The Grand Opening Ceremonies of London Olympics 2012

I needed to wake up at around 4 AM Philippine time today just to catch a glimpse of the spectacular and grandiose opening ceremonies of the London Olympics 2012. Directed by Oscar-winning film-maker Danny Boyle, the fireworks-laden extravaganza featured over 10,000 performers and took place in front of a crowd of 80,000 spectators at the Olympic Stadium.

Some of the opening highlights which I really liked was when the famous Harry Potter author, JK Rowling made an unexpected appearance, reading an excerpt from Peter Pan to the crowd. It was for the segment dedicated to children's literature and its impact to the British Culture.

Then during her segment, a giant puppet-like Voldemort rose above the performers as well as other villains from British literature, including the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

And to add more surprise to the crowd was when Rowan Atkinson who is also known as "Mr. Bean", appeared on stage playing the keyboard along with the London Symphony Orchestra, led by the English conductor Sir Simon Rattle. The crowd went crazy when Rowan Atkinson made some hilarious antics on his performance. I was also beaming while watching him giving some delight to the crowd. He definitely took away my sleepiness haha!

There were also a lot of famous British personalities who appeared on the Olympic's opening ceremony today. One of them were Sir Paul McCartney (from the famous 60's band, The Beatles), David Beckham, Daniel Craig, Queen Elizabeth II and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, to name a few.