IMAGINE making a mad dash to Ngee Ann City in Singapore all the way from Hong Kong, just to stand still for five minutes.

That's exactly what Ms Selene Daswani and her husband did yesterday.

She was one of 300 to 400 people taking part in The Real Singapore Freeze - a flash mob project that required participants to remain in one position for all of five minutes.

A flash mob is a group of people assembling to do something unusual together for a short time and then dispersing.

Flash mobs are usually fun and inventive. Such as the one outside Raffles City early last month, with about 10 people acting as buyers competing to buy an empty canvas at an auction.

Ms Daswani, who lives and works in Singapore, planned her flight home such that she and her husband would be able to be at the event to support the organiser of the freeze, her friend Mr Ajeet Mansukhani, 28, who also participated.

PITY TO MISS IT

'So many people responded to the event on Facebook so I thought it would be a pity to miss it, since Ajeet put in so much effort,' she explained.

Despite the planning, she and her husband almost missed the opportunity to take part in the freeze.

'I had initially booked a Singapore Airlines flight but it got delayed for three hours,' she said.

'Then I managed to find a Cathay Pacific flight that could get us here just in time.'

After landing in Singapore around 3pm, Ms Daswani rushed home from the airport, dropped her bags and made it to the shopping district by 4.40pm.

'I planned on posing like I was pick-pocketing my husband. But he was too far ahead of me and I had no time. So I ended up looking at my phone,' she said.

And just like something out of a Harry Potter movie, people came to a head-turning halt at 4.40pm, only to causally disperse at 4.45pm.

Keeping to the instructions given, participants froze doing ordinary things.

Miss Aishah Mohd Noor, 22, a book assistant, shielded her face from the sun while taking a drink. Vicki Yang, 19, an undergrad looked like she was about to plug into her iPod.

The U Festival organised by NTUC was taking place at the Civic Plaza and some of the staff froze holding goodie bags, while others tied balloons to the arms of participants.

JOINING IN

'It's a great place to just be spontaneous and we are joining in the fun,' said Mr Goy Kae Lip, 34, assistant director of corporate communications at NTUC.

Said Mr Ajeet, a part-time media arts lecturer at Lasalle-SIA: 'The public really received it well. People were pointing and laughing, even an old couple thought it was cool.'

Having seen a YouTube clip of the freeze in New York's Grand Central Station, he wanted to see a Singaporean response.

'I wanted to do it on April Fool's Day, then I found the guys from Mission Singapore. We decided to plan some more because of the logistics involved,' he said.

'We also had to make sure no laws would be violated.'

Syamil Dasuki Osman and Foo Mao Jie, both 18-year-old students, founded Mission Singapore after meeting at their first flash mob.

It is group that focuses on having 'fun for fun's sake,' said Mao Jie. They organise flash mobs once or twice a month.

Shila Naidu, newsroom intern