First of all, thanks to all of you that took part in this drive. You guys made it happened!
And of course I would also like to thank BMW Msia for sponsoring plenty of gifts that is easily worth more than RM5k in total, Singapore Tourism Board for the hospitality and Motorsport Channel.
The drive to and back from Singapore was smooth, and the highly anticipated traffic crawl on NSE didn't happened. The first group was flagged off at 830am sharp with the second group 15 minutes behind. If I recalled correctly, we were all at Pagoh R&R by 10am and spent a good 40 minutes there eating nasi lemak and started sharing stories already!
We then left for Gelang Patah at 1045am, again in 2 groups but a couple of cars from the second group defected to the first group, complaining of over-spirited driving:wink:
Again, we were ahead of schedule which was a good thing, and we spend more than an hour having our lunch at KFC. They definitely was not prepared for us, and it must have been awhile since they had such a big crowd in the restaurant.
At 1345pm, we headed for the TUAS checkpoint, it was smooth and purchasing the Autopass was a breeze, less than 3 minutes I checked. A couple of cars were stucked with the Immigration Officers, one because of pepper spray and the other due to an unopened cigarette box in the glove compartment. Want to guess how much was the fine?
![Eek! :eek: :eek:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
By 330pm, most of us had reach the hotel. This is the first time I had taken a ride in a car lift and my kids enjoyed it immensely, even thought the queue to up there was like 20-25 minutes.
The cocktail reception hosted by STB and the hotel was great with free flow of alcohol and finger food. Some of our Machas formed an Indian Island at the poolside and they had to be escorted out, having too much free beer!:wink: 535i and Justin joined us at the cocktail party. The lucky ones that won the BMW Driver Training vouchers worth RM1700 were Traveller and Mrs Astroboy!!
At 7pm, about 28 of us had our dinner at Tepak Sireh in an area that is known as the Malay Cultural Village. We walked from the hotel via arab street and could see many muslim brethrens breaking fast at all the restaurants/stalls along the street.
In the evening, some went to Clarke Quay and some to Chinatown and driving around Singapore. As mentioned by Astroboy, the anti smoking law is really effective in Singapore. A pack of ciggies is SGD11.90, almost RM30 and you CAN'T just simply smoke anywhere as you wish. Even in the kopitiam near Eng Soon, smokers have to be contend with tables at the corridor without any fans!
To be continued...