Singapore National Day Practice, Marina Bay

The National Day Parade, is a national ceremony in Singapore celebrated August 9, to commemorate Singapore's independence. We have come up on our second celebration of Singapore's birthday and Singapore's 42nd year. They they have 2 National Day Parade practices on the Saturday's before the event celebration. We were out walking around and had no idea what was going on. Before you knew it, we were given hats and glow stick stars and wondering among the Singaporeans. Steven and I lucked in to getting a front row seat in a reatuarant. If this is practice, I can't imagine what the real event looks like. The impressive parade featured tanks, fireworks, mass displays of loud bombs, death-defying stunts by the Singapore Armed Forces parachutists, speedboats, helicoptors and tunes from a 2000-strong combined schools choir. We couldn't see the performers perform on stage but everything else was spectacular.
The Parade has gained enormous popularity and support from the people that it is not unusual to find massive number of citizens trying to get their hands on a ticket, which is released free-of-charge. The government set up the e-balloting ticketing system in 2003, in order to tackle the problem of overcrowding and possible problems that might result. Such ticketing system enables citizens to stand a chance at winning the tickets by registering their e-mail addresses or mobile numbers at the NDP website or phonelines.