VW Das Auto Show Sneak Preview – Part 1

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Mark

Ever since I moved out of my parent’s house, one of the pleasures of life that I have been missing is television, Astro in particular. So thanks to this situation, whenever I am outside, whether it may be at a pub or at the local mamak store, I tend to watch the television that is displayed on there. Most of the time it’s the usual advertisements but one particular advertisement did catch my eye. It was the Volkwagen’s Das Auto Show advertisement. Being a VW owner myself, I was excited about the event and thanks to a good friend of mine, I managed to catch a sneak preview of the event, live at the Bukit Jalil Stadium.

VW DasAuto 002 VW Das Auto Show Sneak Preview Part 1

The main dome overseeing the rest of the structures under the moonlight

So instead of having the event at the usual convention center or a large open air space, Volkswagen instead have decided to build up a huge dome in the middle of the stadium car park area and have it surrounded by more domes. What you have here instead is an area completely dedicated to a full weekend of fun for the family.

At night these domes are lit up ever so beautifully.

VW DasAuto 001 VW Das Auto Show Sneak Preview Part 1

A view of the smaller domes at night while workers complete the final touch ups

Upon entering the compound, I am greeted by Daniel who gave us the tour of the built up area. One of the first things that caught my eye was the Volkswagen signs that are located around the parking area.

At the main door we are greeted with a large entrance which leads everyone into the registration room.

After when guests register, they are then ushered into a reception area where there are merchandise stores set up as well as a simulator for you to try out your driving skills.

Upon entering the main dome where the main show is going to be held, the first thing that caught my eye was the incredibly large space. I really thought that the dome looked large from the outside but it is humongous on the inside.

VW DasAuto 007 VW Das Auto Show Sneak Preview Part 1

The large VW logo is actually the top of the dome.

Guests will be ushered into the dome and seated down where they will be presented with a special show (I can’t reveal too much otherwise I might just spoil the surprise) for 30 minutes. During this time, there will be 13 Volkswagen models, which will be showcased. Yes, that’s right! 13 models, man, I can only think of the few models we have here such as the Golf, Golf GTI, Scirocco, Polo, Tiguan, Touareg, and the Passat CC. So it’s not going to be a surprise that the local CKD models will be showcased here as well such as the Jetta, Polo Sedan and the Passat. What are the remaining models that are going to be shown? Well, check them out this coming weekend.

Once the show is done, visitors are then brought into a showcase room where all the current cars available at the local VW dealers are showcased.

At the end of the tour, I was presented with a very very special preview. At first I thought that I had seen all of the models that were showcased until this baby arrived.

Specially transported on a flatbed truck, the secret is still safe until this weekend of course The only preview you can get is a small glimpse of the rims and the bodywork there.

Stay tuned as I reveal more sneak previews very soon!

For more information about the event, check out http://www.dasautoshow.com.my/

The event will be held at the Bukit Jalil Stadium on the 10th and 11th of September 2011.

Redefining Public Transportation

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Mark

Last week during the Raya holidays, I decided to go on an impromptu trip to Ipoh whilst halfway munching down McDonald’s big breakfast set. The idea was that I would follow Alex, Grace, Ivan and Mi Ghent up to Ipoh by car and take a train back to KL as I needed to pick my wife up from Pavilion in the evening. This was on the 2nd day of Raya and after a quick check online, there was an electric train service which will leave Ipoh at 3pm later that day.

test Redefining Public Transportation

The first issue came up, after calling KTM’s ETS‘s hotline number, there was no answer at all. Of course I was worried that the train services were not running but by faith I decided to follow them up to Ipoh anyway. So I parked my car at Centerpoint in front of Starbucks where I know there will be plenty of people sitting down drinking coffee, hence I guess a thief would be less likely to steal the car in front of so many people.

By the time I arrived in Ipoh, we went about checking out several places, and then decided to buy my train ticket back. Prices were reasonable, at RM35 per one way ticket, the ride would take 2 hours to reach KL Sentral. Note that the time taken was longer because it wasn’t the express train and there were several stops in between Ipoh and KL.

At the train station, I was greeted with 3 ticket counters and a small machine outside dispensing numbers. I took a number and then saw which number was being served at the moment. My heart sank, there were like a 100 more numbers to go before mine came up and at the current rate that they are going, I would probably have to wait 2 hours for my turn and probably miss the train completely!

A quick look around and check and with Ivan’s help and a very extremely nice gentleman who gave me his number which was only 20 more numbers after the current one, I learned that one of the reasons for this slow service was the system which the staff used to book and dispense tickets. Seriously, I can 100% say that it wasn’t the staff who were lazy but the system was really holding them back. Each time they keyed in the customer’s request, it would take the system a good 3-5 minutes to process the request. Multiply that with 10 customers then you manage to either serve 10 customers in more or less an hour.

Apparently queues were the theme of the day. As we left the train station and I had gotten my ticket (yay! although I waited 40 minutes in line), Ivan brought us to one of the local restaurants where there was a huge crowd waiting to be served. It was already close to 2pm and I realised that everyone there were tourists (meaning those KL fellas), and everyone was just standing about waiting to grab the next available tables.

Anyway back to the topic on public transportation. I was rather determined to try it out fully today utilizing all sorts of methods except for the bus service because I am totally out of sync with the bus service that I will probably get REALLY REALLY lost in KL.

On the train, it was rather comfortable, the seats were adequate and there was enough leg room but the beauty of trains is that I get to walk around. They even had a 17″ screen showing a movie which had no sound so all I could do was read the subtitles. When I got bored, I would take a walk to the cafeteria carriage and order a couple of snacks.

2 hours went by and my phone battery was dying thanks to Bejeweled and Facebook. I was quite restless by this point and decided to do a very “smart” thing (note the air quotes). Instead of going off at KL Sentral, and then taking a monorail to Bukit Bintang, I decided to drop off at the old KL Station (where Heritage Hotel used to be) and take a cab to Pavilion instead.

Boy was that a big mistake, you see, the old KL station now was rather dead. Maybe because it could be the 2nd day of Raya and there were absolutely NO taxi’s available. I walked to the main road, flagged down a taxi where the driver told me that it would cost me RM20 without the use of the meter to get to Pavilion. Talk about highway robbery (it was literally on the highway though!).

So I took out my phone, turned on Google Maps and started trying to path a way to Pavilion or to the nearest monorail station. This was what I found.

And you know what? That was the exact route I had to walk because there were very little pedestrian pathways and walkways. There wasn’t even a pedestrian crossing at all so I had to walk through various weird routes to reach the monorail station. By the time I reached the station, I was completely drenched in sweat and the cool aircon in the monorail trains were a great sigh of relieve.

So the cost for the trip to Pavilion was RM1.60 and of course a bit of extra time it took me to get to the stations and to walk to Pavilion as well. Oh well, I did save a bit more cash on that.

As of right now, my cost to travel from Ipoh to Pavilion in Kuala Lumpur is RM35 + Rm1.60 which brings it to a grand total of RM36.60

On the way back home to PJ, I was running a little late so we decided to take a cab from Pavilion and this is where our image gets hurt very badly. Every taxi demanded their own fare WITHOUT the use of the meter. At the end, after negotiating with 6 taxi drivers, the fare was RM50.

Now that is really called highway robbery. I don’t blame the taxi drivers, seriously. It’s because they can’t get individual taxi licenses that they have to go through taxi companies and then on top of that they have to pay for the LNG cost (liquefied natural gas) as well as the cost to rent the cars that on some days, they make a loss because they can’t cover their daily costs.

So who are the people who give out these licenses?

Why can’t taxi drivers get their own licenses?

Damn we are no where close to Singapore’s public transportation.

Have you registered yourself to vote yet?

Nuffnang’s 6th Blog Day!

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Mark

BlogDay 2011 Nuffnangs 6th Blog Day!

If you would have noticed that the advertisements on my site are mostly via Nuffnang and to be honest, I have been secretly using them exclusively for my little site which has been evolving around from a photography centric to something part of what life is for me at the moment.

So I received an email from Nuffnang that this 31st of August, in collaboration with our nation’s national day, we will also be celebrating their 6th Blog Day! This is an excerpt of their email below.

On Blog Day, bloggers will post a recommendation of 6 new blogs, and this way, everyone will find themselves discovering new, previously unknown blogs thanks to the viral effect of social media. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Here are some of the blogs which I would like to recommend. If you asked me this last year, I would totally list out 6 photography related blogs but in this time of my life, there are of course certain other interests in my life lately.

1) Stories.my

Stories.my is a wedding and portrait photography blog which is mainly contributed by Grace Tan (and on some rare occasions Johan and me) whom I shoot with and frankly, I really do like how she write blog posts about each and every wedding she covers as well as the ones that I cover as well.

2) Whatadrive.blogspot.com

I started reading up on automotive blogs lately and of course you would have noticed that I have been blogging about cars lately as well. How I came about this was through various links and chanced upon Loki’s blog. What actually made me come back again was his Nissan R33 GT-R rebuild project. Back in the UK, I have always been a fan of “Pimp My Ride” where they would slowly change a really old car and transform it into something new. Going through that journey with the owner themselves was a real treat for me because not only do I learn a little bit more about performance cars, I also learn that the automotive industry is really huge, and complicated as well.

3) k3v’s Modlog

I met Kevin when I bought my 17″ Denver rims from him. After checking out the various VW Forums as well as joining the VW groups, Kevin is one of the few who blogs about his car modifications. He drives a VW Golf GTI Mk5 and it is currently on a Stage 3. I liked how he has documented his journey from Stage 1 all the way to Stage 3 recently with images of the hardware he has installed as well as the dyno charts to show the results of the modifications. Definitely a good read for those who are interested in getting a 2nd hand Golf GTI Mk5 and modding it for a great weekend car.

4) Autodetailer.co

A month ago while I was attending Nigel Barker’s photography workshop in KL, I manage to meet the man behind Autodetailer.co, Darren Chang. Tagged as the most advanced auto detailing center in Malaysia, I have been following Darren’s blog and see how he actually transform cars into showroom quality conditions as well as restoration projects. He makes car washing and cleaning into an art form and the amount of detail that they put into each and every job is truly amazing. And to boot it off, Darren is an amazing photographer as well and I love that he has studio incorporated into his detailing center at Jaya One to help him capture images of the cars he details and offer customers an album of their cars.

5) Presentation Zen

Part of my work is to give presentations for clients and constantly I have been trying to figure out how can I present technical areas without the need to make my audience fall asleep. I have always been admiring the kind of slides which Steve Job’s uses for his keynote speeches and how I can incorporate those type of designs into my day-to-day work. Then I was introduced to this book written by Garr Reynolds and it was called, “Presentation Zen“. After reading his book, I follow Garr’s continuous update and ideologies through his blog.

6) Duarte Blog

If you have ever watched Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth“, one of the things which really made an impact to me was the slides he used to explain about global warming and the effects it has done on earth. Guess who made those slides? Nancy Duarte’s team was on the project to design those slides to bring forward a very important point, global warming. Ever since I found out about that, I started following her blog and it has given me plenty of tips on how to run successful teleconferences (something I do very often) as well as virtual presentations. Her books also does give a good insight on how can you tailor your presentations and her focus is very much on both the visual and design aspects of your communication medium as well as how you communicate and put forward your points.

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So here are the 6 blogs I would definitely want to recommend to everyone out there for Blog Day! Selamat Hari Raya everyone and have a great Merdeka Day! For those of you travelling back from your hometowns, drive safe!

Review – Volkswagen Scirocco 1.4 TSI

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Mark

Note: I would recommend reading my review on the Golf 1.4 TSI before reading this as most of this is based on a comparison between the Roc and the Golf

One of the benefits of joining other Volkswagen enthusiasts especially during a teh tarik session is that I get chances to test drive other member’s cars. One of them, which I managed to sneakily test drive a number of times was the Scirocco 1.4. Now I have always been curious to see a car with the same engine as the Golf 1.4 TSI, but priced at RM188,888 has to offer.

The Scirocco was also featured in the recent Karate Kid movie but of course, it’s an extremely old version. Also called the Roc for short, here is a quick and brief history of the Scirocco.

So let’s see what are some of the differences here.

First Impressions

Right off the bat, the moment anyone looks at a Scirocco, I am sure there has to be a reaction. Whether it may be a good one or a bad one but still a reaction. Perhaps you might be like James May where he might have a fizzy little thing between his legs when he sees a car which gives him the fancy, yeah, something like that but irregardless, it definitely turns heads. The first time I actually saw a Scirocco was when Top Gear featured an episode on it where they had to come up with an advertisement for the 3-cylinder diesel version of the Roc (you can view their silly results here and here).

top gear berlin to warsaw Review Volkswagen Scirocco 1.4 TSI

Interior and Boot Space

From other Roc owners, you can still set up a baby chair in the Roc and it comfortably fits 4 people in total due to its 50/50 split folding rear seat design (you can squeeze in 5 for short trips but it wouldn’t be legal as there are only two rear seat belts available). One thing that stands out between the Roc 1.4 and the Golf is that the Roc comes with a flattened steering wheel, the same one which is given for GTI and R owners. The Golf 1.4 comes with the standard round steering wheel which also is available with the Passat CC sold here.

Volkswagen Golf R views the sporty look of steering wheel in black image Review Volkswagen Scirocco 1.4 TSI

Shown above is the flat bottom steering wheel designed for the R-line cars. The GTI ones look exactly the same except that it has red stitching on it. Another thing to note that Scirocco’s that were manufactured in 2009 have a completely different interior than the current ones mainly because it takes the same styling from the older Golf MkV. The ones sold here by Volkswagen Group Malaysia are based off the newer interior but I have seen 2009 Rocs for sale on Mudah brought in by the local dealers.

The rest of the interior is standard and there isn’t much differences between this and the Golf. In my opinion, the steering wheel itself provides a nice sporty look and feel and to optionally get this steering wheel itself can cost around USD$500 (searching through eBay).

The boot however, is surprisingly deep and you definitely can store a lot of stuff in there. I haven’t had the chance to test it out with my full-sized golf bag but it definitely does look like it has a lot of space.

Another benefit you get with the Roc 1.4 is that it comes with 17″ rims as it’s standard compared to the Golf’s 16″ rims.

So far there hasn’t been any complaints as well for the Roc owners especially when it comes to the “rattling” noise experienced by Golf owners especially when taking the corner. This issue actually comes from the fact that the rubber lining along the doors tend to dry up in our weather, hence the noise. Because the Roc has only two doors, I guess you can hardly hear the sound.

The Drive

After taking off in the standard fashion and the moment I enter the first corner, or basically, leaving the mamak stall and turning the first corner; the Roc shines here. Due to it’s lower profile, this car handles way better than the Golf 1.4 which I think is a little soft around the suspension areas. You get the planted feel when tackling corners and I could hardly feel the side G’s pushing me. Of course it does help that it’s only a 2-door car hence you get less body roll due to a more rigid and firmer chassis.

Differences

Other differences between the Roc and the Golf are rather miniature in nature. For example, the Roc doesn’t have sensors at the front but only sensors at the back as compared to the Golf which has sensors all around. The Roc however has two reverse lights versus the rest of the other VW cars mainly because I think the rear window is so small and the C pillars are so fat, that it is extremely difficult to reverse out.

Interesting Mods

Of course with every VW car, comes plenty of modifications. Here are some of the mods you can do for the Scirocco to stand out from the rest of the other Rocs.

Bodykit (Rieger, Caractere, etc, etc) – This of course changes the look of your car!
Scirocco R rear lights – This isn’t as fancy as the Golf R rear LED lights. It’s just a darkened rear Roc lights
Aluminium pedals for the Roc 1.4 as well as the OSIR footrest or you can opt for the full R-line pedal sets.
Unibrace for the Roc to improve its handling further. I am not too sure if they have the Crossbrace for the Roc as well.
Head unit upgrade to either the RCD510 (the Roc 2.0 comes with this) or the RNS510 which offers satellite navigation and DVD playback.
Custom downpipe for the Roc
Engine remap
Cold air intake
Quad exhausts
H&R or Eibach lowering springs

So far there hasn’t been any announcement by VW to provide daytime running lights for the Scirocco.

Conclusion

To conclude up this review, would I say that the Scirocco is worth the extra RM30,000? Well it all depends on your taste. If you like a 2-door car, then yes, I would say it would be worth the RM30,000 extra. But if you are considering the 2.0litre version, I still have some doubts mainly because a 2-door Renault Megane RS is priced currently at RM236k which is RM15k cheaper than the 2.0 Roc and it has a lot more features to the car. Overall, the Scirocco fits into a different segment compared to the Golf hence I guess it’s a nice compliment in their line up.

The Roc which I tested was a very unique Roc, because the owner, decided to bring it in for a dyno run and the results were astonishing. The Scirocco 1.4 TSI is stated to provide an output of 160ps running on Ron98 but his Roc managed to generate 170horses at the wheel, yes, 170whp! That is insane!

By the way, there is currently a Scirocco R in Malaysia already. Apparently someone managed to bring it in via a local AP and it made an appearance at the Volkswagen Club Malaysia’s TT session two weeks ago. So far no concrete rumours about Volkswagen Malaysia launching the Scirocco R but there has been changes in terms of the prices for the Golf R. What I have heard is that the prices have been raised from the rumoured RM270k+ to RM300k+.

Calling all VW Owners!

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Mark

volkswagen 5 Calling all VW Owners!

Calling all VW Owners, do join us at the VW Club Malaysia. It’s an informal club and gathering of all VW enthusiasts around here. We have on-going TT or “teh tarik” sessions which goes on every Friday night and we usually choose various locations around Klang Valley to suit the needs of the members

There is a huge diversity in the group in both the members as well as the cars they own. From the very old classic Beetle, to Golfs, Polos, Passats, Tiguans and of course brothers from the VAG group such as Audis, Skodas and Porsches. I used to be quite shy when it comes to these sort of gatherings especially when you don’t know anyone but after joining them in a couple of “teh tarik” sessions, I managed to get to know some of those fellas who have even helped me out quite a fair bit in giving me information about cars and the technical aspects of it.

Recently last week, we had a buka puasa event where about 30 of us met up in Ampang to have dinner at Istana Bambu which was a unique place where the entire restaurant was made out of bamboo. I had great fun there and I think everyone had a lot of fun eating and enjoying each other’s company.

So if you are passionate about VW cars and just want to hang out with car nuts as well (they promise they won’t poison you so much), you can also start joining the forum in the link below.

http://www.vwclubmalaysia.net

Or you can also join the Volkswagen Club Malaysia Facebook Group over here.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/209276962443790/

It’s a great place to chat as well as learn a couple of technical stuff about your cars and new tricks which you didn’t know that your car had in them.

There will be a “teh-tarik” session going on this Friday at Kota Kemuning. Do check out more about that session here. Hope to see you there!

Back in Chicago Again

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Mark

Yes, after my first experience travelling to Chicago back in 2009, I was back there again but this time for only a week and most of the time I was located at the Q Center. This time travelling there was a little bit more pleasant but I had to take a horrendously long route. Kuala Lumpur to London and then to Chicago. 23 hours in total and 2 hours of transit at Heathrow Terminal 3.

Since I was mostly held up at the Q Center, I decided to walk around the area to capture a bit more of the scenery in the area whilst I was waiting for the shuttle bus to bring me to the Premium Shopping Outlets. Damn, stuff there are very cheap. Managed to get a new suitcase (after Air Asia broke my old one) from Samsonite as well as sunnies from Oakleys there.

If there are 4 people travelling from the airport to the training center, the taxi service will send you a limo. I kid you not!

The training center used to be a golf course and near the entrance lies the 18th hole which is a par 3.

At this distance, I don’t think I can hit it straight to the green let alone cross the lake thanks to the damn lake and how I am afraid of hitting the ball into the water.

Tallest building in the whole area, that was where I was housed which was conveniently above the dining hall where there are 3 buffet lines available for all 3 meals!

Located next to the training center is a river, its called Fox River and I am not too sure if this is the same Fox River from Prison Break. Of course after a quick Google, Fox River Penitentiary was actually a fictitious place but it was located in Illinois.

The weather there was fantastic in July with temperatures hitting 28 degrees on a high and averaging around 23-25 degrees.

The flight back however from Chicago was less than entertaining. I had to travel for 28 hours, door-to-door, meaning from the Q Center till my apartment door. This included a nice 6 hour transit in India which I think they should revamp their system allow transit passengers to roam in the departure hall where all the lounges and shops are while we wait for our tickets to be processed.

Nigel Barker’s Workshop in KL

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Mark

If you have noticed my posts lately, I haven’t been for any photography workshops for a while already and not because I have stopped learning but I am a little more selective in what I want to learn and also pursue a new area in photography as well. When I received an email via WPPM that Nigel Barker was having a workshop here in Malaysia, the very first thought that came to my mind was, “Who in the world is Nigel Barker”.

Of course, thanks to Munz who was next to me at that time, she told me who he was!

Anyway, for those of you who still don’t know who he is, Nigel is a judge on Tyra Bank’s reality show called “America’s Next Top Model” which he does on top of other stuff as well. But most importantly, he was a photographer. A good portrait and landscape photographer as well, stronger in the field of portraiture in my opinion.

And the next thing I noticed was that it was not his workshop but more like a 1-day seminar. He had a workshop in Langkawi but it was held during the weekday and it fell during the same time I was away in Chicago hence it didn’t really suit me (ok, the price was the main deterring factor as I knew I couldn’t afford if ).

Held at the Ritz Carlton in KL, I left my apartment late as it was a Sunday morning and I knew that traffic would be clear. I was right, I reached there within 15 minutes. Making my way to the conference room, I bumped into familiar faces at the conference such as Johann Sopiee, Patrick Low, Jim Liaw, Ning Liaw, Matt Marzuki, Eric Ooi, Fiona Lim and many more. Of course I made new friends such as Chen WS and Darren Chang as well.

Due to my super efficient “just in time” manner in which I arrived at the location just 10 minutes before the start time and I was seated all the way behind together with Fiona. What was shared wasn’t the usual technical mumbo jumbo which you might have heard from workshops. It was about Nigel’s life, his experiences and what he does now that inspires us all to be better photographers and to also see that there are things to life that are a lot more worth it than just money alone.

Overall, this conference had one of the best food served! Ritz Carlton provided yummy and delicious food while lunch was at Shook! at Starhill. The amount of food there was amazing and I definitely overate especially on the soft shelled crabs and risotto.

My only feedback to the organizers is that I did wish that the project screen on which Nigel shared his photos and presentation were projected to the back and not just on the TV at the front. Also it would be good that the photos which Nigel shot during the conference could be projected up as well.

On a last note, I managed to help Fiona win one of the three lucky draw prizes by calling out her number. Talk about freaky.

Unleash the Lion

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Mark

Last night as I was trying to fight the after effects of jet lag (thanks to my 28-hour door to door journey from Chicago to KL), I saw that Steve Jobs has indeed released Lion and it was available in it’s new form which was a downloadable update via the App Store. I am for one, am glad that the update came in the form of the App Store and it was easily downloadable. All I needed to do was fire up my Unifi connection and then download the package.

Now this was a huge difference from my experience about two weeks back when my home PC decided to die on me after a good 6 years (yes, the motherboard failed on me) and I decided to rebuild a whole new PC. Together with that set up, I bought a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and the whole process of installing everything again took a good long day. What I didn’t mention was that the guy at Compu-Zone was trying to figure out why the DVD writer driver couldn’t be detected. After troubleshooting almost every component in the PC, the fault laid with the power supply.

What I am trying to point out is that, even with my old Macbook Pro 2008 model, the whole installation was fast and easy. It took me around 20-30 minutes to download Lion, and another 20 minutes to install it over my existing Snow Leopard installation. At the end of the day, I was very impressed and more so impressed by the price tag. USD$29,90 for the entire Operating System. I just paid like RM400 for my copy of Windows 7 and yet Apple has done it again with it’s low price.

By the time the installation was completed, I managed to fiddle around with the new OS and the two most impressive thing that I enjoyed was Launchpad and Mission Control. Definitely a good way or sorting out my Apps, previously I would always curse trying to find out apps which I installed but totally forgotten about. Unfortunately for me as well, I can’t utilize multi gestures due to the fact that my Macbook Pro was made in the dinosaur ages hence that is one thing I have yet to experience.

Perhaps a new Macbook Air might do the trick but as much as I would love one of those, I really can’t justify the need for one.

Get The Fruit Outta Here!

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Mark

About 10 years ago, I graduated from college and I was completely blessed that I managed to get into a twinning program which brought me to the University of Sheffield for 3 wonderful years. During one of those 4 years which I spent trying to figure out electronics engineering, I took a summer vacation to visit BK in Melbourne and Sydney. It was during that trip that I actually discovered this store called Boost. After forking out a huge AUS$5 or maybe it costs more, I was wondering why in the world would someone pay so much for a cup of juice.

Fast forward it 8 years and here I am together with a bunch of food bloggers at a small 400 sq feet, just at the edge of Food Republic in Pavillion. Yes, I was at a small gathering together with the owners of Boost Juice Malaysia, Nick and Soraya. Now, you would be wondering how in the world did I end up there. It definitely does sound a little random especially for a guy who has been blogging about photography and more recently a little bit more about Volkswagen and cars.

I shall leave that answer till the end of this post.

So what has this got to do about the title of this post as well as what in the world do I do with fruits? I will come back to that in a bit.

So here we are, about 10 of us, squeezed into an already packed location called Pavillion at the Boost stall located at the lower ground section. There were plenty of food bloggers who knew each other from the food blogging community I guess, of course I recognized a couple of them such as Horng and Suanie. If I am not mistaken, I met them the last time I attended a ShutterAsia gathering.

At this time we were given the history of how Boost started up here especially with Nick and Soraya both being ex-Accenturians (a name I guess to coin Accenture alumni). At the same time, we were of course offered plenty of samples while we were having a chat.

Samples such as their wonderful muesli bars, gym junkie, mango magic, blueberry blast and the watermelon lychee crush, were served to us. There are two distinct differences between some of the juices available, one of them which had a heavier taste was those that has yoghurt blended in them (yoghurt imported from Australia!) and a very nice revitalizing drink would be the crushes.

Best of all, I really do enjoy drinking Boost juices whenever I have the change because I know that they have absolutely zero added sugar and I can have them as a meal replacement. I guess this is my healthy side trying to lose a bit of weight here and there. I am definitely contemplating seeing if I can go on a Boost diet and see how much weight I can lose.

So, what is “Get The Fruit Outta Here“?

It is their current competition after “Whats your name game” and it is very simple. Just buy a Boost juice from any of their stalls and you will receive a Boost Boarding pass. This Boarding pass will provide you with an instant win prize (you need to scratch a part off to redeem it) and it also puts you in the running to win more prizes such as flights to Australia, London and Paris!

You can check out more about the competition here as well as submit your boarding pass entries. Hope you all get a chance to win some amazing prizes

Remember to do it quick as the competition will end soon!

At the end of the session, I managed to capture a group photo of everyone who attended the session.

And no, we didn’t eat yong tau foo for dinner.

p.s. See if you can catch anyone familiar in that photo

Ron95 versus Ron97

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Mark

Now ever since our wonderful government has decided to remove any sort of subsidies for our petrol, I have resorted to using Ron95 but as most other people, I get the question (sometimes) on what is the difference between the two fuels.

Personally on my car, I can definitely feel the difference in terms of power after swapping from Ron97 to Ron95. This is for the VW Golf but when I was driving my old FD1 Civic, I really couldn’t tell any difference.

Perhaps this video could help us all understand the difference a little bit more.

Even with the lack of power, I still choose Ron95 mainly because of the cost of fuel now. Heck, the 10sen reduction still proves that Ron97 is rather expensive especially for people who drive far distances on a daily basis.

But heck, I am definitely tempted to try out a couple of tanks of Ron97 and bring the car for a dyno test to see the difference.

Since we are also checking out some YouTube videos, check this out. Happened during the Sepang GT last weekend

Mark Leo Dot Net

Loving all things photography, tech, gadgets, Apple and cars

Category Archives: Personal