Merdeka Train Party!

What a day! Exhausted but I promised the shots from the Merdeka Train Project first so here they are.

The meeting point of the project, organised by RandomAlphabets.com in cooperation with Kiehl’s and in partnership with R.AGE, was KL Sentral. This was disclosed in an email sent out on Thursday to participants who RSVPed. The idea was to gather people at a location where there are so many different trains that they didn’t know exactly which trains we were going to target.

At KL Sentral, Zain the nut briefed the crew and things got going. The idea was that everyone will separate into seven groups for all seven trains running on KL Monorail that day across the street. At the station, the props were waiting as well as tickets (146 in total – the lady behind the counter could hardly believe it and to think some bought their own tickets!) and the groups took turns to head onto the train.

The first stop was Medan Tuanku, where there’d be enough space to gather and set up. Jobs were delegated, faces were painted and lots of noise were made. This is one of the groups waiting for their train. Groups were shouting “Merdeka!” as they waited for their trains. What energy!

Once everyone got on, they had two stops to decorate the train. There were flags, ribbons, spray cans, stickers and more. Some people brought their own stuff – one team even brought bubble wrap and put it on the floor of the train so anyone stepping on it would pop it! There were also those who brought party hats and put it on as they decorated the trains.

SmashPop uploaded a video he took inside one of the trains.

At the last stop, Titiwangsa, two sets of teams were waiting. The first were going to spray some words like “We Love Malaysia” or “Malaysia Loves You” or “Selamat Hari Merdeka” onto the windows.

Then there was the other group who brought on about 150 balloons onto each train! The picture below is the group waiting for the last train to arrive (I took it from the second last train to be decorated).

I had to take this picture. I’m glad R.AGE was part of the project! I printed some of these stickers and about 300 smaller ones to be stuck around or distributed to people.

And this is how the trains looked like from the outside! This was the first train to turn around – I took this as we were across the platform at Medan Tuanku waiting for the next train. Look at the spray on the outside, and flags and balloons on the inside!

I had a blast. This took a lot of planning on the part of Zain HD and Chris Tock, kudos to them for pulling it off. It was a pleasure working with them. I thought the energy was fantastic, considering the lacklustre Merdeka mood in the country in general (at least that’s how I feel). I had so much fun!

Here’s a shot of me and Jon (we went to college together, then Uni!) after the event was over, waving my Keihl’s flag.

To top it off, I bumped into Jerrica Lai, who I have not met in ageeeesssss (although I saw her on the screen at the cinema lah when I was watching Sell-Out lah).

1.38am Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

Tags: chris tock, jerrica lai, keihl's, kl monorail, kl sentral, Malaysia, medan tuanku, Merdeka, merdeka train project, monorail, mtp, R.AGE, randomacts, RandomAlphabets, The Star, titiwangsa, zain hd