Sunday 28 September 2008

BMW Weekend Getaway

I must say, I'm a very lucky person. Two drive events within such short span of time. What's more, my bosses (several of them) allowed me to go for both!! Thank you all so much!

Knowing that the cars were among the rarest even for BMW standard, I prepared an office digicam and one roll of black and white film. My objective was very straight forward- I'm going to immersed myself in serious photography training during this trip.

Not going to bore you anymore with my lame writings, here are some digicam's stuff.

The Drive


Briefing in the morning is standard for drive event.


Mr. YKF said "I dunno ler"


On the way up to Cameron, I was in the 525i Sports


Taking a picture like this is very dangerous.
Do not try this on the road.
Just try at home.


Coming back from Gua Musang, trailed by 135i Coupe


Refuelling. 525i Sports on the left, and X6 on the right.


That is what Seet drives normally.


Stop for photo-op is compulsory

Since the drive was initially organised for the judges of New Straits Times & Maybank Car Of The Year Award, we had the priviledge to jump into BMW best of segments model. They are... (drum roll)

BMW 135i Coupe

"This is really a chic car" - Sujartha K., Malay Mail









BMW M3 Sedan

"I like M3, woo hoo~" - Seet, FHKL









BMW X6

"You will forget that this thing weighs more than 2 tonnes" - Mr. V, BMW Malaysia





BMW 525i Sports

"BMW 525i Sports is sweet~" - GP, FHKL



Cameron Highland Resorts

We stayed in YTL owned Cameron Highland Resorts (formerly known as Merlin) for a night. Room was cosy and bed was warm. I like~ The only complain- someone kicked me at 6am to wake me up!!


Door to the balcony


I like this balcony


Dining room

FHKL BMW Team


Teammate is very important.

I'm quite satisfied with the photos. By far, the best car shoot that I've done. The black & white roll was sent to lab, but will take at least a week due to Raya. Fingers crossed.

P/S: I *HEART* M3.

Sunday 21 September 2008

Complete 5 Drive

Aha, a bit outdated.. i know. Just so sick of monthly report..

I was assigned to the motoring boys, the petrol heads, the what-ever you like to call them, bottom line is.. they drive fast! As a backseat passenger, it was really no kidding. Thanks to my seafarer genes, i survived it and had found my true love- the BMW 525i Sports.

The name might makes you think that passengers are so going to have a tough time in it... but, seriously, it was the most comfortable car (for a passenger) throughout the journey.

Click on link to read more about The Complete 5 Drive story written by GP. Here are some pix.




















Ta-dah! Seriously, I'm working :P

Thursday 18 September 2008

road trip- X3 tested

Continuing from my previous entry, i went on a site recce to BMW plant in Kulim last Friday.

Well, there wasn't much in Kulim, and I'm refraining myself to talk about the plant, at least not before the event. But what worth my time to blog about, or you to read on, is the vehicle that we had for the trip... JENG JENG JENG (bet you can't have sfx in other auto media) the BMW X3 2.5si~


We drove a 'Black Sapphire'

The team was not expecting the X3 as we were informed earlier that it will be a 523i. So it was a surprise to me when i saw the X3 waiting for us at 6.15am. Yep, we woke up THAT EARLY. Our client said 523i doesn't fit our image... ha ha ha, right...

So let's start from a passenger's point of view.

Rising 167.4cm from the ground, HO HO HO, the car is as tall as me! Destiny i tell you.. Having been in a X5 before, the X3 is surprisingly cosy and roomy with two passengers, two hand bags, one back pack, one monthly report and one laptop bag at the back.


La la la la.. singing to Geep's playlist

The car doesn't come with iDrive, but is iPod friendly and has a handy storage compartment located at the centre console of the dashboard. Very useful for toll tickets.. Another funky item is the rear view mirror that got some sort of OLED thing going on that tells the driver which direction the car is heading. Sweet...



Fast driver with naggy wife/ partner will love the car performance as passengers can barely feel the speed. Yep, it was that comfy until i fell asleep right after we hit the North-South Highway and woke up to half-green half-bald mountains of Ipoh.



Three hours later... we were in Kedah's Juru rest stop waiting for our guide. Maybe its the combination of smooth traffic and good weather, or maybe the car is just perfect for four to travel... the ride was unimaginably comfortable for an all-wheel drive vehicle.

After the plant tour, me and geep were given the chance to drive back. I moved to the front seat, while geep was the driver for the first half of the journey. Excited huh? Haha, we also found out that boot won't open unless the gear is on 'P'.

Although i'm not supposed to, but i fell asleep with mouth wide opened until the driver change.

The first thing i did, was obviously to adjust the seat. BOO~ Seriously, seat is electronically adjusted. And it can be programmed to remember the exact setting for the particular driver via memory stored in the car keys! Hebat ler~

Then it was the drive.

X3 official top speed was 209km/h. I hit 200 for about 30 seconds, while no one in the car seem to notice. Kru kru kru... Thanks to the DSC and DTC and the xDrive system, i was able to speed through without any problem in handling. I even went semi-manual with the Steptronic. And boy, there were a lot of discoveries made, not just about X3, but about driving in general.

Correct me if i'm wrong since this is through experiential learning; to overtake, i will lower the gear for acceleration, for example from fifth gear to forth gear if i want to quickly hit 140km/h when i'm at 90km/h. Nevertheless, higher gears will determine the top speed, so to hit 209km/h, i will need a long strecth and be in the sixth gear to build up the speed.

Oh ya, did i mentioned that X3 weighs at 1,805kg?

Client once said, the challenge for engineers while designing a car is always the weight. Make sense.. make sense. In a nutshell, weight affects fuel consumption, max speed and acceleration. official record says that X3 consumed 10.1litre/ 100km. But during the drive, the computer shows 13.5litre / 100km.

Well, based on my calculation, we had spent near RM270 for fuel in total. That's equivalent to approximately 108litre of fuel and should covered 8ookm of journey. Not too sure if Kulim is 400km away though.



Anyway, the joy of driving (key message here) the X3 is definitely the fact that it drives like a sedan (start imagining the X6 that drives like a coupe! SYIOK nyer). However, the all-wheel drive is still less precise in taking corners compared to standard BMW rear-wheel drive, and fuel consumption is a bit scary. YAWN~ plus, driving does get dull after one hour.

Still, it was a great experience to drive the X3 around, eventhough i do not miss it as much as the MINI. Oh man, fingers crossed.

That's all for my second noob review.

Thursday 11 September 2008

明早出远门

前两天,同事好好好幸福哦,好大束的玫瑰!
我也很开心,很感动啊~

虽然,我还是最爱我的朋友,
但是,依然正在积极地储存恋爱资本。

迟早嘛~

哦,这不是“我好寂寞,征询女友”。

恋爱不单是感觉而已,
没有了时间,精神和金钱的灌溉,
它会枯萎的。

因为恋人是玫瑰花。

朋友是草嘛,满地都是。
也不需要怎么样去照顾。
总之,就是永远都在。

一般人的花园都是草多过花。
一般的人都是喜欢花胜于草。

我其实想说,
我明早出远门。

Sunday 7 September 2008

Great Plan

Yesterday I was in Putrajaya attending Mr. Buzan's mind-mapping training. Part of the program was to mind-map a 5 year plan, ehem, yes don't laugh, i know what you are thinking. But nevertheless, i DID mapped out a plan that involved touring the world with my buddies.

Selflessness filled my heart, and I decided to text the princess in UK while using the toilet to tell her how great I was to include them in my plan.

The was no reply.

The end.

***

I saw a blog post this morning which reminded me 5 years ago, three delusional kids planned to start a 'hand-made' greeting card business. The rationale? Our craft can easily defeat any available cards in the market , or so we believe.

They were serious about it and bought cardboards, trinkets and equipments neccesary. They even figured out the POSM, and where to sell the cards. Great business plan was discussed, target market identified, and they even got a name for the company.

Did they make it?

The first boy made ONE card for his teacher, and moved on to Taiwan for luxury shopping.
Another was made magazine's cover material, and left the country to pursue law in Britain.
The third one became a PR executive.

***

No wonder there was no reply.

***

Shangri-La Putrajaya


bottom right is fuzzy room


obviously this is a swimming pool






chilling...

Putrajaya





The Training


i mean food :P


we had to learn how to juggle as well


Seet mind mapping...


Seet, GP, Allie

Thursday 4 September 2008

Four Season

I don't know la.. what sort of description can justify how heavenly the place is...
Some more my writing sucks.. so .. look at the photos la.