Beauty & the Beast and Istana Budaya

So after committing myself to attend a musical which i had no idea how it would be like since this was my first, the day finally came and boy was i surprise on how a musical could be as entertaining as the movie if not better. It was Beauty and the Beast and i thought what could probably go wrong since i loved the cartoon. Hours before leaving for the show, my hopes were shot down when i was told that this musical isn’t highly acclaimed in other countries but i think in the end it all comes down to personal preference. Anyway that’s besides the point. The show was awesome in short.

I was accompanied by Speaker friend, Lingster and Kawan lama dari zaman batu (Jiin, Ling, Charng) …. LOL and of course WernSern

Before the show we all gathered at Chinoz on the Park for a light dinner and it was a major ‘potong-stim’ experience. The service was way below par and don’t let me get started with the price. I wouldn’t be ranting about the price had the service been acceptable.

Charng ordered some salad thingy and she got this …. i am not sure about the description of the dish but she definitely wasn’t expecting her salad to be like this, LOL. As for me, they didn’t have what i wanted from the menu and i was forced to choose something else.

I had soup, Jiin had some cake, Lingster had some prawns and Wern Sern had salad. It was green bean soup i think or was it spinach soup ? Which ever it is, i initially asked for mushroom soup but it seems the kitchen ran out of that -_-”

I think Wern Sern was the only one who enjoyed his dinner, JIin came in second since hers was dessert and not the main meal All this happened in the span of forty minutes or less before the show. So we shoved everything down our throats before asking for the bill.

When the bill arrived, everyone was poorer by at least two red notes and mind you the meal wasn’t much. We even opted for sky juice. But all this faded off when we finally got our butts to the hall. I personally love the ever changing sets on the stage. They made really good use of the space given and everyone acted so well. I am not gonna elaborate much about the storyline as i am sure most of you would have known already. Personal rating would be a staggering nine upon ten. LOL.

Just when i thought musical/orchestra would be out of the way for quite sometime since it’s not easy to gather people let alone attend one, i was off again ….

This outing was slightly different cause instead of having the tickets before hand, we decided to get it off the counter …. and guess what, the tickets were sold out. It was a show by the MPO at KLCC and they were playing Beethoven this time.

Bernard reached there first and he called me saying there weren’t any tickets left, even the next day had none to spare -_-” So on the way to KLCC, Dolphin suggested Istana Budaya and KLPac as an alternative. Why there’s an alternative ? That’s because all of us were dressed up and they would wanna go somewhere, lol -_-”  Oh and William was also in KLCC waiting for all of us but weren’t told about the tickets till we reached. His face was really dark as he walked towards my car, hahaha. Bernard later on got into my car as well and we went to KLPAC …. just to find out there weren’t any shows -_-”

Then we drove to Istana Budaya and found out there’s an orchestra show on Movie themes called the ‘Musical Journey Concert with National Symphony Orchestra’ and we got ourselves the tickets. We were like a bunch of desperados -_-”

We headed back to KLCC for dinner.

Since Chinoz on the Park was a washout the first time, i suggested The Apartment which was just beside Chinoz.

Bernard

William

Dolphin

Just when i thought my luck with the Apartment would be better compared to Chinoz, i was wrong -_-” There was nothing to shout about when it came to the food nor the service. The outlet over at the Curve is definitely better than this.

There’s just something about the restaurants on that row in KLCC. Probably i am jinxed to step into any of those outlets. I think i would be better off at McD or KFC.

We then left for Istana Budaya again and for thirty ringgit, we sat like 4 rows from the stage, lol. Personal favourite was when they played Phantom of the Opera, the songs really got ‘kick’. The conductor was very lively as well and mind you he is a local unlike MPO which was conducted by a foreigner. I have nothing against foreigners but i was quite surprised on how our local conductor performed. He even sang back to the Saprona singer Cecilia Yap at one point, lol kinda cheeky.

They played Sound of Music and William started doing his moves which we used to perform back in Melaka days for our Early Entrance Program in MMU.

Oh and did i say we had to sing Negaraku before the show started ? Hehehe i can’t even remember when was the last time i sang Negaraku

All and all i thought the show was not bad. The second was definitely better. Personal rating would be six and half upon ten. Don’t ask me where did the half came from …. LOL. I just felt it deserved another half rather being six

After the show i was forced to make two U-turns and go round a lake to get to this place. William and Dolphin were just in awe with the colours of the wheel. I on the other hand kept my eye on the ice cream man, LOL