Team Singapore Spectacular!

Went to work armed with my Lumix FZ10 Digital Camera today.

The mood at work was happy and festive. The fact the everybody was happy that tomorrow is National Day, no work... a break in the week to relax and celebrate the independence.

My usual "lunch group" and I went outside to have our lunch and met several other groups doing the same. Definitely everyone was in good spirits on the eve of the holiday.

Went to Wify's shop right after work, to help her out. There was a good crowd today with the happy shopping mood. Good for everyone.

Our son took the train from home to meet us there. Just in time for dinner at Burger King and a take-out for Wify, before we took bus Service 130 from Bugis Junction to The Padang to watch the fireworks.

Tonight was the fireworks display from Team Singapore.


We were a tat too late, missing about 5 minutes of the opening display, the bus route around the Padang vicinity was too crowded even with proper controls by the traffic police.

There literally thousands of people, local as well as tourists, thousands! To my right, a family from the US. Their little girl on her mother's shoulders, while their dad was busy taking pictures of the fireworks and them enjoying the display.

Behind me was a couple of Japanese ladies in their 50s. Easily identifiable, typical of Japanese tourists with their white blouses and skirts or pants, pale-coloured hats, latest model camera in their hands and those polite smiles.

Accompanied by the NDP 2006 music, the fireworks danced with the each song amid the Wows! and the Woohoos! as the night skies in Marina Bay was lit a-bright with many colours, many flowery patterns.


The moon was not alone tonight. It witnessed our celebration too.

Unfortunately, from where we were, we could not see the intricate dancing fireworks just above ground that complete the whole display theme, but only the high-flying shooting stars of brilliant colours.

We enjoyed the 15 minutes display all the same anyway.

Just awesome!

Took lots of photos and they looked good on the LCD display. I only realized that the camera setting was not properly set to ISO, but only with the film setting at 200 and alternately set at 400.


I lost the true brilliance of the fireworks in the pictures. Sigh.

Guess I was just too excited and distracted by the large balls of beautiful fire bursting in the sky when we arrived and just started clicking away. I could not use the tripod stand as it was not able to go above the heads of people in front.

A good thing though, since I used my hands to hold steady these night shots, the unintentional setting to "P" auto-exposure had kept the photos from becoming blurry. Of course the Mega O.I.S. helped.

Well, the first time is never the best. I will have several more attempts at his night, especially fireworks photography as there are 2 more fireworks displays scheduled to take place at the same location.


Last Saturday was from Team Italy, tonight was from Team Singapore, this coming Friday night will be from Team New Caledonia and the last, that will be on Saturday night is from Team France. All at 9pm.

These countries were all invited to showcase their talent in fireworks displays here, in celebration of National Day.