Games Opening.. by the Yarra

"Fanciful, fun and creative", as described here.

We crammed into the banks of the Yarra river for the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony on a cool evening. Finally the cold front's arrived (temperature's dropped to below 20). Else it would've felt abit claustrophobic cos of the massive 100,000 plus crowd. We missed the fireworks finale :( all because we left early to avoid the crowd. oh well.. hopefully the closing ceremony'll have more spectacular fireworks. Here's some photos>>

Massive crowds lining the banks of the Yarra. Note the heavily overcast sky. Fortunately our notoriously fickle weather held out.

The fish sculptures (which spout water and dancing lights and also fireworks!). Apparently Malaysia's represented by the arowana (did I spell it right?) but it wasn't facing us so..no photo of that.

The evening sky awash with splendid colours.. This, my friend, is a Melbourne sunset :D

Pre-show at 7.30pm was a bore. Commentators had nothing much to offer, except (keep trying to) induce the crowd to cheer "MelbourneEEEE". In the G (Melbourne Cricket Ground for non-Melbournians) it wasn't much better. We could see from the big screen, and they had some cricket thingy going on.

And then it began! Pyrotechnics galore as we witnessed scenes of a flying tram, a duck (?), giant koalas, haunting music and more. Funny how while we were waiting at the Yarra, Jean and I were thinking how's the tram going to make its entrance.I certainly didn't consider it "flying" in (amazing engineering feat eh, considering the fact that hundreds of performers were IN it in the air).

Fireworks at the Yarra were sensational - this's an understatement. Combined with fireworks from major skyscrapers by the Yarra, this's really the best-est fireworks display I've ever seen! Unfortunately only hv lousy photos to show for it - simply no place for my tripod..

And then there was the laserlight/water/music display:

Flotillas of surfboats representing previous host nations made its way down river, plus other processions of competing nations and representing another Melbourne obsession-- 16 boats carrying the AFL's team captains (footy aka Aussie Rules football).

On our way back, bumped into the British BBC reporter near Flinders. Lady reporter's getting feedback on the Games opening ceremony from the diverse crowd.

And now, I'm off to bed. Let the Games begin! :)