Penang, we did it again !

I just came back from KL this morning 2am. We were invited to perform in KL 's 4th hafla [belly dance party] last Saturday. It is another great experience to us after our performance in Singapore.

But this is a very tiring trip to us. We took bus to KL from Friday 2:30pm, supposed to reach there at 7pm, but it was in bad traffic when we arrived in KL town, so when we managed to check in to the hotel, it was nearly 9pm !

And the hotel is terrible. Due to the peak season [ school holiday ], all hotels' room have been fully booked. We were late for the check in so we have to stay in the only available room which located next to a pub and opposite an Arabian restaurant. Besides the room is dirty, we could not sleep for whole night as the pub is noisy and the restaurant were full of tourist, singing and dancing till 4am.   

After doing rehearsal on Saturday morning, we took the whole afternoon time to look for return bus tickets on Sunday as we must come back for work and classes on Monday. unfortunately, all tickets were sold out ! After trying at some places, we were very very tired and frustrated as KL was packed with people and cars in that weekend, and we did not sleep well for whole night.

Finally, Shee Loo 's friend helped us to buy Nice bus tickets, but the only available time was 9pm on Sunday, that is why we arrived in Penang this morning 2am.

Then we rushed to the hafla.

At that time, we were not only tired, but exhausted ! I felt hungry so took a a bowl of soup with a small bun before my performance, l thought l have about an hour time to digest, so should be alright. Mana tau, they started the performance earlier, so l have to perform with soup and bun in my stomach ha ha ! Ya this is a good experience to me, next time l would rather tolerate to hunger than to eat, l feel bad to perform with food in stomach. I did my drum solo ' One Night in Shanghai ' first,  which l have to do a lot of belly undulation and vibration, so l did not show the best l can this time. But l heard a lot of cheers from audience, from beginning of my dance. I can see the expression from audience this time as the hall was quite bright, their face told me that l am really good ! I heard applaud many times from them, l was so excited until  forgot  the food, l think l picked up my effort after their second applaud.

After the first perfromance, l rushed again to change for second dance-- the Tibetan Tribal with Mee Mee and Shee Loo. Well, we did not have enough warm up this time compare to Singapore's performance. So, three of us have same feeling that our performance this time is not as good as Singapore one.

But still, many people came to congratulate us and told us they really like it !

Many ladies came to shake hand with me and told me : Conny, l have to tell you that you are really good, you are a great performer ! Some even ask how can they learn from me. Aiya, l am not in KL la, so can't help on that. But l was really touched with all these compliments, l can really feel their sincere when they told me all these ! Thanks ladies, l will never forget what you girls have told me!

I have to thank specially to Sherlyn , Paola and Antonella, these three great belly dancers. Sherlyn gave me a big hug after my first performance, she told me it was really good. Paola gave me such a big encouragement as she came to me and told me firmly that : Conny, you are so great and creative, keep it up ! You are my favourite tonight ! Oh thanks Paola, l was so excited to hear this. And Antonella from Argentina, she and her mom both told us they really like our performance, it was really excellent !

Oh ladies, thanks thanks thanks! Thank you for enjoying and appreciate our dance, even we did not sleep for whole night, even we cancelled class and all the way down to KL for the performance, even it was tiring , it is---WORTH IT !

In fact if compare with Singapore's performance, we found that we were not good enough this time, we were too rush on that day. Ok....we take experience this time,  will try to avoid from the same mistake in the future.

But l think Singaporean like our Tibetan Tribal more, KL  people like my ' One night in Shanghai' more, hmmm.......different place, different favourite!

I told Mee Mee and Shee Loo, we will perform this Tibetan Tribal many many times still in the future, may be one day, we will perform in Egypt ! This is all Belly dancers ' dream, we will work hard to make it happen !

Our next performance is on 2nd November in Sp, for Praise dance studio's hafla under Susan, anybody from Sp interested to attend the hafla please let me know. I have to apologize to my students in Penang  that you girls can only watch this perfromance in our studio's 3rd hafla in January next year, please get ready your sexy costume and shimmies, it will be a great hafla again this time, l promise !