Tag Archives: entertainment

My long weekend in picture

Last weekend, we had a long weekend as it was Labour Day on Monday. There is so much happening in Sydney right now that we had busy weekend. I am so tired now but glad I managed to do so much. Here are some of the photos from the weekend.

On Saturday, it was the start of Dashain, our biggest festival (for details click here). So in the morning I had to plant my Jamara to start the festival. To learn how to plant your own Jamara, please click here.

Jamara

Around 10am, we headed to Wattamolla Beach to enjoy picnic with family and friends. Wattamolla Beach is located within the Royal National Park and have nice beach perfect to go with family. It was awesome sunny day and we had heaps of fun in water.

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On Sunday, we went to Helensburgh temple (details here) as it is Dashain now and it seemed like a great idea.. We went there with some of our friends and his family. As always, we had breakfast there, yummy vegetarian South Indian dishes.

temple

From there we drove for over an hour and was in Parramatta, enjoying Parramasala (details here). Like every year, it was fun with lots of food and music.

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On Monday, we went and saw the war ship at International Fleet Review. The review is a celebration marking 100 years since the Royal Australian Navy fleet first entered Sydney Harbour. It was worth the visit as we got to see so many navy ship from many different countries.

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Bryan Adams Live in concert

One of the concerts I have always wanted to attend was Bryan Adams. I really love his songs and they remind me of my school days. Songs like 18 Till I Die, Everything I Do, I Do It for You, Heaven, Summer of ‘69 used to be our party anthem.

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For those who don’t know Bryan Adams (I think there are many), click here for his biography . As Canada’s best-known ambassador, Bryan Adams has spent the last three decades making music history. He has sold over 65 million records, toured six continents and achieved #1 status in over 40 countries around the world. With hits like, “Cuts Like A Knife”, “Summer of ’69”, “Kids Wanna Rock”, “Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve Started”, “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”, “Heaven” and most recently “Thought I’d Seen Everything”, Adams status as one of the great songwriter’s of our time, has been solidified. He has won MTV Video Music Awards, Juno Awards, Grammy Awards and American Music Awards.

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Last year, he had come to Sydney for a concert but we were in Nepal at that time so we missed it and not long ago he was in Kathmandu but we had just left Kathmandu so we missed again. I was telling my husband, maybe we will never see him in concert again as he is not getting any younger which means he may not have that many concerts organised in Sydney.

Bryan Adams Live in concert (1)

Lucky for us he had a few concerts organised in Sydney and we managed to get the ticket for Friday.

I was already very happy to go and see him as I knew I would love it. I know most of his songs and I had heard that he is very interactive during his concert and I am glad to report that he didn’t disappoint me.

After work, me and AS met up in the city and went to have dinner first. The concert was to start at 7:30 so we wanted something quick and yummy so we decided to eat Korean. I loved my spicy pork with rice and AS enjoyed his noodle with prawns.

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I was really excited so we went to the concert hall at 7:00. There were already many people waiting in the bar and eating areas. We showed our tickets and went inside to find our seats. It looked like people were already there and excited. By 7.30, the hall was less than 70% full. I was surprised that it wasn’t sold out.

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The light went off and Amy Macdonald was on the stage. She introduced herself as a Scottish recording artist. I have to say her voice was awesome and even though I have never listened to her songs, I really enjoyed her voice. After she was done, the arena got really excited as it was Bryan Adams on the stage soon.

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By then the arena was 99% full. It was amazing that so many people knew that Bryan Adams won’t be on stage till after 8pm. Looking around I realised that most of the people there were a bit older than us. I guessed they must have been in their teens or 20’s when Bryan Adams was very famous. And there were younger people like me as well who must have been in love with him from very young age.

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While we were waiting for Bryan Adams to come on stage, there was a display of his twitter account on the huge screen behind the stage. It was really interesting as people started to send lots of funny tweets like, “Someone just farted” and “Marry me Amy”. As I have a twitter account, I also sent a few tweets and captured them on camera. Have a look 🙂

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It was a really good idea to keep us engaged for a while. Anyway, the light of the arena went dim again and it was the man himself on the stage. I was so excited and happy to see him.

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Straight away, everyone was cheering and the amazing night began. He sang all my favourite songs and I didn’t want him to stop. I really have to admit that he is really great even at 52 years to rock the stage like that for over 2 hours. The audience were standing up and swaying to the beats.

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There were also some taking pictures or video on their phones. We could see the whole arena dotted with the lights of the mobile phone screens like stars on a dark night.

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He normally has great audience interaction and this time as well he picked a girl from the audience to help him sing the “Baby When You’re Gone” duet. I wish I could have gone on the stage but this lucky girl from Penrith did a great job singing the song with him. She was just ecstatic to be there with Bryan and was giving him numerous hugs and kisses that many in the audience would have died for.

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Bryan Adams Live in concert (13)

After that he started his love songs and I was just blown away. “Everything I do, I do it for you”, “Heaven”, and “Have You Really Loved a Woman” sounded awesome when it was live. It was like he was taking the audience on an amazing journey to the love land. 🙂

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At the end he acknowledged his band members Keith Scott (lead) and Mickey Currie (drums). Mickey Currie was awesome as he played the drums using only bucket and metal plates at one point. Both me and AS were really impressed.

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You’re welcome back to Australia anytime Bryan Adams.

Do you like Bryan Adams? Which is your favourite song?

Till next post, take care.

M from nepaliaustralia

XOXO

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Aastha journey’s in Asia’s Next Top Model

I am sure you remember Aastha Pokharel who was representing Nepal for Asia’s next Top Model here.  I was really busy lately so didn’t have time to catch up but finally I was able to watch up to Episode 10 over the weekend. I am already a big fan of this show as it gives aspiring models a big chance in their career and at the same time teachs them how to be a better model giving them opportunities to learn during the show.

Asia’s Next Top Model started out with 14 contestants from all over Asia and Aastha was representing Nepal. The show is doing really well and I love every challenge they get.

Here is what has happened with Aastha so far. I really thinking she is doing a great job and has a huge potential to be a world class model.

Episode 1 Little India Shoot

Episode 2 Wearing Prada for Harper’s Bazaar

Her group won the best group and she won best photo for this shoot and she deserve it.

Episode 3 Chinese Zodiac Shoot: Aastha as a rat

In this episode all the girls were given a makeover and Aastha’s long hair was cut short. She was really not happy with her new look and it took its toll on her photo-shoot. I do like her new look .

Episode 4 Photo with hot Jason Godfrey

Aastha really impressed judges with this shot and was the runner up on the ‘Be Sexy’ shoot.

Episode 5 French Riviera shoots

I really like this photo of Aastha. She was runner up on this shot as well but I really think it was the best shot.

Episode 6 Tresemme Beauty Shoot

For this episode, everyone made an ad for Tresemme writing their own script and performing in a commercial.  Aastha won this challenge with the following ad.

Episode 7 Environmental campaign

In this one Aastha struggled and her photo was not so great.

Episode 8 A haute couture red dress

During this shoot Aastha was told she needs to keep her energy up during the shoot. But I loved this shot of her. Aastha came third.

Episode 9 Underwater photo-shoot

This was one of the worst one for Aastha was it was an underwater shot and she cannot swim. But I am so proud of her since she managed to overcome her fear of the water and gave a great shot.

Episode 10 Movement and passion

I really like her ad for Suvaru with Girls on the Move concept.

Later during the photo-shoot, Aastha complained that her dress and hair wasn’t working for her. I felt bad for her but she still managed to give nice shot which judges thought had a great pose but her face was blank.

If you are interested please click the following to watch it from the start. I am waiting for the last 2 episodes to come on YouTube now  🙂

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The experience of watching Dabangg 2

As many people already know, Bollywood movies are  big in Asia and Nepal is no exception. Bollywood movies run in theaters in Nepal more that Nepali films, as far as I know.

Even when I used to live in Nepal, I hardly went to cinemas. I used to look at cinema as total waste of my time and money and if it was Bollywood movies, then it was waste of more than 3 hours of my life. So I have never been a big fan of watching Bollywood movies in cinema. If I get good reviews from my friends, I get the movie at home so I can fast forward songs or anything I don’t feel like watching. Also, the DVDs  have subtitles which help me a lot to understand the dialogues.

While in Pokhara, we normally had lots of time in the evening as it got dark early in winter and the hotel also had load shedding so we couldn’t do much or even watch TV. So one evening while we were there, we decided to go for a movie. My MIL was keen to watch Dabangg 2, a Bollywood movie sequel of the successful movie Dabangg.

So my FIL decided to call his friend who owns a cinema complex in Pokhara. He just asked him if it would be possible to reserve 5 seats for us for the evening show of Dabangg 2, just to make sure that we got tickets once we reach the cinema.

 After the conversation we drove from our hotel to the cinema hall asking for directions several times to the passers-by as the place was far from where our hotel was. After more than 30 minutes’ drive, we were finally greeted by this friend at the gate of the cinema. As we parked we noticed that there was no one in the cinema hall and the whole building seemed empty and dark.

The owner asked us to come upstairs and we all were introduced to him. He seemed pleased to meet my FIL and was addressing AS as Mr Engineer when he spoke to him (In Nepal, many people used that term to address AS). We sat on the lounge and he ordered tea for us while FIL and few other people from cinema had conversed.

The whole cinema complex was dark expect the place we were in. So my FIL asked why there was no one there. His friend then told us that in Pokhara, they are not doing night shows as the movie had been on for many weeks and night show was not popular in the winter. So my FIL said that it was ok that if the night shows was not running then he did not want to touble his friend and we could leave but his friend insisted on running the movie just for us. And to top of that, there was no power so the movie was running on generators.

Once we finished our tea, we were escorted to one of their halls and asked to seat anywhere we liked. We chose the best seats in the house. Me, AS, MIL and FIL sat in one row while our driver dai sat on another one. The owner and few other people sat behind us and the movie started. I am not sure when but the owner and other people left while the movie was running so at point when I turn around it was only 5 of us in this big cinema hall. With the movie running for nearly 4 weeks they must have watched it numerous times already!

As usual the movie turned out to be a full-fledged Bollywood movie with songs every 20 minutes and unbelievable fight sequence every 10 minutes. I was a bit annoyed that there were no subtitles as I couldn’t understand some parts of the movie. But apart from me, everyone seemed to enjoy the movie and we had a great experience of watching the movie with just the five us in the whole theatre.

Enjoying Paradis Latin Cabaret in Paris: France

Of course one has to go to the Cabaret when you visit Paris for the first time. So it was on our to-do list. We wanted to watch Moulin Rouge as I had heard great reviews about it. When we were there we couldn’t get the ticket for that so instead we went to watch a show called “Paradis à la Folie” in Paradis Latin Cabaret.

The Paradis Latin is a theatre at number 28, rue du Cardinal Lemoine, in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Le Paradis Latin is one of the oldest cabarets in the world and the only cabaret situated on the left bank of Paris in the original, yet very expertly renovated building that was originally constructed by Gustave Eiffel.

Paradis Latin features the famous French Can-Can, there is a friendly atmosphere with a sexy and mischievous for an almost 2 hour revue that is definitely not suitable for children.

We paid 88 euro per person with one glass of champagne included. There was dinner option as well but we didn’t do it.

I was dressed in my long blue dress and AS wore his formal pant and shirt.

When we got there, the hall was full and there was some music going at the background. A waiter escorted to our seats and served us the champagne.

It was interesting to see mixed crowd in the room. It looked like there were people from all over the world. There was a big table full of Indian tourist with families. I was surprised to see grandparents who looked 70+ and also kids who looked 7 years old or younger.

The theatre is two floored and looks liked it fits almost 200 people. The decor is very old style with big chandeliers and wallpapers. The Paradis Latin considers itself to be the most Parisian of the great cabarets and this can be seen in the decoration of the theatre, the world famous French Can-Can and in the ballets, the cosmopolitan dance troupe with their shimmering costumes and the previous shows, or revues as they are known, such as the Paris Paradis, Nuit de Paradis and Champagne

The show is advertised as featuring original music, stunning costumes and dance routines that are sure to take your breath away.

The theatre must aim at tourists because the compere translated everything he said into English so even if you speak no French at all you won’t miss anything.

When the show started, they turned off the lights, and the announcer started his presentation, first in French, then in English. The show is fine for both French and English-speaking clients, however, the announcer does make a few jokes in French .The show at the beginning was very slow but later it became more interesting. There were always half naked dancing girls (disco style, cheerleaders…), male dancers, acrobats and one singer. The costumes and settings varied a lot from one act to the next, and the show is supposed to be a timeline of love in Paris, starting in the early 1900, going all the way to 2089.

The highlight was a man riding a unicycle with his juggling act and a gymnast on a trapeze.  The can-can at the end was great and put everyone in a dancing mood. The show was done with style and it was very entertaining.

As it was my first experience, I found it interesting as I kind of knew what to expect. We had a mother and daughter on our table and they didn’t like it at all. And all the nudity made them uncomfortable.

Over on the big table full of Indian tourist with grandparents and grand kids, they seemed to be stunned.  I am sure whoever asked them to go for this show never explained to them that there would be nude girls so most of them were looking away from the stage or just putting their head down.  I won’t be comfortable to watch that show in front of my parents or kids as well so I can understand what was going on in their heads. What a waste of money for them. Also I am not sure how they allowed kids to attend this.

With incredibly talented artists, a good choreography and a mass of colours showcasing beauty and rhythm through ballet, tap dancing and other attractions, it was one of the most exciting evenings we had in Paris.