Kuching experiences it’s first-ever SPRING!

Kuch­ing is a trop­i­cal city, no more! For never before in his­tory, the city of cats was over­whelmed in the sea­son of spring good­ness! xD

Today’s the much antic­i­pated Grand Open­ing of The Spring, and we gate­crashed it — to bits. xD

Warn­ing: Loads of pic­tures, highly NOT rec­om­mended for dial-up users!

We reached the Spring at around 3.15pm today and decided we could prob­a­bly have a bet­ter chance to gate­crash The Spring Grand Open­ing Cer­e­mony slated for 3.30pm.

There was very heavy police pres­ence, not sur­pris­ing since the Cheif Minister’s com­ing to offi­ci­ate the cer­e­mony. We tried to walk in casu­ally but to no avail, the guards denied entry to any­one with­out a pass.

We decided that there must be a way in and went around the rather huge mall and made our way to the front entrance, where the crowd of reporters and peo­ple with for­mal wear gath­ered outside.

Star­bucks and Secret Recipe out­lets dom­i­nate the entrance.

Moments later we heard sirens sig­nalling the unmis­tak­able arrival of the VIP.

And he steps out as scores of reporters rush towards him.

He did a lit­tle talk­ing and glanc­ing around and finally decided to walk in.

Me and Kai­hua looked at each other and sneaked in through the rather heavy secu­rity at the main entrance behind a crowd of for­mal wear’s. And we were greeted with the chilly air con­di­tion­ing and some really, really impres­sive inte­ri­ors I’ve ever seen. Really.

Read on if you will.

Let the picture’s talk!

ESPRIT out­let

We fol­lowed the crowd and the beat­ings of lion dance drums.

And arrived at a beau­ti­fully dec­o­rated stage at a cor­ner. Way bet­ter than Boulevard’s petty one.

After lots of speeches and what­not, the juicy part began. We went up to the 1^st floor to get a bet­ter view of things.

There was really excit­ing music and although we couldn’t really see what was going on on the stage, we got see the sud­den burst of confetti.

By that time, Lord White Hair was already up on stage doing what he’s sup­posed to do. =D

That was then the MC proudly announced that The Spring is now offi­cially open. =D

Moments later, the CM walked over and launched the appar­ently largest Park­son store in Sarawak (or was that Bor­neo?). The best part of it was that the rib­bons were place RIGHT under where I was stand­ing! Hehe.

Just look at the crowd of reporters and all that seri­ous gear! LOL

And of course, that ended the grand open­ing ceremony.

We took the lib­erty to stroll around the rather mas­sive mall dec­o­rated with cherry blos­soms. Check out the rest of the pho­tos here.

Now don’t for­get that we were actu­ally NOT invited to the cer­e­mony. And with­out a pass, amongst the crowd of adults in for­mal wear and a few work­ers with obvi­ous passes hang­ing around their necks, we moved around, dodg­ing secu­rity and police­men. We felt rather awk­ward at first but sorta got used to the place, espe­cially when more peo­ple with­out passes started show­ing up, prob­a­bly man­aged breach­ing the secu­rity at the entrance.

Just when we thought everything’s fine and started mov­ing around like we owned the mall. A lady spot­ted us and sorta bloody shouted at us. She told us that the area we’re in is lim­ited to VIPs and sort of hinted that we leave. LOL.

Luck­ily by that time we’ve already explored almost all four cor­ners of the mall and thought, what the hell, and left.

Oh, and by the way, Kenny Sia was also spot­ted at the event, in for­mal wear, alone and snap­ping pho­tos around. He didn’t look like he had a pass (gate­crash­ing too, per­haps? =P) but it’s Kenny Sia for cry­ing out loud! That same lady who chased us out might have given him a pass THERE and THEN and prob­a­bly even give him a tour around. Heh.

EDIT (10÷1÷08): My hum­ble old blog couldn’t stand the traf­fic and I was so bloody stu­pid to actu­ally upload 60 800×600 res pho­tos weigh­ing about 150Kb each. Any­way, I spent a good amount of time shar­ing the load between image­shack and my blog’s server and also resiz­ing a major­ity of them back to the vin­tage 450×338 size.

If you still want the 800×600 (=larger) pics, I’ve uploaded all 60 of them to my flicker set. HERE! =D

Also, check out the pics on Catscity.com.my by Web­bie (Yuan) Part 1, Part 2, and Ger­ald.