Thank you, Lea Salonga, for a great Saturday night...

Well, Saturday night was definitely the highlight of this weekend.

More than the Katy Perry concert, I was more excited to see Lea Salonga's concert. I may have mentioned in a previous post how I was slightly crushed when I learned that all tickets for the concert were already sold out. I was on the verge of being desperate to get my hands on tickets that I scoured the Internet for ticket resellers. There was one guy who was selling me tickets at a ridiculous price. A day or two before I was going to confirm buying the tickets, not one, not two but three friends messaged me on Facebook to inform me that the concert will have a second performance night.

Wooohooo! The heavens have heard my prayers. Hehe!

Without wasting any time, I booked the ticket and forgot about it for the next few weeks until last week.

I was soooo excited for the concert that I made sure there would be no other activities for the day. There was one, museum volunteer training, but it was something I really wanted to do.

Other than that, the afternoon was just spent resting and having a siesta.

Before going to the concert, I met up with Mon at City Hall for dinner. Richie originally planned to join us but he forgot that he had another appointment he couldn't get out of. So, Mon and I just met up with him around 7 and we all walked to nearby Esplanade.

The tickets were the cheapest, I think. It was less than $60. We figured that since it was a concert, what mattered more was that we could hear her sing rather than see her up close. Hehe!

The concert promptly started at 730 and for the next two hours or so, Lea just captivated the audience with her vocal prowess. I thoroughly enjoyed the performance. Her repertoire for the night was a good mix of pop, classic, Disney, musical theatre, and of course, OPM. There was no doubt that the Filipinos in the audience, including me, were expecting a few Filipino songs. Hehe! She got the audience to sing "Let It Go" with her, as well as get up from our seats to sing and dance to an ABBA medley.

On several instances, I found myself saying, "Oh my god! Oh my god!" because of how beautifully she sang a song. Even the international guests (does it sound more politically correct?) were enthralled by her voice. (The Singaporean lady seated next to me asked for the titles of the two Filipino songs - Freddie Aguilar's Anak and George Canseco's/Louie Ocampo's Ikaw). We came. We saw. Lea definitely conquered.

After the show, I dragged Jon to queue with me to get an autograph from Lea. I was hoping that we can get a photo with her, but she didn't have photographs with fans taken. To my really delightful surprise, we saw a long queue of Filipinos, Singaporeans and I suppose other nationalities queueing to get an autograph and to say hello to Lea.

By the time Lea signed the photos we bought, it was almost close to midnight. I checked the last train departing for Joo Koon from City Hall. It was at 1155PM. And so, with only a few minutes to spare, Jon and I made a mad dash to reach City Hall MRT station. When we reached the station, there was already an announcement calling passengers to board the train as it was the last train to Joo Koon. I, on the other hand, decided to take the last Red Line train all the way to Kranji. From Kranji, I will just take a cab to my place. But thankfully, thankfully, I was also able to catch the last train to Jurong East via Woodlands. That meant I was able to alight at my station. Yay!

What a fantastic Saturday night at Lea Salonga's concert! :-) I felt super proud to be Asian, Southeast Asian and siyempre, Filipino! :)