Every year Shanghai has a massive parade (5km) for the tourism association; a carnaval of sorts with massive floats…and this year Disney had several floats and wanted to put Star Wars in the mix… they invited members of the Chinese Garrison, Taiwan Garrison, and Hong Kong Garrison to participate with a choregraphy for the televised show…
2 week ends of rehearsals later, d-day has come and I kindly asked Disney reps to hold as long as possible before letting Vader (me) on the streets since I could not take the helmet off ( unlike the TK), our slot is at 9PM – alas the organisers insisted that everyone be ready in the streets at 7.30PM … all that time standing in position in the street waiting for our turn to go for our 2 minutes routine before starting the long (long) walk.
The adrenaline kicked in right on time and it turned out a really amazing experience.