Karel's birthday

　
Look at the amazing spread! Piping hot Tokyo-style clam chowder soup, sashimi, bamboo unagi rice, rosti, the list goes on......

Met Karel to have dinner at Shokudo before going to Esplanade for the Lord Of the Rings Symphony and Choral Performance. Enjoyed dinner thoroughly, tried the bamboo unagi rice and it's really nice! The sashimi could be better while the beef with asparagus roll was really tasty.

Walked over to Esplanade after dinner and as we were about to enter the hall, met my school's science lab assistant. Heard that she would be working part-time as usher on these 2 nights and just greeted each other briefly. A group of primary students with their teachers were seated near our seats and realised that one of the girls was in the same place as indicated on my ticket. My ever-helpful science lab assistant came over when she realised that there were some problems and told us to look for another usher-in-charge. Karel was sharp enough to spot the problem. The sistic personnel sold us the wrong tickets! We specifically asked for 5 June but were given 6 June tickets. We didn't check, nor did the personnels tearing our ticket as we entered the hall. Amanda, the in-charge who attended to us was really apologetic about the whole incident. She told us it was full house tonight and the only option was for us to come back tomorrow evening. Karel was quite upset cos it's his birthday and this has to happen. He insisted that they try to do something abt it. Luckily for his persistence, or it would have been a wasted trip and a great disappointment.
After a few minutes, Amanda decided to make an exception to let us watch from the viewing room as she could sensed that we were not willing to make another trip. There was a couch and the view was actually similar to that of circle 2. The only minus point was that we could only hear the whole thing from a single speaker. The viewing room was a holding room for late comers as later 2 other couples joined us. It wasn't really comfortable as the couch had no back rest but at least we got to watch the show. Noted there were quite a number of empty seats though they claimed that it was full house. Intermission came and we managed to speak to Amanda as she promised to check if there's any available seats for us to move to for the later part of the show. Luckily, we were arranged to sit in Circle 2 BB 53 and 54 and could enjoy the rest of the show comfortably. The choir was amazing and really thought that the orchestra was awesome. Left the concert hall feeling really glad that we've came. Since it was only 10pm and it's Karel's birthday, decided to top the birthday treat with a visit to Max Brenner's Cafe. Karel enjoyed the white chocolate granitte while I ordered the dark chocolate. Took the train home ard 1115pm. What an eventful evening!