Woo hoo!

The title of this post indicates a special double bill - the Wailers' gig last week and Lola's and my attendance at doggy training classes.  Woo hoo, or a rough approximation of same, is the noise Lola makes when she is excited about something, which happens a lot and it's pretty much the cry I found myself emitting last Saturday night to express my appreciation of the Wailers.  I was particularly appreciative of one of the two lead singers - the one in the picture on the left, who looks like a Jamaican Javier Bardem.  Yum! 


The venue was the Hard Rock Hotel on Sentosa, part of the  integrated resort/casino complex that opened there last year.  My regular readers may remember the description of our first trip there, in the post contributed by the lovely Chris entitled "Casino banal".   Suffice to say we were mightily disappointed.  However, this time was quite different, partly because I was above ground, but also because the place is really quite amazing.   I started the evening at the Palio restaurant which is part of the hotel Michael, one of six hotels in the complex. Each of the hotels has a different feel; the Michael is very much the hotel for art lovers.  Its name is a  tribute to Michael Graves, the American architect who designed Resorts World, and the Michael is probably the hotel I would choose to stay in if I went on a mini-break a la Bridget Jones.

Boy with dreadlocks on his hat

The Palio is an Italian restaurant - one of its many plus points.  In fact the only downside as far as I was concerned was that it was rather full, especially of noisy children, but then again, I'm all for introducing kids to the delights of Italian cuisine at an early age, so what can you do?  What I did was to sample their wonderful wood fired pizza, which came close to a 10 on the Doverty register of deliciousness and was the perfect pre-cursor to a night of leaping up and down in front of the Wailers.  And when I say in front, I mean it, as I managed to get a place in the second row from the stage.  This was a standing event and it's been a while since I did one of those, but it couldn't have been any other way.  The crowd was really into it, although one or two of the older members of the audience (not me obviously - I'm still 33 in my mind and can woo hoo with the best of them) looked a little uncomfortable, as if they didn't quite know how to get with the vibe.  The guy next to me was really into the whole Jamaican thing; he had on a red gold and green hat with little dreadlocks attached, which you can just see in the photo on the right. 

I could have done with that hat a couple of Sundays ago, which was Lola's first doggy obedience class.  It was also the day that the rain came down so hard that it flooded the Tanglin Mall (that's rain in the photo, not an indoor waterfall!).  The class itself was under cover, but it was almost impossible to get a taxi home, as TLC was in France and I did not want to drive there myself.  I'm a bit funny about driving in Singapore, but that's probably the subject of a whole post on its own, so I'm not going to go there.  The first class was theory, which Lola didn't really take to as her reading skills are not up to much, but last Sunday was the first practical class.  I would love to say that she excelled, but it would be a lie.  Frankly, the two words "Lola" and "obedience" do not often occur in the same sentence, as those of you who have met her can confirm, but I live in hope, inspired by one of the demonstration dogs - a beautiful Siberian husky.  He was a rescue dog who had suffered abuse for several years, but is now both incredibly obedient and affectionate.  TLC is worried that Lola will lose her joie de vivre if she becomes obedient to our commands, but she has so much of the stuff she could probably share hers with all the dogs in Singapore and still have plenty left over.  I'll keep you posted on progress (hopefully there will be some to report!).