Singapore III (F1 Grand Prix)

Hunter and I got 3-day walkabout passes off of Craigslist, from a woman who had gotten the tickets for herself and her boyfriend, but turns out that he had to go on a business trip and she didn't wanna go by herself...

The Singapore F1 Grand Prix is a. the only night race of the F1, and b. a street track, meaning that it's in the middle of Singapore streets and not on a permanent racetrack.  This way, the race had the lit-up city as its backdrop and it wasn't too hot walking around and watching the race.  The first two days were practices and qualifications, which gave us a chance to check out the location and stake out some good viewing spots.  Katy Perry was supposed to perform Saturday night but canceled due to "personal reasons".  Crap if you ask me, but oh well.  The actual race was on Sunday.  What made it even more exciting was the fact that I got a digital SLR (a Sony A350, part of their "alpha" line) earlier in the day was eager to test drive it, no pun intended :)

 In front of the entrance gate ("Are you ready for the magic?"...Yes. Duh.)

 Of course I had to go see the Porsche Carrera Cup earlier in the day--it was even better thinking that I had sat in the passenger seat of a GT3 RS just like these and experienced drifts on the Shanghai F1 track...

"Forget the stairway to heaven, I'm taking the Porsche..." (quote courtesy of the one and only Scott Lensing)

Then it came time for the actual race and we tried to go see it from one of the spots we had found, but of course there were people everywhere.  Most of them were a lot more determined than us and probably got to their spots a long time before we showed up, so we decided to watch a bit of the race from one place and switch locations.

Waiting for the race to start

Vrooooooooommmmmmm.  Ferrari was definitely the most popular among the fans.

This beautiful bridge/view was part of the race course

This sums up most of the race: fans, race track, workers (coolest job ever?), skyline, and the Johnnie Walker sponsorship sign

Lewis Hamilton (McLaren Mercedes) doing his victory lap

 Racetrack with gorgeous city hall in back

So like I said before, I didn't get to see Katy Perry perform Saturday night, but I did get to see... (drumroll please)

Only 4 of the BSBs performed, but my fave was there:  Nick Carter

...the Backstreet Boys!!!  Yes, they are still performing and recording.  Apparently there is a new CD coming out in October.  They sang some new stuff, some old stuff (best parts of the concert), and each of them sang a song off of their solo albums (mostly awkwardly bad pop songs with a little bit of a Latin or rock'n roll twist).  Overall I'd say the concert was mediocre at best, from the singing to the dancing, but it was still an awesome throwback to the 90s to see the Backstreet Boys perform in Singapore.  It was definitely the cherry on top of this entire weekend.