2015 Singapore F1 Grand Prix Night Race - Date night with #1

I heard about the F1 tickets promotion on radio in May and when I went to Sistic counter to get it some weeks later, the Zone 4 Walkabout tickets are still available. I had always wanted Kiiron to experience a F1 race live, so I grabbed the tickets. This is the first time we are watching the Singapore Grand Prix live since its first race here in 2008. I bought 2 tickets so either Mark or me will bring him. As things turn out, Papa M wont be back in Singapore on the day and it will be me dating our first-born!

Finally we are going to experience the F1 live
Zone 4 Walkabout tickets, 2 for $81
Good enough for us as we are not exactly F1 fans

On race day, I picked the kids up earlier from school and I had prepared a little surprise for Meimei as I was guilty for leaving her at home for too many a time this week. Luckily doting grandparents and 姨妈 had agreed to babysit her, so I know she will be in good care.

Then we are on our way to date night with son! Traffic was smooth and I decided to park the car at Raffles City for convenience sake. But later regretted it big time because I found out that the parking there is cut-throat during F1 days only when I exited the carpark. Charges are a whooping $41.60 for about 7 hrs from 5:45pm!

After a nice dinner, we thought we are finally going in for the race when the little episode of Murphy's Law unfolds! Yes, one of the ticket is missing! I don't know how but it is missing from the lanyard! I shouldn't have ignore that little voice in my head when I took the tickets out from the wrapper in the car. Oh man! I can tell you that standing right outside the race area with a lost ticket while listening to all the cars zooming past... that feeling sucks!

Darn you, Murphy!

We walked back to the car but still couldn't find that ticket so I decided to proceed to the entry gate and pretended that we didn't know about the lost ticket and hopefully, they will let the cute boy through.

Oh! the organizers are quite professional and the cute little boy didn't do the trick. Apparently, there must be enough people who lost their ticket and there is a lost ticket procedure in place. We were directed to the ticketing booth to get a replacement ticket.

There were some crowd in the ticketing booth with people queuing to buy a ticket on the spot. After standing for a while in the queue, I thought that there must be a special queue for ticket replacement or something... I cant be queuing like a goondu wasting our precise race time. So, I asked Bay to remain in the line while I go to the information to check. Luckily I did that because they helped me reprint the lost ticket immediately (with a $20 replacement fee) at the information counter. (fortunately, I didn't delete my email to prove of purchase!)

When I went back to the ticket queue to look for Bay, 姨姨 and her friend were also there and had found Bay in the queue sobbing while I was gone. Geez... I must have been gone for like only 10 mins! He needs to be more tough. Still... poor thing lah.

FINALLY, we are really going in for the race! Last 10 minutes of the first practice session left before a 2 hours break.

Highlight of the day: Pharrell Williams Concert @ Padang till 12:30am!
(The Padang was so packed that we could only watched from the side)
Late night out for the boy but it's worth it to watch one of his favourite singer
It's a pity that mama's phone was out of battery when his favourite "Happy" song came on at the end

Overall, we had a blast at the race and we get to see a different face of Singapore. In my honest opinion, I felt that it is fun to bring young children to the race (remember to bring ear protection) but it is not exactly good influence to expose them to the happening around the F1 village and the after-race concert (read: cigarettes and alcohol). I do have to explain to Kiiron that smoking is bad (yes, people were smoking everywhere at the concert) and why people were rowdy after the influence of alcohol. Nevertheless, I will still consider bringing the kids for future races (provided we get cheap tickets) as I believe that it is better than I explain things to them now rather than they get exposed later without proper guidance.

(click to read full post in Kids Diary @ Keat-In-Space)

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