Aston Martin Michels Rally 2013 in Belgium

Early Saturday morning on the 16th June, we started our journey from home to Stadhuis Oudenaarde which is about 45 mins away as the Aston Martin Michels Rally will kick off from there. It was a nice drive on a weekend morning with a slightly cold breeze and traffic free roads.

Stadhuis Oudenaarde - There were already more than 50 Aston Martin cars parked at the parking lot in front of the City Hall, attracting many passers by.

 Luc and I are also wearing the AM polo T for the event which is a first experience for me.

 We had a light breakfast in the Stadhuis and then a short briefing before we start the rally. This picture is a view of the carpark taken from the building which you can see Aston Martins of so many past and present taking part.

It's such a lovely sight of all these beautiful cars!

This is the 2nd René Michels Rally taking place in the Vlaamse Ardennen which is in the same area as the famous Ronde van Vlaanderen (cycling) and this place is filled with farmhouses, lush green fields and windmills. It's a picturesque journey for sure.

We went through quite an amount of narrow roads which is meant for one car at a time.

We even had to slow down when there are people who are riding on the horses were trying to get by so that we don't scare the horses with the roaring engine. During the journey, we encountered countless horses and also people riding their bicycles.

After 70km of driving, we stopped by at Flobecq/Vloesberg at Lumen 7 which is a house built in 1905 owned by the Hallet-Jouret family and survived the wars. Today the house is refurbished but maintaining its original structure and can be rented as a holiday home for 14 to 16 people. We stopped here to try one of their local beers called Quintine.

I must say that despite my limited precise pronunciation of Dutch/French street names and my first time in a rally, I've been a really good navigator. We started with 3 Aston Martin in front of us and at a few junctions, they made a wrong turn but I didn't follow and we managed to arrive at every stop early and without a glitch! That's a pat on my back for myself.

I really like some of the Vintage AM that took part in the rally. The condition of these vintage cars are unbelievably tip-top and the cars are all sparkly-polished too!

There were 2 new Vanquish there and they are stunning!!! The interior was beautiful and there were at least a million stitches used.

Another beautiful vintage Aston Martin.

The world's most beautiful four-door sports car - Rapide S. This one here is their latest model with bigger front grill and a more sporty interior that has stiches that matched the colour of the car exterior.

After driving for almost 100km, we stopped at Hof Van Nassau in Zottegem for lunch.

Along the way, we saw a local cycling event taking place and also the staff of Aston Martin posing at bakers on the side of the street handling us a pack of Mattentaarten from the famous Lekkerbek bakery which is so delicious.

 It's a delicacy from this area where people will drive all the way here just to get their hands on some Mattentaarten.

 Luc enjoying a beer at one of the stops.

After driving for about 170km, we arrived at the destination which is at a beautiful castle called Kasteel Steenhout in Vollezele. It was unbelievably huge!

 It's a private property belonging to one of the rich business man in Belgium who happens to be an avid collector of Aston Martin vintage cars too. I think he owns 20-30 of them and was so kind to allow the rally participants to have a cocktail evening at his place.

Car enthusiasts checking out the vintage cars.

 One of my favourite Vintage Aston Martin.

 Of course I had to take the opportunity to camwhore with some of them.

A beautiful Vanquish which I liked very much but it's €250k here.

 Aston Martin is celebrating it's 100th birthday this year!

We went home around 8pm. What a wonderful experience and on the way home, another Rapide was driving along side our car too and it felt so nice to be watching such a sexy butt of the Aston Martin during the journey home. The event was very well organised and there were at least a hundred AM that took part in this rally. I had a great day.

Makes me wanna drive and not be driven!

I've always have this penchant for beautiful cars. If I was super rich, I would have changed cars like how I change my clothes! Now if only I could... dream on...

I wished I was driving this beauty! Dammit!

It feels good to be chauffeur-driven once in a while especially I've always been the chauffeur and not otherwise. I'm so jealous that there are some girls out there whom always get to sit at the passenger side of the car. Missed the feeling when once I had a bf too and he was doing the driving most of the time. Was it the driver I missed or was it the feeling of being driven? Hmm....

Anyways, I wouldn't give up a good offer of being chauffeur-driven to take my flight. It was such a bargain that not only I get driven to the airport, I even get to experience the all new BMW F10 535i. I have such nice friends, don't you think?!! The last time I attended the F10 launch was in May at Ingress Auto and not long after that, a friend invited me to test drive the car which was a F10 523i.



But honestly, after you've driven a BMW diesel car, it's really difficult to try to stay positive when driving a petrol fueled car. The dynamics is really different. I still remembered when I was driving that 520d here, the acceleration was a breeze and I did was just to tickle the throttle but with the 523i, I had to floor it to get the torque and speed. Actually I shouldn't compare a diesel car with a petrol one but I was really disappointed with the 523i which takes 8-9 seconds to accelerate from 0-100km/hr. Even its competitor, W212 Mercedes E250 CGI has 60 Nm more torque and does a sprint in 7.8 seconds and has a higher top speed as well. I don't know how the 535i fared, but it was certainly a very nice ride to the airport.

The new F10 is a either- you-like-it-or-hate-it-design. I kinda liked the new F10 because it's like going back to the classic days and it's quite a conservative one. However, the aerodynamics lines were beautiful.

Nice interior with expandable seats.

It comes with Brake Energy Regeneration (BER) and Electromechanical steering as part of BMW’s Efficient Dynamics efforts as seen in its diesel cars. There is also the Dynamic Driving Control which has four presets (comfort, normal, sport, sport +) which we experimented during the journey to the airport. I like the professional and multicolour Head-Up Display which I find it to be a very cool addition. The LCD for the iDrive was also one of the largest I've seen, making navigation so easy.



Now I know why parking big cars like these requires little effort because they all have this cool car sensors! This one has got the rear camera and it'll estimate the distance for you while you reverse! How easy...



The journey to the airport was so nice. The cabin was spacious and the driving was smooth. Thanks for the ride! Damn, I wished I can own this car and makes driving to work such a pleasure. But do you know hor, it's going to cost RM398,800 for 523i and RM598,800 for the 535i. *gulped*

By the way, I'm up north in Langkawi again for work. Looking forward to trying new food!

Of good food and super fast car

Last Monday was another gathering for dinner with the usual suspects but this time, we had Patrick Teoh himself to join us together for dinner at Damansara Village Imbi. It was a dinner planned sometime ago but he was always too busy!

I brought along a bar of Valrhona Manjari and also a Beschle Trinitario Madagascar chocolate with both using the Madagascar beans and is of 64% cocoa. The reason why I brought these two bars is to conduct a side by side tasting to see which chocolatier makes it better. It seemed that the Beschle turned out to be outstanding too!

For aperitif, we had a bottle of Rose de Haut Bailly (pronounced as Ba-yi) and a bottle of red wine by Le Petit Lion Recolte 2007. And during the whole dinner, we were drinking this very nice bottle of Glenmorangie Extremely Rare 18 years old.

The food seemed to be never-ending as always...

I think there are easily 12 over dishes including the steamboat at the end of all the dishes. There's only 7 of us and we ate everything! The "sang yue" is very good that night and we were lucky that they happen to have a big one. With the bones, the chef makes a very nice herbal soup which was served right after we savour the fish. Very delicious loh...

But.....

The highlight of the dinner is making my dream come true. I've always, dreamt, and wanted, to have a chance to ride in a Lamborghini. I've tried a BMW M6 coupe, a Nissan Fairlady 370z, a Ferrari 360 spider, a Porsche Nine Eleven but have yet to try a Lambo!!!



Well, thanks to Patrick whom gave me a chance to do this because it so happened that one of his friends who happened to own one is there having dinner! And it's not any Lamborghini, it's a Gallardo Superleggera! What I heard was this model is one of the 7units in the world.


Superleggera stands for lightweight in Italian, the Gallardo LP 570-4 is 70 kg lighter and 10 horsepower more powerful compared to the Gallardo LP 560-4. The combination of lower weight and more power slashes the 0-100 km/h time from 3.7 seconds to 3.4 seconds.It's indeed true that this is a very lightweight car as there's no adjustable seats because the seats are tailored made to the driver, no door handles from the inside, just to cut down the weight.

Patrick was disappointed at how I rev the engine because I was such a sissy. Actually I was afraid. Lol...

The Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera would be beyond the average expensive category because the owner paid RM2.5 million for it. And even if you have the moolah, get into the queue. Lucky I don't need to pay to sit in there!

Such a ravishing Italian beauty

Cherry popped for a Lambo and I can continue on dreaming....
Next target: Aston Martin and a Audi R8

Unveiling of the BMW F10 5 Series

BMW unveils its all new F10 5 series models at the Ingress Auto last Friday at 12 midnight. I was supposed to be sleeping but I still went ahead and attended the launch which starts at 11pm. A friend of mine who writes car reviews invited me to join him for the launch.

BMW F10 523i

Two CBU variants are available at launch – the RM398,800 523i and the RM598,800 535i OTR without Insurance. How do you like the new series? I think there'll be a mix of reactions for this F10 models as I find the front appealing but the rear a little weird.

BMW 535i Grand Turismo

They also showcased the GT version which is the 535i Grand Turismo at RM638,000. And as Geoff Briscoe (BMW Malaysia MD) puts it, "it's only 2 installments - RM600k + RM38k". Haha... I need a lottery winning for that. I managed to meet Sashi too, whom was the Corporate Communications Manager and he was with us when we had the BMW Eco-bloggers drive.

It was really an eye-opening experience that I met people whom are so into Beemers!!! It's like BMW is a religion to them. They eat, talk and sleep on BMW... Interesting! For me, I felt that the launching which was done at Ingress Auto wasn't that grand. There was a lack of alcohol!!! They told me there will be no alcohol served at BMW events. Hmm... is that true? At least, I get some decent wine and food at the previous launching of SLS AMG at Hap Seng Star.

For more info on these cars, you can read here and here. They both give a very good outlook into the all-new F10 5 Series.

And btw, have you checked out Celcom's World Cup promotions at this website? There, you get free ringtones, wallpaper download and online games. Play their online game and watch their latest TVC campaign. Have you decided which team to support? I actually went to the Bearigamy site and downloaded the bears and did my own origami. Will upload the pictures soon. Meanwhile, check out this video where the Blue Bears dance their way into Queensbay Mall in Penang.

Breakfast I like @ Coffee Club Singapore

Coffee Club @ Ngee Ann City

I have blogged about this previously here during my first visit to Coffee Club. This time around, this would be my second visit after half a year not going down to Singapore. Since this place is just beside Mandarin Orchard, the hotel I was staying this time around. This place is situated on the 3rd floor, just beside the entrance of Takashimaya and you won't miss it.

I like the simple decor of this place coupled with glass windows that overlooked the main entrance to Ngee Ann City. It's bright and the not too cramped. The service is good too. At the time I went there, it was 15mins past 11am and I think they have stopped serving breakfast. But my main motive being there is to have the breakfast so I kindly asked if they could still let me order from the breakfast menu. They accepted my request and I was so delighted.



Joining me for breakfast is a friend whom I've not met for at least half a year. He came and join me for a light breakfast before rushing off for his golf session. He had the Butterscotch Banana Pancakes (S$7.00). The portion is quite big too. We didn't finish the pancakes unfortunately. But I did eat up the strawberries!

My favourite would of course be the Gypsy Eggs (S$6.50) which has farm fresh eggs, piquant bacon, tomato and roasted capsicum compote, gently baked in a ramekin and paired with a spanish manchego cheese melt. This is like comfort food and the perfect breakfast and lunch too!

After that, I went for some shopping at Hermes in search of the belt my friend wanted which the staff helped me to call up all outlets until he found it at Terminal 3 at Changi airport. Some shopping at Takashimaya and I ended up buying two bags. One a CK black bag for my gym and a cute handbag which I have not used so far.

After that, I have to rush to DFS to wait for Johnny as he will be there to pick me up to go to Vivo City and Resorts World Sentosa which I have blogged last week here! I passed by Ion Orchard and used the underpass to get to Wheelock Place. I still have not explored the whole Ion as I have always been rushing here and there during my Singapore trip. There's 8 floors of shopping and I think I could get lost in there and perhaps walked out broke.

Nice car hor? I wished this is mine too!