Too shocked to come up with a good title. (Disney on Ice inside)

Perhaps I should have left some note to my loyal readers to inform them where I was going this weekend. Yes indeed, me and my family went to Pulau Penang to watch Disney on Ice. That sounds like a sentence that should have an exclamation mark on the end, but I can't bring myself to include it just yet because of how lame that sentence looks, to my eyes. I mean, I'm not a kid anymore. I'm, like, turning 17 this year, and yet I've gone for a kiddy ice skating show featuring adults in expressionless and stuffy costumes. Doesn't exactly portray me in a manner that my teenage ego would be happy with, you know? What can I say, my mother wanted me to come. In fact, I would have been happy to keep the show to myself and not mention a word of it, but if I ever want to have another meal in this house again, I'd better make sure my mother reads a good review of this when she reads my blog.


I don't know why I was so terribly against the idea when my mother first introduced it to me at lunch one day. Watching Disney on Ice was simply not an idea of a fun weekend to me. Why did I have such a cruel and unusual prejudice towards Disney on Ice? Mostly because of a few advertisements I had seen as a kid. Two ugly Lion King costumes were skating around the rink waving their arms in a very ungraceful manner peculiar to ordinary figure skaters. Ever since that day, my impression towards Disney on Ice was "a bunch of oversized badly-made Disney Cartoon characters sliding around on a lot of ice with elevator music playing in the background". Well, that's what the advertisements made it look like. But I'll be fair; after watching the actual performance, it wasn't at all bad. In fact, I must honestly admit, it was quite good.


But before I start describing the show, it's Picture Time!

Penang International Sports Arena, or PISA. The place where the show was held.

And look, my baby sister's back! I convinced my father to take his hat of after the picture was taken, so that was okay.

When I saw the ice rink, I thought to myself, "This is the place that's going to be filled with dancing scarecrows in about ten minutes."

And the ice rink with my baby sister. Simply because she's my favourite little model.

Hey, let me tell you a funny story. We travelled all the way from Taiping to Penang to watch the Disney on Ice show, and we forgot to bring a single camera! I know, funny right? I was force to resort to my handphone throughout the entire show. As a result, some of the pictures really suck... but on with the show!


The lights dimmed and the show started. I really had no idea what to expect, so it was no surprise that I was surprised to see that the first costume to make an appearance that day was Lumiere, the candle. Basically, a male skater with a candle-top hat and lamps on his hands. He actually looked okay, and not at all horrible. Unfortunately, at that moment I was watching him warily to see if he was about to do anything dumb, so I completely forgot to take a picture of him. My bad!


Lumiere skated around a bit, gliding here, spinning there, and pirrouetteing all over the place as a recorded audio played Lumiere's wonderfully rounded French voice, greeting the audience. And then he invited us all to "Be....... Our........" Guess. I mean, guess what he said next. That's when all the cast came out from behind the red curtain and starting skating gracefully around. As I watched, I realised that I could recognise and name every single character. I also realised that I was enjoying the music and the nostalgia. I also realised how sad I was for actually being able to remember all their names.


Most of the costumes were quite nice. Most of the skaters were not overly made-over, they just wore dresses and suits that were instantly recognisable as Disney Characters. The only exceptions were Mickey and Friends, and also that large bear from Jungle Book. Before the show, I had thought to myself, "If the Mickey Mouse costume is as big as the one they show in Disneyland on TV, he's going to have trouble skating effectively." But it turns out that the costumes are carefully taillored to fir like a glove, allowing the fully-costumed skaters to be almost as graceful as the others. Almost.


I'm not going to give the whole show in chronological detail. I'll just highlight a few of the events based on the pictures I managed to take.


First of, we have The Sorcerer's Apprentice!

Goofy: "Hey, Mickey, here's a hat that looks like it was made just for you!"
Me: <_<''' 

Of course, when one thinks of "Sorcerer's Apprentice", one must immediately be reminded of "Dancing Brooms". At this point I was thinking, "Now how would they pull off something like that without making it look strange?"




The answer: "Why would Disney care about 'strange'?"

 Those costumes don't have eyeholes. Creepy. However, the brooms were very well coordinated and put on a good show, earning them the award of Best Costumed Performance. Well done, Dancing Brooms. Wear your title with honor.


Next, Mickey and Donald brought in a creepy-looking gate and started talking about Halloween. But that's funny. I don't remember any Disney movies about Halloween. I'm fairly certain there aren't any Disney movies about Halloween... right?

But wait a minute! Who's that coming up to the gate? A tall, slender figure lurches up to the gate, throws it open, and walks through. But how can this be? It's Jack the Pumpkin King from Nightmare before Christmas! I didn't even know that was a Disney Movie! What a surprise! And it looks like he's not a bad skater either! Mickey left the stage and Jack had a solo part with a few backups where he did it like a professional figure skater. On top of that, due to his costume not being very big (only a heapiece), he was easily the most graceful skater of the day. Top that with his incredibly fashionable tailcoats, and Jack the Pumpkin King wins the Best Solo Performance award! Well done, Jack. Wear your title with pride.

This is Halloween, this is Halloween, Halloween Halloween!

So Disney's talking about Celebrations this time round. They've done Halloween, and now comes Valentines! I skipped the soppy bit where Minnie Mouse asks Fairy Godmother to turn her into a princess. Then we had a number of Disney Couples to come take the stage!

Cinderella and her... Prince Charming, I think?

Mulan and General Shan

Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen. All three couples have they're faces away from meeeeee. Sad.

As skating couples, most of their moves had to do with lifting each other into the air and all. What this meant was that half the time, during their most eye-popping manouvres, they would be moving much to fast for my low-level handphone camera to get a good shot. The rest of the time, they weren't really facing me. Bad pictures, I know.


Couple after Couple came on stage one after the other. But the couple that left the greatest impression on me had to be Princess Jasmine and Prince Aladdin.

Once again, only the backs. But don't be deceived by Princess Jasmine's revealing costume. The girl has abs of steel.

I don't know what it was about this couple that gave me such a good impression of them. Maybe it was the familiar soundtrack. Maybe it was that they pulled off plenty more daring acrobatic moves during they're part. I try to tell myself that it wasn't because of Princess Jasmine's costume. In any case, Princess Jasmine and Prince Aladdin win the Best Couple award! Well done, Jasmine and Aladdin. Wear your title with victory.


And with that, an intermission. I suggest you take this oppurtunity to go grab a sandwich, or something. We've only given away half the awards, and we've got many more amazing costumes to come!

Dum dee doo....

Oh, looky here! Since I have my handphone plugged into the computer, why not take a look at this picture I took the other day?

Singing in the rain! Get it?

Birds don't mind getting wet, I guess. It was really raining heavily that day. I get tired of describing how heavy rain can be, so just refer to the Flower Under the Rain post a few weeks ago and imagine that whole rain scene in this picture.


Aaaaand we're back with Disney on Ice. They really know how to heat things up after a short break.

The Ring of Fire! *heathen chanting*

They didn't waste any time. Shortly after the intermission ended, Disney really went over the edge with this! In the centre is David, the firebreather who burns down the stage in Lilo and Stitch. Fire on ice! How do they do that? David the firebreather easily earns the Most Dramatic Moment award! Well done, David. Wear your title with a touch of ego.


Next, Mickey and Minnie went on a vacation. Disney on Ice would have been a whole lot better without these cartoony bits of conversation, but... that's Disney for you. Anyway, the skaters from Disney on Ice put on several lovely performances themed on festivals from all around the world. More or less. Since they're already in Hawaii, that's where they started.

A beach-party style skate-dance. That's Lilo in the center, actually.

Then they went to China in a way that does not deserve recounting. Mulan and General Shan were celebrating an unnamed Chinese Festival, but apparently it involved dancing too, so that was alright.

Mulan and General Shan dancing around each other like butterflies, while a dragon flies around the stage.

I was considering giving one of those performances an award, but went they went to the Japanese Spring Festival, my mind changed completely.

Minnie Mouse was somewhere there, waving her fan around, but I left her out of the shot.

A graceful fan dance by a group of lovely ladies, skating in beautiful synchronisation to a soothing Japanese melody... I simply had to give the Japanese Spring Festival the Best Group Performance award! Well done, you Japanese ladies. Wear your title with grace.


And that about wraps it up for our Disney Celebrations. But wait a minute. "Wraps it up"? That's right! How could Disney forget about Christmas? Yes, Disney's mascot mouse and his friends rolled in a few boxes of presents and a chimney, all set to celebrate the last and most special festival of the year. Christmas! Of course, when you mix Disney and Christmas together, it is inevitable that you end up with people fighting over the cookies and Goofy getting stuck in the chimney. Which is exactly what happened, and I expected it. But I never expected what came next. The toys are back in town! Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and Jessie skated into the rink, followed by their toy friends. I took one look at them, and thought "No.... that's horrible."

Its Hamm and Rex. See, this is what I was afraid of. This is why I didn't want to go.

Silly me for thinking I could get away from a Disney event without spotting any terrible costumes. I mean really. Hamm and Rex? Isn't Buzz Lightyear bad enough already? Hamm's movements were stumbly and weird, due to having four feet, and Rex's movements were practically nonexistant. He just slid around a lot and raised an arm at one point. Congratulations, Hamm and Rex. Both of you have won the Worst Dressed Pair award for the night. Well done, Hamm and Rex. Wear your title with shame.


And with that, finale time! During the finale, I managed to get a clear shot of Alice and the Mad Hatter. I had originally got a decent one of them at the beginning, during the Happy Unbirthday celebration, but I accidentally deleted it during the intermission. Can you believe it? My only picture of Alice and the Mad Hatter, indeed, the only picture of the Happy Unbirthday celebration, and I accidentally deleted it, which is why I didn't describe that bit. Anyway, I was still sitting there with my mouth open at that early point of the show.


Anyway, I got a good shot of Alice with the Mad Hatter and Lilo with Stitch during the finale. Alice and the Mad Hatter are my favourite Disney Characters, since they're actually from a book. And a good book too.

The Mad Hatter, and Alice! She's cute with her swishy skirt and all. Also, "Oh, how curious!"

A clearer shot of Lilo, plus Stitch. He looks a bit strange, but this is Disney here.

I have one more award to give away tonight, and that's the Best-Dressed Pair award. But torn between the choices of these two young girls and their amusing friends, I can't decide who to give the award to. What do you think? Who would you give the award to? I guess I haven't given you much to judge by... but that just means you don't have to be fair. Just pick whoever caught your attention more.


And so it was that I left the Penang International Sports Arena with the impression that I had seen something special. I hadn't exactly walked in there with good feelings towards Disney, but when I walked out, I decided that perhaps Disney wasn't so bad after all. But I was a bit upset that they didn't include Jimminy Cricket. Or Monsters Inc. On the other hand, I was thankful to goodness that they didn't include Phineas and Ferb. And I now hate Hamm and Rex.


The time is now 12:46. Midnight. For some reason I wanted to blog about the Disney on Ice before I slept and forgot all of it. But that's okay, because holidays start tomorrow, and this holiday is going to be a good one. I won't be couch potatoing all week, for one thing. I've got chockloads of work to do, so at least my brain won't turn mushy during this week of inactivity. I hope you enjoyed my grainy handphone pictures. Good night!