, and die. Apparently this shit creature aptly eats one another shit so they will die together as the poison from the bait will still be in the shit. The thought of inviting cockroach just disgusts me so I am not putting this inside my room. I put it outside my room near the door since I assume that the cockroach usually comes from kitchen. Looks like no matter how clean I am, I should really stop eating in my room. When I cut nail, I should also make sure there is no missing cut nails that I don't throw because I found 3 pieces under the luggage near the cockroaches so they maybe eating my nails. Yucks..

I went to my usual 7am Sunday mass and after that I was in a dilemma between going to J8 to get shumais or straight away going home to prepare for going airport. I ended up walking around to catch pokemons, rushed with my final packing, and missed my tweezers. Sian..

To satisfy my craving for shumais, I had brunch at the airport with plain la mian and fried dumplings. After internal battle of desire with McD, shumais won. Haha.. I was thirsty and suddenly craved for bubble tea. It seems that the only place untouched by bubble teas is within Changi Airport terminals. The adventure to find bubble tea made me explored exciting corners at T2. The movie theatre is sufficiently dark with theatre seats so it not an exaggeration to have named movie theatre. There is a gaming room and there are retro gaming machines. I only played one game of Marvel vs Capcom and I lost. I could not trigger any of the special moves and there were other people around so I did not dare to mash buttons as aggressively as I wanted. Nonetheless, I still felt the shiokness of arcade gaming and if I fly from T2 again in the future, I will definitely spend time here if I have time to kill.

The flight was quite bumpy but on SQ, I have nothing to complain. B777-200 is an old plane but it really does not feel so. It definitely still feels much more comfortable that PAL or budget airline planes. The in-flight entertainment was not automatically turned on so I thought it was not working until about an hour of the flight. There are so many amazing movie choices (e.g. Aladdin, Avengers Endgame) that makes a short flight rather disappointing haha.. I ended up watching Kingdom, which I missed when it was playing in limited cinema in Singapore, and halfway through a Taiwanese romcom Fall in Love at First Kiss.

It has been rainy here in Manila and although it is not super heavy rain that will drench me under umbrella, I am irritated because the rain makes me unable to swim until now. I specially bought a swimming trunks ($5) and a swimming jammer ($15) for this trip and I will be very upset if I cannot try if they are good. Thank God the rain has stopped tonight and I finally got to try to swim. Sadly I have to just accept the fact that I cannot swim. One stroke of freestyle or three strokes of breaststroke is the maximum that I can do. If only life is like video game: just equip the gear (swimming trunks) and you get the ability (can swim). Haiz..

Although initially I felt a bit 'duh' for this trip, I have to admit that it was a good call to come. It is tiring but it is still better to do appraisal face-to-face. At least I get to see the faces of the people I am talking to and I am able to see their body language as part of their responses. I can't imagine doing this online and talking to telephone and computer for 3 days. And since the main activity is just doing appraisal, there is no other thing to do and I get to rest in the evening. Hehe..

Today also happens to be 1 year since I started on this new job. Thank God for this opportunity and for all the people in my current work that makes work not shitty like my previous job. Yay!

Mental breakdown

My whole day is ruined just because of one fucking cockroach this morning. It was initially near my boxes and when I sprayed Baygon, it disappeared and I thought it went hiding under my bed. I moved some of the boxes and I could not find it. What a nasty surprise when I saw a cockroach on my table running around contaminating my glass, my water bottles, my stationery, my bread, etc. If it was on the floor, I had no problem liberally spraying Baygon but I could not do on my desk. I sprayed a bit inside my pencil case before it finally fell down to the floor. Sigh..

I can imagine how scary it is for people who have panic attack or OCD because I was literally on the brink of both. My heart was palpitating like crazy as I was watching at the cockroach. Even after it was dead and I had to pick it up to throw it, I was honestly freaking scared. The OCD part came when I thought what other things could the cockroach stepped on and contaminated before I saw. I threw my bread and I washed my glass and water bottles that I saw the cockroach came into contact. I threw away my toothbrush and washed my retainer that I was not sure if the cockroach contaminated. That was all I could do. I felt so disturbed if I should wash my pencil case and the stationery that I sprayed the Baygon as I am a clean freak. The thought of the germs that the cockroach brought around and I did not clean away is really disturbing. Until now that I am writing this, I feel very wary when I see small black things as I keep remembering the cockroach. The scariest thought of all is if that cockroach that I killed was a different one from the one that I saw initially on the floor and the other one is still somewhere in my room. I think I am really going crazy with all these irrational thoughts. Gosh..

God why did you create cockroach? And worse, you said "It is all good" at the end of your creation. How the hell a cockroach is good? I can only pray now that I am not scarred and end up needing mental attention because of one bloody cockroach.

Today was the first time I tried eating mala since the new store near my office finally opened. I am avoiding chili as much and they have non-spicy option. Otherwise I would not eat. I think mala is just a very oily and very expensive yong tau foo. I am okay but I am not a fan.

I went to gym and I decided to treat myself with a shake to celebrate my return. Lol. Basically my diet plan entirely failed in the evening so far. Yesterday I ate a portion of fried yong tau foo and pasta during Landings. I know how it feels if people cannot finish the food that I bring so even though I was full, I should just eat so that I don't subject others to what I don't like to be subjected.

There is no cure for the proud's man malady

The Gospel reading from last Sunday has been haunting me since last week as it accurately describes and addresses what I am feeling lately. Pride breeds envy and self-entitlement which subsequently brings about ungratefulness for the things on hand as you aspire to have more. Realising and acknowledging the issue is one thing but I still cannot get over it even with prayers. Gosh..

Yesterday was the wedding of my ex-prereg and that is a reminder of how childish I am. I am so old and yet I still don't think much about my future. Just YOLO and enjoy life now. I am happy for his wedding and his wife and kids will be so lucky because nice guy like him is rare. Attending the wedding brought me back to my ex-colleagues which reminded me all the shit with my previous job.

I cannot help but feel the hatred over all the injustice. I suffered and patiently waited for good people to recruit. They all still stay and I am quite thick-skin to say that I recruited good people indeed. After all that, it is the people after me who are reaping the good fruits. It is very stupid to feel this way because on the other hand, if things were not that fucked up, I would not leave and will not be in my current place: happy with the work-life balance so far and am able to repair my relationship with God.

I always feel that perhaps this is a cross that I have to bear. I have to be the 'bad guy' and get all the $%&*^# from others, to put things in order, and in the end it is for others who come after me to enjoy. It happened before in my CCAs, in the previous job, and in the current job as well. It sucks but I realise not everyone has such a thick face to take all these and if this is the role that God wants me to play in this world, let it be done.

Currently I am emo that I am not nominated to attend an event overseas. I know that this is completely wrong as it entirely comes from the eyes of jealousy. Sigh.. I should count my blessings that I have had the opportunities to fly once every quarter this year and to be involved in the consultancy project as well. So it is the same thing all over again, I know it is wrong, I pray over it, and yet I still cannot help but feeling all the negativities.

Another incident of this pride problem was 2 weeks ago when I was invited as an alumni to speak about my experience etc. I felt it was quite a waste of time since it was so disorganised and a "free-for-all" manner. I am not someone who will fight for limelight so what was the point for me to be there if I only talked for a bit and the questions were mostly dominated by one person. I think it was just a wrong format. Why do I feel this way? Ultimately it is because of pride. The more appropriate response is to be humble: I am there to answer questions if it is for me to answer. Otherwise, I should not be offended since the purpose of the session is not me but the students. Bleah.. I am so fucked up.

My gym suspension ended yesterday and I was thinking to prolong my suspension until I come back from my trip. Plan abruptly changed after seeing my photos yesterday. I am fucking fat now sigh.. I can't even fit into one of my vests :( Sigh.. I know I bought it more than a decade ago but that is not the reason. I hope I don't get injured again.. Without both exercise and diet control, there is no way losing weight will be successful. I am desperate enough to consider cutting carbs intake because that seems to be the most effective manner. Again this can only go 100% after I come back from my trip.

To end today in a positive tone, let's wish Mother Mary a Happy Birthday since 8 September is the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I just went down to clear a Pokemon Go mission to defeat a raid boss and because of the special day, I had a 30 minutes walk to pray a rosary since that is the only birthday present I can give.

There was an announcement for cathecists recruitment. Haiz.. It is not the first time that I feel the nudging if I should try but as always I am always timid for holy stuff. I think I will end up teaching kids on how to go to hell instead. I promise if someone asks me then it is a sign of the calling.

Holy Hour

When it comes to God related things, you just have to believe about 'being called' or 'being chosen'. It is not my first time hearing about Holy Hour but I have never been bothered about it -not even to look up what it is about. But somehow after hearing the announcement on last Sunday, I got interested and kept thinking about it. In the end, I went.

I personally do not enjoy adoration because I find it very sleepy to just sit down in silence and focusing on the Blessed Sacrament. That was my impression of Holy Hour and that was why I never got interested. I am glad that I gave it a try and it is something that I will not mind doing again. Essentially it is still an adoration of the Blessed Sacrament but there are readings and reflections and singing so it was not just silence. That one hour is much more bearable this way. As it was my first time, I was not very familiar with the gesture and I was following others. Everyone was kneeling at the start and then everyone sat down when they were tired. I found the kneelers not comfortable but I was proud of myself that I could tahan kneeling for 40 minutes. Haha.. Next time I would not care and just sit down when I felt the discomfort so at least I could pay more attention to the prayer.

It is one day too early but tomorrow is exactly one year since I left my previous job last year. Attending this Holy Hour was like a blessing in disguise since it allowed me to give thanks for all God's blessings in the past year: the courage to leave my comfort zone and to find a new job, my new job is mostly great (not perfect but I would say 90% of the time it is great) and I am grateful for the people, the great Japan holidays that I had last September and April this year, my retina is alright despite my worsening floaters, and most importantly is my return to be closer to God with weekly mass, my involvement in Landings, and my attendance for Saturday's Novena. As promised, I would like to pay God's blessings forward since I have better work-life balance now.

It is almost a month since my last time writing a blog post and there are a lot of things to write. However, I shall reserve this post only for the good things. Firstly, I will have to go to Manila again next next week. Initially the flight options given to me were all budget airlines. Sigh... I was grumbling but I had to remind myself to be grateful as at least I got the chance to travel for free. On the following day, I was told that we would choose a different timing and will be flying SQ instead. Wow.

Secondly, I gave up on New Year plan at Disneyland last week since I was not able to get a vacation package. I was camping at the website but it was crashing since the reservation for the vacation package opened. By the time the website was accessible, all the resort hotels were sold out. I refused to pay close to 300000 yen for the non-resort hotels. That would be almost 50% more of what I paid for the vacation package at Disney Ambassador Hotel previously. Two days ago, I wanted to check for Christmas instead. Somehow before that I checked for New Year again and it seemed that someone cancelled their Disney Celebration reservation. I managed to book and after I booked, the website showed sold out again. To complete the happiness, this happened on the same day when my new credit card that gives 4x miles for overseas spending was approved. Technology nowadays is amazing. While waiting for the physical card to arrive in mail, I already received the digital one and that was how I could use it.

I am so tired and sleepy but the feelings to share the good things and the Holy Hour were stronger and that is the reason I am writing this. Once again, thank God and Alleluia!! Hehe...

Thank God

I started to realise the floaters in my eyes have been worsening in the past 2-3 years. It has finally reached a point that I find it getting more and more noticeable. I had an idea to get it check since I moved to my job which involves full-time staring at the computer screen. Despite asking a doctor from my previous workplace for eye specialists, I have been delaying until this week when I suddenly felt the urge that I should not wait longer.

I got my eyes checked yesterday and it is a miracle that there is nothing wrong with inside my eyes. I was very worried about retinal detachment or other sinister things which may cause the worsening floaters. Now that the retina is okay, there is nothing I can do about the floaters and I take it as a cross I have to bear. I know my degree will be getting worse but it is another miracle that the increase is only 0.5 to 0.75 considering the last time I have my degree measured was more than 10 years ago. The cylinder for my left eye does not change but the axis for my right eye changed from 15 to 175. I don't know if that is something normal or even possible.

Rain just stopped when I left the clinic so there was no taxi and the road outside the clinic was jammed. I took public transport and what an experience it was to go around with blurry vision (effects of the medicines). I went for 1pm Novena. As my sign of gratitude, I wrote a thanksgiving letter and I promise to pay forward God's blessings to me by being more active in Church. Perhaps that is the main reason I managed to overcome my laziness and in the end I decided to attend parish assembly this afternoon.

It was my first time attending this kind of thing so it was quite interesting to see the parish community. The generation gap in the community is quite apparent so I look forward for things to get better after the assembly. I had nothing to contribute so I rendered my service by helping to be the scribe for my group. It was actually an escape because by writing on the board, I had all the excuse not to participate in the conversation since I had to pay attention.

Back to my eyes, even though there is nothing wrong and can be done for now, I will still not stop praying for miracles for my degree to return to my current spectacles as well as for my floaters to disappear. My parents helped me to ask the gifted spiritual healer and now I have to eat red dragonfruit and really avoid my poisons (chili, egg, and butter).

In the supermarket, there are cut dragonfruits with expiry dates so I need not to worry about buying fresh fruits and thinking how to peel, how long I can keep etc. Yay! I was also tempted to get jackfruit which was placed just next to the dragonfruits. Haha.. The jackfruit is still in my fridge now because I just had durian for dinner again tonight. Thanks to Deliveroo which gave $6 credit today and it had to be used by today for a minimum purchase of $18. I would overeat again if I buy normal food for more than $18 and that was how I ended up with durian. I bought XO which reminds me to the durian that I usually eat in Indonesia. Mao Shan Wang is still better hehe.. I am very full now so I hope I will not wake up with gastric and sore throat tomorrow morning. Good night.

Counting backwards

On Sunday I brought my new rosary rings with the intention to ask a pastor whom I know to bless it after mass. Father is so popular so I was shy to ask when there were people around. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise. Today I went for the sunset mass for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and I guessed people were in a hurry to go home after mass instead of crowding the pastors. So Father was available and I got my rosary rings blessed. Yay!! It is nice to have them blessed on a special occasion which is the eve of the Assumption. I hope this special-ness will help to prevent me losing any of the rings.

Yesterday I was asked if I could help at the clinic that I usually volunteer once a month. I only volunteer on Saturdays so I was very lazy to go yesterday. However I decided to say yes since they would not be asking around if they were not desperate. I remind myself that the reason why I volunteer here because of the use of my pharmacist license. Not everyone has the license so if I do not step up when needed, what's the point? It was quite an eye opening and it was an affirmation that Saturday is a good day haha.. The atmosphere yesterday was too cold and unfriendly for me. I do not like to work in such an environment. I am no longer surprised when people say I am not that black face because my dispensing partner yesterday was wow.. That was an example of black face, unfriendly, and rude and at least I know I was not that bad. Hahaha...

After ordering durian on Friday, I spent the long weekend fighting the durian temptation. Everytime I was about to order from deliveroo, I kept thinking of getting durian instead of proper meal. Thank goodness I managed to hold myself. Perhaps this coming Saturday then I will buy again. Haha..

I spent the long weekend to catch up with Final Fantasy Mobius since for the 3rd anniversary, it is the FF VIII collaboration event. Squall skin is given for free so there is no reason not to play. Hehe.. With this graphics, Squall looks so handsome so I hope FF VIII remaster will be this good as well. Some pictures to show how amazing Squall looks.

So handsome!!

Echo gets Rinoa's skin

WoL cosplaying as Squall as a comparison

I continued reading The Legend of Final Fantasy VII which I have been procrastinating for quite sometime. I never played FF VII properly and I do not exactly remember the story. Even by reading this book which contains the story, I keep getting confused and keep returning to the front part to know who is whose kids and how they are related all that. Shame on me haha.. I finished the book for FF VIII quite quickly since I am much more familiar with it.

That is basically the recap of my long weekend. Now I am back to the miserable days complaining about my worsening eyes, my painful back, and my pathetic self in general T_T

Second time watching Disney's Aladdin Musical

The #AladdinSingapore label and the standee behind were not present previously

It is funny how things turned upside down. When I watched Aladdin Musical for the first time, I was super excited and looking forward to it but I went home feeling somewhat disappointed. That made me quite lazy to go again tonight since I felt like just slacking at home. But hey, I ended up feeling more satisfied.

Tonight was the original ticket that I first bought and I sat at the first row center seat. Location of the seat made the whole experience different. Seating at the front row made the viewing more enjoyable because I could see the facial expression of the actors better. Nearer to the orchestra box also made the audio much more impactful although the downside of this was the audience response felt more muted as if the audience was not responsive.

Seeing up close, I have to give 2 thumbs up for the costume because some details were not apparent when I was at the second floor previously. For example, the guards costumes also have bling bling in the details. When everyone is wearing white, the costumes look the same from a far but they are all actually different. I never even realise that Jasmine's final dress is pink!

I was previously impressed with the city setup but I had to lower my opinion because from near I could see that some were just cardboard. However, the Magic Carpet effect really blew my mind. It is a mystery how the carpet is suspended and 'flying' around. I could not see any strings/wires or reflection of strings/wires whatsoever in both A Whole New World and final scenes which are dark and bright, respectively. Simply wow.

Previously I found the second act to be rather boring but surprisingly today I found the new scenes and songs (which are not in the cartoon) to be enjoyable. Nevertheless, I still find 'Prince Ali' is not grand as expected and the changes to the plot for second act to be a step backward from the original cartoon -same sentiment that I had after my first viewing. In addition, there was not really any improvisation or changes with Genie's jokes compared to my first viewing, except for chili crab being mentioned instead of curly fries.

The most worthwhile thing from spending $232 to get the front seat was to see the setup of theater musical. The orchestra was actually under the stage while the conductor was positioned between the stage and the orchestra. His head popped up so that he was able to see what was happening on stage and the orchestra underneath could still see his hands conducting. Just before the show begun, I thought the conductor's head was distracting as it was literally in front of me but once the show happened, I did not notice his head at all.

Now I have to backtrack and say that watching on the first day was NOT a mistake and a regret. A lot of the merchandises were already sold out today, including the fleece blanket (that I would like to buy again), Genie bear plushie, Jasmine plushie, the Magic Lamp ornament, the snow globe decoration, and tote bag carriers. They even ran out of plastic bag for the merchandise purchase. Lucky I bought Jasmine plushie although it was not that pretty or else I would regret. Since I did not manage to get the fleece blanket, I bought another Aladdin plushie. Sigh.. Gotta be honest that I simply bought it because of FOMO since many things already were already sold out. Now I don't know what to do with it, perhaps try to sell it for $70 although I doubt there would be buyer.

I went in 45 minutes before the show today so that I could take photo with the lamp. There were only 4 people in the queue when I entered and that was how I managed to take just the photo of the lamp. Too bad my luck with the strangers helping to take photo today was bad. I even queued 2 times (to take with and without my spectacles) and both strangers just sucked. I was lucky to get the Filipino tourist previously who was quite good with the camera. Oh well at least I had no regret to take 2 photos today.

View from the first row

After today's experience, I think I will always buy the first row seat the next time I watch a musical. The experience from first row is so much better so I suppose it is better to go big or go home... or more appropriately to watch as VIP or don't watch altogether :p