Step into the daylight and let it go.

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

#4.33 Welcome To New York

"Once the beat of Welcome To New York came out, I knew that it would unquestionably be a brilliant night that I would remember as long as I lived. =)



Every single person on Earth who was close to me understood perfectly that I would never ever love any artist in this whole wide world as much as Taylor Swift. And nothing in this galaxy described my feelings as well as a Taylor Swift song.

So, it went without saying that I felt elated when it was announced that she was coming back to London for her brand new tour. After The Red Tour, which proved to be a night of fairytale fantasy, I truly looked forward to attending 1989 as I could tell that it would be something entirely different, which turned out to be true. Also, we were lucky that she chose London as one of her earliest tour dates or else we would have zero chance to make it to this awesome event.

As happy as a sandboy.
British Summer Time!!

After having a quick McD lunch, we managed to find ourselves a nice spot in Hyde Park. It was unpleasantly hot on the day but we could only wait patiently under the sun with 65, 000 others. However, to be honest I was glad that it was a bright sunny day instead of a windy, rainy day because it would be a lot more unbearable if we were to be wet and cold all night long. 

Luckily, the event started very early in the day because there were a total of four opening acts: Rae Morris, Vance Joy, John Newman and Ellie Goulding. Needless to say, I was completely psyched to have the opportunity to listen to the compelling live version of two of my favourite songs: Riptide and Love Me Like You Do. Additionally, I was completely amazed by Ellie's energetic performance and her beautiful accent.

I was scared of dentists and the dark.
Follow me to the dark
Let me take you past our satellites
You can see the world you brought to life, to life.

Things got all heated up with Ellie but everybody went real mad when Taylor Swift stepped onto the Great Oak Stage. No word could totally capture the electrifying sensation when the vibrating sound of the music that I had played over and over again shot through the air across the entire park. As crazy as it sounded, I felt like I was listening to them for the very first time and it was indeed one very beautiful thing to experience. =)

My wildest dream came true.
And the sick beat started! 
Took our broken hearts put them in a drawer
Everybody here was someone else before
And you can want who you want
Boys and boys and girls and girls.
Cause, baby, I could build a castle
Out of all the bricks they threw at me.
Heart break is the national anthem
We sing it proudly.
It will leave you breathless
Or with a nasty scar.

To say that I was on cloud nine for the whole night was definitely an understatement. In fact, I was in the state of total euphoria when she belted out every single song on the standard version of 1989. Personally, I loved the raining and umbrella scene very much as I knew it would bring out the song with one of the best lyrics ever.

I knew you were trouble when you walked in.
You always knew how to push my buttons
You give me everything and nothing
This mad mad love makes you come running
To stand back where you stood.
 
Remind me how it used to be
Pictures in frames of kisses on cheeks.
And say you want me.
And then you say
"I want you for worse or for better
I would wait forever and ever
Broke your heart , I'll put it back together.
I would wait forever and ever. "
And that's how it works.
They are the hunters, we are the foxes.
All you had to do was stay
Had me in the palm of your hand.
People like you always want back
The love they pushed aside
But people like me are gone forever
When you say goodbye.

With guests like Emma Watson and Gwen Paltrow behind us, the night continued on with slower songs and acoustic music. I must say that I was totally in love with the beautiful and tear-jerking speech that Taylor gave before Clean. It reminded me once again the real reason why I fell in love with her and her songs in the first place because they could always bring out so much emotion in me and inspire me to keep going and be better.

Furthermore, I was more than overjoyed that she decided to include a few of my old favourite songs, such as Love Story and Enchanted, in the set list for the night. Also, I honestly liked the thoughtful design of her tour stages, which made sure that everybody could have a good view no matter where one stood in the crowd.

You can hear it in the silence, silence
You can feel it on the way home, way home
You can see it with the lights out.
You keep his shirt He keeps his word
And for once you let go
Of your fears and your ghosts.
Rain came pouring down when I was drowning
That's when I could finally breathe.
It's a love story, baby, just say Yes.

After the sun had gone down, the strong beats returned with more celebrities appearing on stage. Out of all of them, Cara Delevingne was my favourite because she could effortlessly be bold, hilarious and beautiful all at the very same time.

On top of that, I absolutely loved the mixed piano version of Wildest Dreams/ Enchanted and also the stage setup, especially the two wolves running at the background, for Out Of The Woods. =) 

Band-aids don't fix bullet holes.
You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me
But we are never ever ever ever getting back together.
Cara, my second favourite person of the night!
The London Squad.
And when we go crashing down, we come back every time
Cause we never go out of style.
This love left a permanent mark
This love is glowing in the dark.
Say you'll see me again
Even if it's just in your wildest dreams.
The rest of the world was black and white
But we were in screaming colour.
Two paper airplanes flying, flying, flying.
Shake it off. 
The End.
Wefie while waiting for the crowd to disappear.
Tired but extremely satisfied.
The glowing wristbands.

After the crowd dissipated, we hopped onto the tube and went back to ZH's house to reunite with the others and we chatted for a while before going to bed. It was definitely the best Saturday night of my life that I could keep on replaying in my head every once in a while.

Until next time then. XOXO. =)




The perfect awe-inspiring speech on that day recorded by a fan.



Like I Can - Sam Smith

Thursday, June 25, 2015

#4.32 Girl At Home (Part 2)

"Knowing it for sure in my heart that my family, especially her, would always be right there waiting for me to come back home was a good enough reason to keep me going every day.  =) "



On the last day of our tour, I was beyond thrilled to have the chance to set foot into Yosemite National Park, the place where Apple named one of its OS X operating systems after. We made a quick stop at Yosemite Falls, one of the highest waterfalls in the world, before heading to a platform that offered one of the most beautiful views on earth.

It was mind-blowing as I watched the desktop wallpaper on my Mac materialize before my very own eyes and the picturesque view itself felt more like an exotic painting frozen in time rather than a real scenery. I knew I said this about almost every single place that I had been to but the spectacular landscape literally did take my breath away. 

Once again, natural world wonder proved to me that it would never ever fail to keep surprising and impressing me and I truly hoped that I would be able to visit more inspiring places like this in the near future. =)

The cascading Yosemite Falls.
The lower part of Yosemite Falls up close. 
All of us by the Falls.
The surreal breathtaking view of Yosemite Valley.
Family photo again!

After the SF getaway, we planned a day trip to Downtown LA. We're lost when we first got into the city but luckily we made it to our first destination, the California Science Centre in the end. To me, it was an interesting place where one could easily spend the whole day exploring as there were literally lots of stuff to see and do. 

The beautiful aquarium easily stood as my personal favourite spot of the attraction and I would not mind at all to watch the fishes swimming above and in front of me all day long. We did take a good amount of time wandering around the big building before we had ice cream and made our way back to the city centre.

The entrance.
Magnificient was the word for it.
We're on TV! 
Nervous but excited.
Too much to do with too little time.
Jellyfish!
Cute little thingy.
 Staring curiously right into the camera.
Blue.
My favourite spot of CSC.
Me and my Minion ice-cream outside CSC.

Later that day, we had a walk around LA and all my siblings were super duper excited when we reached Staples Centre. However, I personally preferred the streets outside Grammy Museum more where the important records of each year's Grammy award winners could be found. Before we called it a day, we also visited Little Tokyo and had our dinner at China Town.

Arguably the famous building in LA.
Heaven for basketball fans.
Not a basketball fan but still lucky to be here.
Posing like a fan.
Found my favourite thing along the way.
Outside the Grammy Museum.
LAPD.
Walt Disney Concert Hall.
My nightmare. 
Little Tokyo.

Needless to say, one of the things that I most looked forward to would be Mummy's cooking. It felt like forever since I had any of her tasty home-cooked meals. Besides that, I got to sample many different types of food that my siblings recommended and at the same time satisfied a lot of my food cravings. Guiltily, I guessed I got a little bit carried away and put on an extra few pounds of weight over the past few weeks.

On top of that, we had a karaoke session and went to watch the movie Jurassic World together after Thai food. However, we had no choice but to queue for quite a long while since the whole world and their grandmother decided that it was the must-watch movie of the summer.

Prawn noodles by Mummy.
Fried noodles. 
The famous burgers loved by all celebrities.
Restaurant voucher by MW.
Nice night out.
Fried rice by Mummy.
Great food and great company.
Healthy home-cooked food every day.
My favourite Vege. =)
K Session with siblings.

Before I flew back to the UK, I returned to Huntington Garden for my sibling's project and the guard was kind enough to let us sneak into Herb Garden to complete his assignment although it was closed for the day. Also, all of us spent a nice and relaxed day around Hollywood after DimSum and visited three Museums in a single day. Daddy's hilarious video clip at one of the museums would always remain a classic in my heart.

The Chinese Garden. 
The Japanese Garden. 
Lunch by the lake.
Arrived at Hollywood!
Would love to watch this film one day. 
My favourite brilliant actress.
In one of the museums in Hollywood. 
Robot from Star Wars.
My cute youngest brother in the Wax Museum. 
Taytay..
The contest that we all lost in the end. =(

In the blink of an eye, it was already time for me to go back to Nottingham. It was definitely hard to say goodbye to my family especially when I had only spent a few short weeks with them. Knowing that I would miss them more than anything in this world, reluctantly I got into the cab that took me straight to the airport and I could only hoped that it would not take me another two years to be able to be back to see my family again.

Goodbye LA for now. Hello, London and Nottingham. =)



Sparks - Hilary Duff