Show is Open! Finding Our Flow.
The show is finally open! It's an ice-skapades style show, with us as the production singers, 6 ice skaters, a choir, a band, Santa, and an elf. It's cute. We're on a synthetic ice rink with a little Christmas village all around us. Crowds are starting to come, and its a nice reminder that children are the same around the world. They are so eager to interact with us, and it warms my heart to give them high-fives (and then I usually Purell right away since hand washing and food safety cleanliness is different standard here....more on that later).
. Mike really likes his expression in this picture.
So now that that show is open and we are over the hurdle of rehearsals, we're starting to settle into a little routine. We have two ice rink shows a day plus a meet and greet. For 30 minutes every day we stand in front of a Step and Repeat while tourists pose for non-stop selfies. Meet and Greets are huge here. It's hard to describe being mobbed for pictures by multiple groups and selfie sticks at once unless you have experienced it.
As Westerners, we really do stick out like a sore thumb here. Yesterday, an older Chinese man kept trying to take pictures of me while his wife kept grabbing at my arm every time the SkyCar swayed. At least I have dark coloring, so I'm often confused for Italian or Russian. I can sort of blend into the crowd here. Today, I bring my baseball hat and sunglasses to deflect unwanted attention (even though its Monsooning).
But I don't have it half as bad as poor Sandy.
Everyone here thinks she is the pop singer, Pink. She's got the short funky blonde hair and similar coloring.....and I guess she really does resemble her a little bit. People are always asking her for selfies. Yesterday, a restaurant manager discreetly asked Mike if that really was Pink. He said, "no, but we are singers here".....and the communication barrier being what it is confirmed his suspicions and he definitely thought she was Pink. Word traveled fast that Pink was eating at Rockefeller's Restaurant.
The hotel staff thought she was Pink for the first week, at least. They were taking pictures with her all the time. One sweet front desk lady even called Sandy in her room to ask, "Are you really Pink?" When she told her no, I'm afraid she was a little heartbroken.
There's a lot of down time here so far. We only have Monday's off so we're sort of sequestered in this tourist mega-complex for most of our time. I'm keeping busy with scheduling for the New York Yuletide Chapter (who are kicking major BUTT and jobs are pouring in daily), but there is still the full day to fill and the time between shows. When I'm done with the shows at 11pm, NYC is waking up and my emails are going crazy.
We play a lot of chess. And go shopping for Heat Tech clothes at Uniqlo, since we are freezing here and packed for a tropical vacation, not a damp monsoon season. Oops.
I'm hunting for decent coffee or at least a large coffee mug. Did you know Nescafe has milk and sugar pre-mixed in?? My kingdom for some black coffee.
Coffee in a bag? Getting closer but no cigar.
Day off tomorrow! We will go exploring in KL Central, and hope to experience some true local culture. Everything up on the mountain is very homogenized and westernized.....it's all H&M and Sephora and KFC and every other major American brand. I'm looking forward to learning more about the Malay culture and experiencing something other than what we're used to at home!