Farewell 2009

It's the last day of year 2009. How time flies. My last post for the year!

Don't forget to catch the 2010 Countdown concert [2010臺北最HIGH新年城] live from Taipei tonight on TVBS as Mayday will be performing from 11:00pm till the clock strikes 12am, ushering in the new year ;)

Christmas 2009

Wishing everyone a MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ 聖誕節快樂 ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪

Mayday in the USA

Full details of 五月天's North American D.N.A world tour has been released. For the first time ever the band will be performing in the east coast at Mohegan Sun, CT. (I was there 2 years ago - time to make another trip back XD), followed by two stops in the west coast (LA & San Jose)

April 4 - Mohegan Sun Arena, CT
Time: 2:00AM & 2:00PM (2 shows)

Organised by: IEM

April 10 - Gibson Ampitheatre, Los Angeles, CA
Time: 7:30PM
Organised by: StarZone

April 11 - San Jose State University Event Center, CA

Time: 7:00PM

Organised by: USA Star Image

NFL Blitz episode 5

NFL Blitz episode 5 was aired a few days back and featured the band visiting James Madison High School - home to a nationally recognised marching band that has won numerous awards at different levels in the country.

In this episode, the band finally get to showcase their skills on musical instruments. They were split into two groups and put to a challenge to perform "Louie Louie". And the winning team had Monster's infamous back-playing guitar solo to thank!

Monster's awesome guitar solo thrilled the coach of the high school band

5 episodes down, 11 to go. So far the band has visited the many different NFL teams HQ, NFL recording studio and High School Band - where else are they gonna cover?

Happy 2nd birthday!

My blog turns 2 today!

When I started this blog, I wasn't sure how long it was gonna last - a lot of blogs end up being shut down after awhile. I'm marking my second anniversary. Hope there'll be many more to come :)

And a big thank you to everyone for reading this blog!

Stone becomes daddy for the second time!

恭喜石頭跟狗狗!

Congratulations to Papa Stone and Mama Gou Gou on the birth of their second son today.

Baby Rock now has a brother ;)

NFL Blitz episodes 3 and 4

NFL Blitz is the only TV program that I'm currently watching. Episodes 3 and 4 were aired the previous and last week respectively on CCTV-5. If you're wondering why you haven't got CCTV-5 on your cable network, that's cos it's only aired in Mainland China.

By far episode 4 was the most boring (and I still don't get the game) The earlier 3 episodes were funnier and more entertaining. My only complaint is the lack of English in the program. The guys were in the States, they should really make an effort to speak more English (we all know the limit of their spoken English XD Then again, this is a made for China market program hence the lack of spoken English)

strategy discussion? (Stone is translating to Ashin what the dude in white had just briefed them haha)

Monster, Masa and Stone seem to be the only enthusiastic ones. Ashin and Guan You look like they sleepwalked through all the episodes. Jetlag maybe (over a period of 10 days?) or just displaying their disinterest in the sport. Heck, I have no interest whatsoever in the sport either, I'm just watching it cos Mayday are in it!

Mayday in action (a different kind of action)

12530 fan meeting

Looks like 五月天 have been busy post last weekend's 55555 concert. They were in Mainland to attend a fan meeting event organised by 12530.com where they sang more than 10 songs. Those lucky Mainland fans, they always have so many fan meeting events there.

Poor Ashin was unwell but soon felt better when he got onstage - thanks to the fans' warm reception - hope he gets well soon!

"i'm not crazy i'm just a little unwell"

石頭生日快樂

Happy birthday Stone!!

And congratulations 五月天! Their D.N.A Live CD [創造：小巨蛋DNA LIVE!! 演唱會創紀錄音] is the number 1 album in Taiwan this week

20091205 五月天[創造55555人]高雄世運主場館演唱會

五月天[創造55555人]高雄世運主場館演唱會 marked my 10th D.N.A concert @_@

I broke my own record - that's the most concerts I've watched in a single world tour. Haha. And the best part is, the D.N.A tour will roll into 2010. So let's see where it'll take me next.. California here I come!

fans Q-ing up to get number for the free standing zone

We got to the stadium early that fine Saturday morning and got to watch the setting up of the merchandise and Stay Real booths. There was already a Q for the merchandise. Everyone was Q-ing up for the limited edition D.N.A figurine set. We were 3rd in the Q, behind some Japanese and HK fans. By late morning it was so sunny that we all got to sunbathe in Kaohsiung's hot winter afternoon.

Stay Real booth being set up. It takes so many of them to put up that hanging banner

merchandise booth not open for business yet

map of the stadium entrance

The World Games Stadium [世運主場館] is massive! We took a walk around the stadium (to take a peep backstage) and it took almost half hour to go one round (cos we stopped to take photos)

there were many signages everywhere and yet we got lost trying to hunt for our entrance

backstage view of the main stage. Can you spot the taxi hanging in the middle?

What made the concert special was that it was 阿信's birthday (since they sang all the way past midnight) and the first time such a large scale concert was held at the World Games Stadium.

Kaohsiung 55555's sea of blue

After Masa's 擁抱 solo, he started to sing 生日快樂 [Happy Birthday] to Ashin (it was only 11:30pm..!!) At midnight again the fans sang Happy Birthday. haha. Too many birthday songs that night for the birthday boy.

阿信 was very amused that the thank you list is so long

Masa started his opening speech speaking entirely in Taiwanese. It was really good to hear them sing so many Taiwanese songs. Their Taiwanese songs are the reason why I love them so much =D When Ashin said he was going to sing a "2005 song that they rarely sing live" and announced the next song is 麥來亂, I was over the moon!!!!! Omigosh I love that song to bits!! :)))))

more birthday boy funny moment

They sang a lot of old songs that they hardly ever sing - 好不好 and 有你的將來. 借問眾神明 and OK 啦 are my favourite as well. Ashin sang the latter complete with the OK'La dance - it was soooo cute! Hope it makes it on the DVD.

you can tell he's singing OK OK OK OK'La !

The concert which started at 8PM ended at 12:30AM. When I read that the MRT service would be extended to 2AM, I thought they'd sing till at least past 1AM. Little did I know it takes hours for the trains to send 50 odd thousand fans home. We left the stadium promptly after it had finished and we were stuck in the massive human traffic at the MRT station. By the time we got back to the hotel it was nearly 2am!

* concert photos credit to the dude who took them

D.N.A bottled water

There were some new merchandise at the 55555 D.N.A concert and amongst others were these two D.N.A bottled water. And this sucker bought them both lol!

Escape to Kaohsiung

Last weekend's trip to Kaohsiung was my second time there. There has been much changes since my last trip. The Kaohsiung MRT is now up and running. Four years ago when I was there, there were massive construction for the MRT. Getting around is now easier with the MRT. Wahey I've even got my limited edition Kaohsiung D.N.A MRT card ;)

It's winter but it was blazing hot in Kaohsiung! We Q-ed for hours in the sun to purchase the limited edition D.N.A figurines and some of us actually got sunburned XD

During our 3 day trip, we got to do a fair bit of sight-seeing, all thanks to the Mayday passport book that required us to collect Mayday stamps from various spots in Kaohsiung. It was fun! (just think Kaohsiung mini version of the Amazing Race lolz)

we got all 5 stamps!

We went to Dream Mall to get Guan You's stamp. There's a Sanrio themed ferris wheel at the mall's rooftop which offered free rides to Mayday fans (how cool is that?!) Just flash your 55555 concert ticket and you'd be entitled to two free rides.

free ferris wheel ride for Mayday fans

Masa's stamp was located at Love River and Ashin's was the easiest cos it was located at the MRT station where the 「創造55555人」concert venue is [World Games Stadium 世運主場館]. Hunting for Monster's stamp took us to a little island called Cijin, which we had to take a ferry to get there. It's a sleepy fishing island famous for cheap seafood. Too bad we didn't have time to sample the food. Next time maybe.

Cijin. Monster's pitstop

The last stamp we got was Stone's which was located at the Lotus Pond. I vividly remember the place cos I'd been there years ago. It was the place with the tiger and dragon pagoda.

last pitstop - Stone's!

Once we had collected all 5 stamps, we made a quick stop to Stay Real to redeem the free pin badge set. We arrived at Stay Real Kuchan before it was open at 2PM and there was a massive crowd right in front. The Q was so long that it had spilled into the street! O_O I have never seen such a long Q outside a clothing store.

massive Q at Stay Real Kuchan

Stay Real Kuchan

a round Mayday Monopoly anyone?

Back from my KL-Taipei-Kaohsiung-Taipei-KL trip :)

Before I get into the 55555 concert (which by the way was great), I wanna do a quick post on the Mayday figurine set because it's so AWESOME! This is the set that's limited to only 2,000. A big thank you to Jen and Doris for Q-ing up at 7am. We were 3rd in the Q haha

I had no idea till we saw the sample set at the merchandise booth how big the box is. It's HUGE! And I didn't know until I bought them how heavy they weighed. It's friggin' heavy - weighs almost 4kg. The MRT station was some distance from the stadium (there were no cabs >.<) so by the time I walked to the station lugging them, my arms almost fell off LMAO!


Once I had a look at the contents of the box, I was in awe. This is the coolest and most awesomeness merchandise I've ever seen. Very very impressive! It's a custom made Mayday monopoly board game.


And check out the figurines - they look soooo adorably cute!!!! There were two versions - all black or the colour one (as pictured above)

They are really well made - they look sooo good! I cant wait to find room to display them in my shelf :D

Mayday monopoly! now how COOL is that??

D.N.A live CD out today!

Greetings from Taipei ;)

I finally got my D.N.A limited edition commemorative card yesterday.

Off to pick up the D.N.A live CD later in the morning.

500th post

Today is the first day of the last month of 2009.

And this marks my 500th post!

2 days to go and I'll be off to Taiwan - yay!

The merchandise list for the Kaohsiung concert is now out - looks like I will be cashing out at the merchandise booth on the special limited edition stuffs o_O I just hope there won't be a massive queue for the limited edition, and most certainly not an overnight queue! That'd be mad.. but then again you never know how crazy Taiwanese fans can be *shudder*

Mayday X NFL episode 2

NFL美国橄榄球职业联赛 超级腕 2 /NFL Blitz episode 2 was aired last night on CCTV-5 last Thursday 26/11. You can watch the program here. There are 16 episodes altogether so don't froget to tune in every Thursday

Last week the band and Ding Dang were in Beijing to promote the TV program.

Happy Birthday Monster!

怪獸生日快樂 !

55555人演唱會 countdown

Counting down 12 days to......

NFL Blitz premiere: Mayday X NFL program on CCTV

NFL美国橄榄球职业联赛 超级腕 was aired on CCTV last Friday (19/11) over in China. For those of us who were unable to catch it, fret not as you can watch it here.

looking engrossed or lost in the game?

meeting NFL's big boss who didn't know they were a band and thought they were from China o_O

The program is about 30 minutes long. I've been dying to watch this ever since I read news about it :) I was hoping to hear them speak English but all I saw was a couple of lines hehe. Ashin was particularly funny in this part in the video below: "hey hey hey you you you you you..." "this is for you.... this is also drummer"

D.N.A World Tour so far...

2009
5/20-5/22 香港
5/28 Melbourne
5/29 Sydney
7/3-7/4 上海
7/11 北京
8/01 哈爾濱
8/21 杭州
8/28-8/29 新加坡
9/24-9/27 台北
10/6 南京
10/17 佛山體育館
10/31 重慶
11/3 東京
11/21 廣州
12/05 高雄

2010
04/11 San Jose, CA

Ashin X Stay Real Star tee

This is incredibly funny.

Last night I was browsing at Stay Real's website and saw they had a new catalogue for the Star tee series. As usual there were numerous pictures of the products, including a picture of Ashin wearing the white version.

I chuckled when I saw the Ashin pic cos the tee looked a little too fitting on him. You could actually see his, uhh.. have a look at the picture below:

BEFORE

When I went to the website again today, they've replaced that pic (above) with the one below. It looks like the same picture but it's been doctored, and the tee don't look so tight LMAO!!!

AFTER -can you spot the difference?

Mayday live in San Jose,CA on 11 April 2010

Just saw this news. Thanks Net for the heads up!

Date & Time: April 11,2010 @ 7:00PM Sunday night

Venue Location: San Jose State Event Center, 290 S 7th Street, San Jose, CA, USA

Ticket Prices: will be announced soon please stay tuned to:
www.usastarimage.com for updates

ticket info hotline: 510-651-6888

purchase tickets online at:
http://www.usastarimage.com

Anyone interested to go?

Go Kaohsiung

It looks like the Kaohsiung City Government are gearing up for their biggest tourism event yet - Mayday's upcoming 55555人 concert.

Various promotions/activities/contests/etc have been lined up for the concert and they are anticipating a number of attendees, both local and foreign. Promotions include a free tour of Kaohsiung Port and Shoushan Zoo (which comes complimetary with stay at any hotel in Kaohsiung), free ride on the ferris wheel with any 55555人 concert ticket, the list goes on. For full list, surf on to Kaohsiung Travel Online.

There is a contest to win signed concert posters and exclusive Mayday figurines (guess Mayday's favourite scenic spot and local food in Kaohsiung)

A limited edition Go Kaohsiung travel guide will be issued on 5 December (pictured above) and distributed at the concert venue.

free ferris wheel ride for Mayday fans

In addition, the Kaohsiung MRT are releasing a limited edition (limited to only 3,555) Mayday commemorative MRT card which will go on sale on 28/11 at 8:00am (I can just imagine how many crazy fans are gonna camp overnight to buy it...)

7-11 commercial feat. Ashin & Patty Hou

Just watched this 7-11 commercial (which was first aired yesterday in Taiwan) featuring Ashin and Patty Hou.

Pre-order countdown

Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow (Wednesday 18 November) is the start of the pre-order for the Mayday World Tour@Taipei Arena concert CD [小巨蛋DNA LIVE!! 演唱會創紀錄音].

Counting down 17 days to the release of the CD and 18 days to the Kaohsiung 「創造55555人」演唱會

Sony Ericsson battery life

I was having a bit of a problem with my Sony Ericsson phone battery lately. The indicator never seem to show "FULLY CHARGED" despite having been charged for hours. Maybe the battery has gone wonky, though it still lasts a good few days.

Why is this happening when my current SE W595 phone is only 8 months old? My other 3 year old SE W850i phone still works fine without a glitch. I think I'm gonna have the W595 sent for a check-up when I find the time, while it's still under warranty.

So I went online and did a bit of research, stumbled on this site/blog with a review on the Sony Ericsson satio mobile phone battery life. It seems to suggest that SE phones have the best battery in the market...

小巨蛋DNA LIVE!! 演唱會創紀錄音 (預購版)

Mayday's D.N.A concert(s) held at Taipei Arena this past September will be released on CD on 4 December 2009 priced at NT$468. Whoa - that's fast!!!

Pre-order for the CD will commence on 18 November 2009. Further details on the live CD can be found here.

First 10,000 copies of the CD will come with an exclusive DVD which sadly, doesn't contain the concert footage, only the DNA and 放肆 MV, among others.

I'm still waiting for the release of the concert DVD.. wonder if they're waiting to release the Kaohsiung concert on DVD..?

Pepero Day

Today is World Pepero Day. I didn't know till Clarissa and Tika mentioned it on Twitter.

If you're wondering what's Pepero Day, well it's a Korean thing (a-ha! no wonder I didn't know about it) I've never had Pepero, but I've had similar biscuit sticks covered in chocolate and I love them! Over here we have a cheaper version from Thailand called Rocky ;)

15th Singapore HIT Awards

Congratulations to all winners of the 15th Singapore Hit Awards that was held last Friday. The biggest winner of the night is Mayday (yay! =D) who swept a total of 5 awards [for Album Of The Year, Best Band, Popular Group/Band, YES 933FM Pick of the Pops Award - Artiste with Most Chart Hits and Asia Media Award (Band)], followed by S.H.E who won 4 awards.

Leehom picked up the YES 933FM Pick of the Pops Award - Single of the Year for Heart.Beat.

Major Tao in SG

Major Tao's current "DT In Space The Rock And Talk Show" tour is heading down to Singapore on 8 Jan 2010. Previously rumoured to be held at the Expo, the venue has now changed to the Indoor Stadium. Tickets are priced at $178, $148, $128, $88 excluding the usual Sistic charge. Not sure when they will go on public sale as the various FCs are currently taking pre-oders.

And since Major Tao will be in SG to perform at a charity event on 27 Nov, an autograph session will be held on 28 Nov at Orchard Central at 3.30PM. David will be signing copies of his latest studio effort, Opus 69 and concert tickets.

Kaohsiung MRT Mayday commemorative card

To commemorate the upcoming Kaohsiung「創造55555人」演唱會, Kaohsiung MRT is issuing a limited edition 2009五月天DNA紀念卡 which will go on sale on Saturday 28/11 at all Kaohsiung MRT station. Each ticket costs 200元. Wonder if there'll be any left by the time I'm there?

Archie gets married

I've been reading Archie comics for as long as I can remember, though I eventually grew out of it as they got too expensive to buy. The comic has been around for ages. Wonder if it's still popular these days..

In issue #600 (they've come a looong way) Archie got down on his knees and proposed to Veronica. About time - the Archie-Veronica-Betty love triangle have been going on for 65 years now! Somehow I've always knew that Archie would pick Veronica over Betty. Aww poor Betty, just look at her expression on the cover of issue #601.

H1N1 strikes back

Just when you thought it's safe to go back out again.

China's Ministry of Health has on Monday, warned of a new round of H1N1 outbreak in the Mainland, as the number of infections continue to rise and the coming of winter may bring the number of infections up. Taiwan too, is bracing for a second wave of the H1N1 epidemic *yikes!*

In light of the current outbreak in China, Leehom has postponed his upcoming Quanzhou concert.

Unwell

This blog has been quiet for the past few days, and I was gonna blame it on lack of Mayday news.. but the truth is that I was sick to the bone.

There's news on Mayday's Tokyo D.N.A concert here (if you can read Japanese..). They will be heading to Singapore next to attend this Friday's Hit Awards.

Happy Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN !!

Those who are attending the DNA concert in Chongqing tonight, have fun!