Journey to the Big Dome

The Black Star Tour Experience: Part 2
For Part 1: The Takeoff and the Touchdown

Manila – From the airport, we took a shuttle bus for Taft Avenue. It was drizzling. We still had more than 4 hours before the concert, but when we encountered some traffic, I started getting anxious again. Will we get there in time? Thankfully, we had a map which made gave us an idea of where we already were and how far we were from our destination. We also asked a couple of our co-passengers on the bus and we were assured that we were on the right path.

Once off the bus, we took the MRT to the Araneta-Cubao station. It was our first time to ride a train! Overall, it was a good experience. Quick and fast, we got to our destination in just 30 minutes! For details on our commute from NAIA 3 to the Araneta Center, read it here.

Disclosure: We actually planned to take at least a pic on the train. At the Taft terminal, there were still less people, but I told Godsend Debbie “let’s do it later.” In actuality, I hesitated thinking of what the other passengers might say; and thought that we’ll take the pics when there would be lesser people when they disembark. However, little did I know that it would exactly be the opposite, and more people rushed in as the train stopped at the different stations on its way. And with a very crowded train, gone was our chance to take a freeze frame of our very first train ride.

At 4pm, we finally had a meal at KFC. After eating, we stopped by Watsons to buy some items that we needed, including our water supply, not just for the concert, but for the remainder of our stay in Manila (our return flight was at 6am the next day). We then checked out the Smart-Araneta Coliseum where there was already a long line for the 8pm concert. When we asked, a security personnel told us that we no longer needed to queue and we should just come back later since we had reserved seats.

We explored the area outside the coliseum a bit. We checked for books at the National Bookstore we saw nearby. What’s cool is that the store is huge and we could search for titles/authors using their kiosk. Unfortunately, the books we were looking for were not available. But it was worth a try. It was a new book store experience in a way. We returned to the Smart-Araneta Coliseum entrance at around 6:30pm.

True enough, there was no more queue. Excited as we are, we showed our tickets to the security personnel. But they won't let us in! We can't bring drinks, even water, inside. So we had to discard all the water that we had! Actually, it wasn’t all. I had a full personal water bottle, which they saw when they inspected my bag, and they let me in. I guess what they didn’t want us to bring were the disposable (commercial) water bottles, so one would be forced to buy from the concessionaires inside.

Regardless of the water situation, what’s important is that we’re  finally inside the Big Dome. Now, all that's left to do were to find our seats, wait a bit, and enjoy the concert! This is going to be fun!