National Day Parade 2008

On Saturday we have been to the celebrations of the Singaporean National Day. The National Day here is really a big celebration. Despite of being such a young nation the Singaporeans are really very patriotic! (Or probably because of...?) Anyway. Walking through the city you could find everywhere some signs promoting the National Day or Singaporean flags hanging out of the windows - even weeks before the actual date. So we decided to experience some of the Singaporean Spirit and joined the celebrations around Marina Bay (just near the centre).

The nearer we came to the epicentre the more people were wearing red and white clothes (the national colours). As usual everything was well organized. I think every tenth guy was either a policeman or a soldier. On Marina Bay itself gathered nearly all the people who haven't got tickets for the main event. (There are only 27,000 tickets for 4.5 million inhabitants). You can imagine that the area was rather crowded. To assimlate well some of us had the flag of Singapore painted on their cheeks. Before the most interesting events started we just walked a bit along the bay and enjoyed the performing groups and the food stalls. (I'll come to that in my next blog post). After that we had a look for a good spot to see the action.

The first part was a breathtaking show of the Black Knights, the elite aerobatics team of the Singaporean Armed Forces. They performed really amazing manoeuvres, e.g. very close encounters in the air or painting a heart in the sky. It lasted probably not even 10 minutes but it was really impressive to watch that.
After that there were some performances on the main stage, which we only could see from distance. But we had the perfect spot to see the illuminated bird-shaped balloons and the fireworks. I have to mention that there are only two days per year where fireworks are allowed in S'pore, on the National Day and on Chinese New Year. The fireworks were rather short but they really shot up many rockets on the same time. Standing rather close to the lauching platform the effects sometimes filled the whole sky in front of us. The illuminated Singaporean skyline as the background set up a great stage for the fireworks. So all of us enjoyed the National Day - it was a very special experience.