Saturday, September 30, 2006 by Allan in General Blog Posts

Hey Hey,
Just came back from the Porsche Experience, and it was a nice experience..
Drove 3 different type of fast cars.. They all handle really well.
1st was Ford Focus RS. .
2nd was Porsche 997 Carrera.
and finally the new Porsche Cayman S.

Before all the driving was the safety brief and introductions to circuit driving. Halfway thru the briefing, it sounded all so complicated and lots of things to take note etc… I thought i would be so busy being safe than enjoying the experience.. But it all turned out to be rather good…

3 laps each in a racing mode.. with instructor next to me watching my every move, will correct me if i ever did something wrong.. 0-60mph is about 4 secs!! (Yes, it was me driving it)… Oh yea, there are 6 forward gears in porsches, today i was allowed to use till 4 only.. becos the circuit is not that big.. and, at 4th gear, i was only able to bring it to 110mph, (178km/h) even though i feel that there are ample room for 130mph for 4th gear. Wow i can imagine how much u can do with 5th and 6th gears!!

Today not only did i get to drive my dream brand cars, i also learnt a lot of driving techniques with particular racing driving…. Hard on accelerator, hard on brakes, only brake on straight roads, overtake without using indicators!! ehaehaheaheahe…

Thank you my love for the gift (so what is for next year?), and Priya for attending this event with us, i hope she enjoyed the passenger ride.

Summary: It is nice to drive the porsches.. but would it be worth it to buy it as a road car? Muy opinion will be waste of money, if you cannot go beyond 70mph.. and it is a 2 seater… unless if we get the Porsche Cayenne, at least the speed and space is a good reason to buy it.

After the 3 hrs drive up to Mallory Park Circuit, i think it is worth it, do it again? Perhaps not, becos i rather buy my own and drive it in a circuit as many laps as i want to.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006 by Allan in General Blog Posts

Just a quick update… Well nothing much really other than it has been busy with work work work.

Been to a little girl’s birthday party last sunday, ( Siobhan ) and my oh my, lots of kids and food!
For the 1st time i actually gave Isabelle and Kien some lovely attention, quite a lot actually.. eahehaehaeh.. Spent most of that day, playing ard with these 2 kids, and in a way looking out for them.

These 2 kids amazed me. They sometimes behave in a manner which makes me wonder if they know what i m talking about. BTW they are under 2 years old. After spending a few hours observing them and interacting with them, it seems that we got closer, as a friend, uncle, brother whatever.. we just got closer.. no longer “hey stranger”…

Why did i say that? at the end of the day, when we were about to go, i was wearing my sandals and Isabelle, saw me putting on the right side, immediately took the left sandal and passed it to me. Amazingly nice!!

I love kids… can’t wait for our children to start playing with us, but not yet… step by step, priorities are different at different stages of life.

Next… cars… remember the porsche experience thing?? Yess…. its the 30th soon and we will be going back to the Mallory Park Circuit again!! Wooooooo… can’t wait for the heavy acceleration!!!

Will keep you posted.. Laterss…

Thursday, September 14, 2006 by Allan in General Blog Posts

Up on the plane we were given even better attention. With a champagne to welcome you the moment you sit down, and a dinner and breakfast menu which you can select. the 3 courses for dinner were served one after the other, lots of leg rooms, leg rest, almost 180 degrees recline seats, a goodie bag, better blankets, a nice booster, personal TV and even the headphones have noise reduction function!!

To be honest, a taste of business class has made economy feels like a ride on a cramp bus. Hmmm… we definitely would love to travel in business class or even 1st class now!! Well, probably not now… in the future… definitely!!

The business jets feature 44 comfortable lie-flat seats that can be operated fully automatically. The 62-inch seat pitch and a seat back that reclines down to 175° ensure that you will be well rested when you reach your destination. All passengers have access to a DigEplayer, an interactive, portable audio and video player with an extensive, regularly changing selection of movies, music and information.Moreover, since all the seats are equipped with a laptop connection point, passengers who prefer to work during the trip will have ample opportunity!

Wednesday, September 13, 2006 by Allan in General Blog Posts

Always the dreaded time of all holidays - the day to say goodbye.

It has been a quick 9 days at LA and our hosts, Auntie Cathy, Auntie Hannah and Uncle Titus has been very hospitable and kind during our stay at their place. Would like to thanks them here and no words can describe our gratitude during these few days.

This morning we started our day with Macdonald’s breakfast!! It seems like Ansy really like the breakfast served in US Macdonalds. ehahehaehae…

Did some very last minute shopping to spend our US dollars and trying to get Daisie’s mum’s requests.. Thankfully managed to get them and went home to pack and left for the airport.

At the airport, whilst trying to check in, a Northwest counter guy refused to allow us to do a priority check-in and told us to queue up and after much fuss, he decided to check us in. Minutes went by and suddenly i was told that i m not allowed to fly into UK, becos i was on a visitor’s visa for UK, i was required to show them proof of intentions to leave UK after this US trip.

Well i have the air ticket as proof, however i need to login to my email to retrieve them. So i asked the counter guy where is the nearest place to have internet access, and he said no where close (really beginning to piss us off). So a little bit of commotions and discussions (15mins later) he managed to get his superior to allow me to travel back to UK, and issued our boarding passes.

Checking the borading passes, we realised that the reserved seats that we had booked ( the 1st row of seats just behind the business class, which is very roomy. ) has not been given to us, instead of seat 10 a and b we were given 29 j and k. This must be not our day, we thought.. so i went back to the same gentlemen and gently remind him that our seats were reserved about a month ago via a phone call, and is this a misunderstanding, his reply was : “Your seats are 29 j and k, the one by the window with another seat next to it”, i said u dun understand, we were given the reserved seats 10 a and b by KLM. His reply after that was, “Your seats are 29 j and k, the one by the window with another seat next to it, ok?”

Furious but maintaining our cool, we walked away and headed for another counter, and spoke to a nice lady whom explained the whole situation to us in a very polite way and told us that, maybe if we go to the gate and have a word with her in 60 mins time and she will see if she can sort out some better seats for us.

A bit disappointed we were planning to write complain letters to make ourselves heard by KLM, we thought we will not gonna have better seats becos according to Northwest, this is a very busy flight. Nevertheless, we went to the gate and waited for the nice lady to appear. 80 mins passed and we found out that our flight has not arrived yet, 30 mins delay, and the best part, our nice lday has not appear. We thought oh well, a scammer and thought nah… we gonna be stuck with our cramp seats. Little did we know…

“Can Mr Allan Tan and Miss Daisy Wong come to the podium please?” we heard over the PA sound system, so we went over to the podium… gave this stern looking woman our boarding passes and was told that we have just been upgraded to business class. Wow!!

to be continued…

Tuesday, September 12, 2006 by Allan in General Blog Posts

Today is supposely our last touring day for this trip and we ended up with a spectacular finishing with the reknown Universal Studios!!

Travelling to Universal Studios is a bit of a distance from home and we had to wake up really early so that we can beat the morning traffic and take the Metro. The Metro is actually really easy to use and very accessible if you want to travel from one end to the other in LA. We were glad that we had Uncle Titus to bring us to the Universal Studios.

At Universal Studios we learnt how they did the various stunts and blasts and also the mechanical and computerised graphics effects, that makes the difference.. A couple of joy rides and unfortunately a few attractions were not opened, like Jurassic Park and Fear Factor Live.

Nevertheless we enjoyed ourselves at the Universal Studios. We then headed home to pack our lugguage and prepare ourselves for UK….

Monday, September 11, 2006 by Allan in General Blog Posts

We headed for Venice Beach, as Auntie Cathy suggested the night before. I spoke briefly about Venice Beach as it was recommended by a friend that you haven been to LA if you haven been to Venice Beach. So Auntie Cathy tookthe extra effort of checking about Venice Beach and managed to find out why it is called Venice Beach..

Nope, this time we did not go too near the water as we do not wish to get wet. So a slow stroll by the beach was good enough.

We also had a stroll by the Venice Canals.. took lots of pictures and saw quite a number of nice houses..

Towards the evening, we had a BBQ and wrap an early night to prepare us for tmrw’s trip - Universal Studios!! WOOOOOOOO….

See you tmrw!!

Sunday, September 10, 2006 by Allan in General Blog Posts

Sunday, was a very light and relaxed day for us. We went to a sermon and headed for dim sum with Yi-Por’s God daughter, “Cook” jie-jie.. (pardon, dunno how to spell it).

The dim sum to us was ok, but they have a specialty which seems to be the major attraction, i mean, at least my love like it a lot!!

After the food we went to Yi-Por’s house to chill a little. Have some fun and chit chatted about the good old days back in Hong Kong. The whole crew, Daisie’s mum, Auntie Hannah, Auntie Karen, Auntie Annette and the rest of the group.. Sang some songs and the best part of the day was to listen to Yi-Por crack some jokes and some chinese tongue twisters… Unexpectedly fun day with an 88 years old lady… who must have found a weak spot in my heart.. ( reminds me of my 2 late grand mothers. )

It is unexpectedly to see her to be still very strong and full of laughter at her age, especially when she is most of the time in pain. Amazingly strong woman, i mean, this is the 1st time i have seen her but, my instinct tells me that she is a very strong and determined woman.

Seeing her gives me a very encouraging message - Always be strong and have faith in whatever you do. Never give up and never stop laughing.

What a day! Oh yea, thank you Auntie Karen for all the programming books and discs, they will come in handy one day.