the Philippines

I didn't get much time to get around in Manila, but I have two bold memories...

the main one is our performance. We performed at an outside venue that barely held the 70,000 fans that came to watch. In a review I read that many were denied entry and simply enjoyed from behind the barricades. My mind had a really hard time grasping over 70,000 people watching us... moreover, when I went to take pictures of the crowd, I couldn't even find the end, the people just kept going! I was on the side of the stage for Chris Brown's performance, having a hard time keeping focus on it when the crowd continued to hypnotize me.  I kept watching them yell in an overwhelmingly loud unison, singing every lyric. It was unreal. 

After he performed, there was a fireworks show. It makes sense they felt they had to do something to prevent the crowd from losing it. I can only imagine how hard it would be to gain order back if that many people went loopy! 

Finally, we were approaching the stage in costume. The dancers all moving their limbs and head to warm up, looking like we were contorting into crazy positions. The singers warming up their voices and tucking their mic packs to ensure their stability behind their backs. The band all pushing buttons, strumming strings and hitting drums to ensure their sounds were tuned. All of us still not digesting the 70,000 in front of us. The lights dropped, the sounds blared and it began. Our set was normal starting with her current hit, "Disturbia"... going straight into "Breakin' Dishes," when the female dancers come out, to "Break it Off," where the male dancers join to "Let Me," where the dancers all exit for a change. 

She continues with two ballads as I preset my next costume and tried to get in some quick shots of the show and the audience. We returned on stage for her first single, "Pon De Replay." It's a quick one for us so we can run off and put on metal scratch boards, gloves and knee pads for our dance number. We enter back on and perform just the dancers and band as she usually uses this time to do a quick change. We call this number 'scratch' as all the dancers are wearing scratch boards that we hit to make sounds that are cohesive to our bands music making. Meanwhile we're wearing laser lights on our head to further stimulate the audiences view. We continue making beats until Rihanna comes back up on her elevator singing "SOS." 

That is our quickest change attempting to go from a full outfit to another, including a change of shoes in time to finish that song with her. She then sings 3 more ballads as I went back to our air conditioned dressing room. Did I mention that it's REALLY hot in Manila, and doing an outside show had us drenched before we even started dancing!

We come back out for "Please Don't Stop the Music" which is a party on stage, followed swiftly by "shut up and drive" where we make chairs our make-shift race cars. Of course, finishing our show with the famous "Umbrella" song.  The show went smooth and the energy was great, but the real indicator of a great show is how much we sweat during it! Without a doubt we were soaked! 

 

the minor memory is simply the shopping. Go figure... I found a new shopping spot. 

The "Green Hills Mall" in Manila is notorious for their perfectly replicated knock-offs with serial numbers and all, and for real designer items that are slightly defective. You could get some really amazing duplicates for as cheap as eight bucks! We even saw Bathing Ape shoes for as cheap as 20! This sounds crazy... but we couldn't believe it ourselves. Styles that are just barely being found in their main stores yet are draped all over this indoor outdoor market. 

Moral of the story... if you want to do some cheap and fun shopping and perform to a great crowd, don't pass on the Philippines... they know how to do it! 

… at the InterContinental in Singapore, they are overstaffed with people at the corner of every hallway greeting you every time you walk by. It’s a little overwhelming.
My first day there, I went out to the Tekka markets in little India where they sold fresh meats and fish, and it smelled like it too. There was also food places that haggled at you to eat at their place over the ones two feet to the left or right of them. They kept yelling things at us to try to make us choose their food hut…Strangely they all pretty much offered the same thing. There is a tea there that is slightly reminiscent of Chai that would make you feel all warm inside! It was delicious!We walked around little India more and caught glimpse of some seriously intricate Hindu temples.

One of the most graphic included a colored sculpture of a group of people, one being eaten by a lion. They went into detail. We also saw lines of stores selling typical Indian jewelry and scarves.They were beautiful but got pricey.We made our way back to a restaurant called the banana leaf. We enjoyed a traditional spicy vegetarian meal served on a banana leaf. The men literally walk around with huge pots of various curries, sauces, rice and concoctions spicy enough to burn your insides and spoon out a dollop of each on our leaf.

These curry rice dishes are traditionally eaten by hand… the right hand to be exact, because from what they told us, they use their other hand to wipe themselves. I’m learning something new everyday... and I just used a fork.



As Singapore started to literally pour, we hopped in cabs and made our way over to Chinatown. Streets lined with ethnic trinkets and gifts for any visitor wanting to remember Singapores culture.As we walked through, there were people holding up signs with promotions for feet, back and full body massages. Sooner, our new amazing lighting director, convinced me this would be worth the barely 40 American dollars we would be spending.

I got a 30 minute back massage, 30 minute foot massage, and ear candling done for about 40 bucks. Steal of a deal, especially as good as it was.

Ear candling… I don’t know if this is even good for you, but I tried it. Basically, they use a hollow candle about the size and length of a pencil. They stuck one end in my ear and proceeded to burn the other end. The fire at the other end pulls in oxygen through the candle and in doing so, acts as a vacuum for your ear, extracting any old debris and large amounts of ear wax. Sorry for the graphic verbage... I was so disgusted when I saw the aftermath of this experience that I took a picture, but believe me it’s not for the weak of stomachs, it really grosses me out. Now I can say, though, that it is no longer in my body and although I don’t feel any difference, seeing how it looked makes me know it made a difference.






The following day, the rain continued as I was blessed with meeting up with a friend from home all the way on the other side of the world! I spent the day walking around Chinatown again with my friend Nick, his girlfriend and his buddy from their show. He was performing at the same venue we were, only a few days after we’d left. We opted out of doing any clothing changes for our show that night and the crowd was larger than we had heard it would be, so overall the night went well! I was excited because I love having friend in the audience... I just feel like I dance better.


After our show in Jakarta was cancelled, we were lucky to have an extra day in Singapore to do more wallet damage. I started off walking out by myself and ran into some of my favorite partners in crime, Jill and Sooner... We found ourselves in a Japanese style photo booth that was equipped with a bench and monkey bars to sit and climb around on. This photo booth was easily the most advanced I've ever encountered, allowing you to have post production capabilities in personalizing the end result. We were impressed, but unfortunately, all of the post production instructions were in chinese or japanese. This left us guessing and pressing random buttons and since they give you a time limit on editing, we had no time to figure it out! None the less... I love these things!
They have an amazing 4 story high indoor mall attached to our hotel’s back door! A bunch of our people got their electronic gadgets personalized with something they call digi art. It’s simply a better version of art worked saran wrap that is put on anything from an ipod, cell phone, computer, etc and lasts about 6 months to a year. They also had a market right across the street that seemed to be able to fit 100 little shops where 20 should only be. Similar to santee alley in downtown LA, but only cheaper and more haggle friendly. I literally shopped from the moment I woke up… until about 10:30pm when everything closed.

Singapore thrives off of tourists and the commerce they bring to the country. I suggest a visit, if nothing else to get a great inexpensive massage and eat amazing food!

Let's take it back to Melbourne... where the shopping reminds me of Melrose back home. Affordable pricing with interesting styles and nothing else to do there, we spent our two days in Melbourne performing and shopping. The best thing that happened in Melbourne was the birth of our new favorite activity between the dancers/band/crew of the Rih/CB camp which is known as "Mafia." Anyone who attended any student body retreats, or camps in college or high school might be familiar with this interactive game of clue where people are assigned characters in a role-playing game where the majority of townspeople have to decipher who the fake killer is using deductive reasoning and learning to read people. Once this game was introduced, it became a regular activity for our downtime in upcoming cities...

ANOTHER TRAVEL DAY! And we roll DEEP!!! 

Arriving in Sydney, Australia... down under... the accents are cool, the beaches are beautiful, the food rocks, the people are fun, transportation is a breeze, and the audiences are almost as good as the Europeans!  There is not much negative that can be said about Australia. Except for the random fly infestation they seem to have. The flies they have haunt you, they'll just hover around you no matter how much you swat at them. 

Arriving in this town we were overwhelmed with options of things to do. I couldn't fit it all in considering I still wanted to fit sleep into my schedule, so I started the first day there walking to the harbor to see the world famous Sydney Opera House. It was truly breathtaking during the day. I felt like it was just a large monument no one could even enter. It was hard for me to fathom people enjoying opera inside that place. Did that and ate at 'pancakes on the rocks' with DJ Drew and Kevmo. We walked around the rest of the harbor and finished in time for our call time. After show activities involved taking over the lobby and playing Mafia again for hours and hours!

Day two in Sydney I went shopping down on Pitt street which I highly recommend to anyone looking to get trendy things for average prices. It wasn't anything to overly rave about... but for a woman... it's shopping. Isn't that equal to millions in therapy? 

Day three in Sydney I decided to wake up early and enjoy the 'Market on the Rocks' down on the harbor. It was a bunch of tented outdoor markets that sold handcrafted items and edible goodies for any occasion. I came out with nothing because I was so overwhelmed with all my options. While walking about I ran into Yusef, CB's cameraman, and he and I decided to check out the famous Bondi Beach! It was breathtaking and couldn't have been a more perfect day with better weather! The sun was beaming, the beach was crowded! The graffiti artists were out adding more art to the walls of Bondi Beach. I convinced a guy to put my favorite symbol on the wall!  We continued our trek past Bondi Beach through the cliffs where there are walkways with awesome views of the water and the rocks. We followed this trail all the way to Tamarama beach, a white sand beach slightly less populated than Bondi but still had a similar feel. Tamarama seemed to have more surfers in the water... and the water seems to break more clearly on that end. After all this walking I was getting drained and realizing that I had to perform that night, went back to the hotel for a nap.

Upon arriving to the venue that evening, we were handed a sheet of paper informing us of the usual after-party... only this time, it was a private party just for our two groups on board a yacht, thanks to our amazing boss!! Basically after the show, we were bussed straight to the port to board a yacht that sailed around the harbor until 4 am with all of our crew on it! It was three levels of mayhem with DJ Drew and Kevmo spinning on the middle level and food being served every time you turned around. This was probably the best night we've had out, especially since there was no show the next day and we got to get to enjoy ourselves and just have fun. I still can't believe this is my job... I'm pinching myself as I type. That was an incredibly entertaining evening.

Sydney ended to soon as we headed to RANDOM Perth...

For anyone who is familiar with Australia's layout, Perth is in the western region and although the weather is nice... the town is different and everything closes at 5 pm. We definitely played Mafia in this town, because there was nothing else to do. The show that night was our last with Chris' crew on the Australian night, so we had what we would constitute a "prank night." Basically we do things to mess with the other crew's show... although it may have gotten out of hand in some people's mind... we all truly had a blast and hopefully the audience still enjoyed our pranks and good fun.

Will update soon with Singapore details! :) 

Everything I've heard 

about Australia... is awesomely true...

 if not more than I have heard and

 imagined... and from what my friends have said, I haven't even been to some of the most notoriously cool spots yet!!

In fact, I’ve only been to Brisbane so far.  The weather is tropical and perfect. The people are generous and friendly. The nightlife is lively and they celebrate Halloween… so all in all, they’re good in my books!

Our first two shows in Brisbane were on a larger scale than any of our shows in the past. 

We’d added pyro, a larger set and stage, more costumes, and more theatrics including Rihanna flying at the end of the show. 

 

During our off time in Brisbane, we were lucky enough to be able to visit the Australia Zoo (Steve Erwin, the crocodile hunter’s zoo). 

It was one of the best experiences I’ve had on tour! Or ever!

 

We saw crocodiles, extra large turtles, birds, tigers, elephants, etc.

  We were even lucky enough to get to hold animals.  I held a large python around my neck and it wrapped tightly around me.  I also held a smaller python that actually frightened me a little more than the larger just because I could envision it moving quicker and not being able to stop it. Small and stealth-like was that reasoning.

I got to pet and smell a koala that looked adorable and smelled beautiful! I got to hold a bird on my arm. Pet a dingo. 

I even got to feed a kangaroo straight from my hand and it almost attacked me because I didn’t read the signs that said not to pull away when you’re about to feed them. But I’m alive and well. 

I also got some cool video footage of the what’s called the fierce snake. It’s venom is said to be able to kill up to 100 men from one drop. We were watching them being fed mice. 

Really cool, but kind of freaks me out how snakes eat. The Zoo itself has beautiful structures and tranquil walk-thrus of each animals habitat.  

If there is any place I can recommend on a visit to Brisbane, there's no doubt that I would suggest this Zoo.

Before Australia, we were in New Zealand. Auckland was where we started off our large shows and the audience made us feel well at home. I didn't know what to expect from this small island of people, but their energy jump started our tour run! The shopping wasn't bad either. 

After Auckland we did a quick stop in Wellington, New Zealand to be met by some strangely ugly weather... and of course after our 

time there, we left with beautiful memories of New Zealand... the sun came out, perfect beach weather. 

Their skies are bright blues with perfectly white clouds, gorgeous home on the mountain side and lining the beach waters. 

The road to the airport showed water the entire time!