Having come from the UK (where it was always far too expensive for me to watch MotoGP), coming to live in Malaysia and being able to watch the riders battle it out each year at an affordable price was a dream come true!

Though I have yet to swap 4 wheels for 2, for me every 3rd weekend in October becomes a wild ride, from Friday practice right through to the end of race day and, as a keen photographer, getting to record the weekends events is fantastic - be it the crowd, the 'umbrella girls' or the rider's themselves.

Last year's race was somewhat of a washout on Saturday qualifying, but this didn't dampen the spirits of everyone I met who held out in the hope of seeing the riders in action and there was plenty of things going on around to track to keep us entertained, including 1 crazy guy on a stunt bike!. However, the, ever unpredictable, Malaysian weather was much kinder on Sunday and allowed for a fantastic race and another great win for 'The Doctor'.

Let's hope this year he can delight the Sepang crowd by clinching the title in Malaysia. Claiming the title in the same weekend as Air Asia enter 2 wildcard riders into the 125cc race will put 2 great champions in the spotlight (on the ground and in the air!) and will serve to put Sepang, Malaysia and Air Asia, well and truly, on the global map. Air Asia boleh!

p.s. If you want to find me at the circuit this weekend, I'll be on the Tower taking shots of the Air Asia bikes (fantastic paint job, guys) and, hopefully, getting a VIP tour of the paddock to boot!

Wow – how exciting??

Today was the announcement of the AirAsia Malaysia Wildcard Rider for the Malaysia MotoGP, 125cc Category.

The launch, held at Sepang International Circuit (SIC) was to announce the final rider who is the Malaysian Wildcard entry for the first time in years. The final two riders were Elly Idzlianizar Illias and Mohd Zulfahmi Khairuddin.

But surprise! Malaysia is entering both riders into the GrandPrix, to be held at SIC on 23, 24, 25 October.

The program started back in May with a pool of 19 riders who compete in the current Petronas Sprinta Malaysian Cub Prix Championship and the Malaysian Super Series Bikerz Mag 150cc Cup.
Down from 19, after a rigid training program, they went down to two riders – of which only one was supposed to be selected.

What a proud day for Malaysia that both are going to be riding!

AirAsia are incredibly honored to support this momentous occasion in way of being the title sponsor. Of course we don’t like to do things by half, so as you can imagine, the bike, the suits, team uniforms, back drops – all are very proudly dressed in the red and white of AirAsia…it does look pretty slick!

Now then…contest time!

TERMS & CONDITIONS: (read more...)

Eve’s September Dream Journal

Entry #1. Tuesday
It was Freud who stated that dream was about unconscious desire or sub-conscious way to tell you things that going to happen. That’s why I’ve been taking notes on my dreams. To understands me better. My wet dream last night, for example. This one involves dramatic background, so beautifully breathtaking I thought I was in nirvana (so you can imagine the shock upon my awakening). Anyway, in my dream, I was walking inside a forest. Birds chirping, distant waterfall and the sound of my shoes walking above autumn leaves were the only noise heard. I was unmistakably lost. For somebody who loves traveling, I’m shamefully direction blind. Give me a compass, I’d still be lost. Oh but the beauty around me… who cares of being lost? I found lakes so clear I could see reflection of my own face complete with fishes and rocks that dwell at the bottom. I discovered waterfalls so picturesque that I was sure I saw it on my desktop background. I remembered feeling so blissfully happy and without thinking, jumped straight out to the clear lake… and woken up by the irritating alarm sound. What a dream. It was the very first time I dreamed in scenery. Usually it was just black hole or people I know in musical Technicolor. Quite a pleasant change, really. Fascinatingly, I came across the same waterfall when I checked my PC out of curiosity. Pearl Waterfalls, Jiu Zhai Gou Valley, Chengdu, China. Whoa. Was it a de ja vu? Or a mere sub-conscious desire to get close to nature?

Entry #2. Wednesday.
I was so tired last night; I slept immediately after landed on the bed. Yet, I felt restless and kept turning around in my sleep. I had a pretty interesting dream last night. I found myself inside a Chinese style bedroom, sitting on a very finely crafted wooden chair sipping oolong tea with my mother and brother. I looked outside at the window and inhaled something delicious being cooked right under my gastronomically curious nose. So I went out and found myself standing, gawking at one of the most beautiful alley I’ve ever seen. Architecture and ornaments beautifully preserved. Dimly lit lanterns hanged above my head in riot of colors where underneath there were people in myriad of activities. Right beside me, an old lady was busy grilling squid (it explained the delightful aroma earlier) and gave me one crisply hot and spicy squid stick. A man industriously made some sort of a red decoration was sitting in one corner. Kids were running around with a huge sugar candy. Everything was bursting with colors, sounds, scents. My five senses were working hard to experience all. Suddenly, I was singing, dancing, jumping, much like Maria when she visits the town with the von Trapp kids! It was amazing. I didn’t remember the song. I don’t even think it was really a song. I read a sign “Jin Li Street” on a building. The first thing I did when I got to the office was asking Uncle Google about it. One name popped up: Chengdu.

Entry #3. Friday.
No dream yesterday. Dream last night, however, was quite something. I’ve had a thing with panda before. There was a brief period when I decorated my room with all things panda (dolls, poster, bed sheet, you named it). I have watched a Discovery documentary about panda about thirty times and got teary eyed whenever I re-watched my favorite panda movie, The Amazing Panda Adventure. Those adorable, cuddly black and white animals are in my top ten “things to see before I die” travel list. And yet I haven’t really dreamed of them until today. Better yet, I dreamed I talked to them and they talked back! So, I was walking around at this place, a captivity or center for panda of some sort. There were people taking care of those cute lazy giants. One of them gave me a bucket full of bamboo and shooed me to the direction of an enormous unit, much like a zoo.

Inside, I found few giant pandas. Gingerly, I put few strings of bamboo near one big panda. “Can you give me a bit more, xiao jie?,” asked the big panda (I, being in a dream, didn’t find it at all odd to find a talking panda). I added some more to the stack which she immediately grabbed and savored vigorously. Between crunching and ripping intervals, I asked her, “How do you like living here?” She gulped and answered cheerfully, “It’s fine. I like being out better, of course but I’m afraid of risking my child’s life,” she caressed her belly (panda being naturally plump, I didn’t know that she was pregnant),” -beside I got feed all day without having to scrape for bamboo like I used to do, you know, having good-for-nothing as a husband.” She scoffed to the other unit where I saw a bunch of even bigger pandas hang out. “I hope this one coming out okay. I had a couple of miscarriage a couple of times before, you know. Fortunately, the doctors here are so kind. They took care of me a great deal. So I’m positive this one’s going to be alright. He’s a fighter,” she smiled at me. “Come back here sometime, xiao jie! I like you.” I also got the chance to play with three cute panda cubs. I tickled them, giggling with them and sadly, bid them farewell.

Rather weird, really. I never heard of 23 years old woman dreamed of talking panda before. Wonder what Freud got to say about this if he’s still alive. Later I found out that my favorite panda movie was shot in Chengdu! What a coincidence! I have strong feeling that this must lead to somewhere…

Entry #4. Saturday.
Ah glorious Saturday! Everything felt better on Saturday. I woke up, finished up the bladder issue and came back to bed. My dream was like a fragmented short movie. My younger brother appeared in one, my mother in another. In the first part of the dream, I found myself and my brother walking among skeletal dinosaurs in a huge museum named Zi Gong (like the one in ‘Night at the Museum’). Thankfully they stood still on their stands. We had a naming competition. My brother beat me 6 to 3 (how am I supposed to know that it wasn’t Velociraptor but Ornithomimus?). Geek.

The second part was flashes of images. My mother was walking on a hilly trek. We ran out of breath. Monkeys, lots of blonde monkeys. Sunrise between clouds, so close, so magical. I was tired but need to keep pushing to go up. “It’s our pilgrimage, darling. Don’t give up,” said my mother. We reached the top, a gorgeous monastery amidst cloud. I saw my mother with a rainbow hello. This particular dream baffled me. I felt very much in awe when I awake, like I must go there someday, somehow. We are Buddhist so it was quite haunting when my mother said ‘pilgrimage’. Later, I learned it looked similar with Emei Mountain in Chengdu. There was even a monastery on the top, one of the oldest Buddhist monasteries in China to be precise. What’s with these dreams of Chengdu?

Entry #5 Monday
OH MY GOD! I had the most FANTASTIC dream ever (yes, capital is necessary here!). I had wonderful dreams before, of course. But this one was different. I could have swore that it’s real, a de ja vu bound to happen. I dreamed that I was at the office being ordered by Mr. Devil Wears Prada Himself. Suddenly, I got a call. Private number, flashed on the screen. A very pleasant woman answered and said cheerfully, “Hello, is this Eve? Eve, congratulation! You won three return tickets to Chengdu!.” I was jumping, jubilantly shrieking: CHENGDU! I remember thinking that it was a sign, all those dreams! That was a sign to this unbelievable fantastic gift from Air Asia, the chance of a lifetime to make all those dreams coming true (and even a chance to go to Lhasa, since Chengdu located so close to Tibet).

Then, at that moment I opened my eyes.

I've been a U2 fan for at least 10 years now and having hair-raising moments when I watched their live concerts on DVD made me long to catch them live. I’ve never been to a concert and badly wanted my first one to be U2. So when AirAsia Facebook contest offered a pair of tickets to watch their 360 concert in London, with air tickets thrown in PLUS three nights stay, you bet I threw myself right into it!

Needless to say, when I received the notification from AirAsia that I won, I simply couldn’t believe it! This would be the first time that my husband and I would travel to Europe and we were really looking forward to it.

The new AirAsia Airbus 340 decked with the Raiders livery took us on our 14 hour journey. Bracing myself for the long flight hours, I was pleasantly surprised that the seats were comfortable with adjustable “flaps” on the headrest so that your head doesn’t loll too much as you slept. The food which we pre-ordered also took us by surprise as it more than just edible, it was good.

We took a train from Stansted to the hotel, also courtesy of AirAsia. St Giles Hotel is smack in the middle of the city, a great advantage to pound the pavement to sight-see London. The hotel also offered a great English buffet breakfast to fuel our energy for the day.

London is filled with beautiful buildings. I love the architecture and appreciate that they were built so long ago yet continue to look so good now. While we were there, the weather remained bright and sunny, unlike the dull grey British weather it is famous for.


The U2 concert was ... Magnificent! I kept blinking in disbelief that I was seeing Bono, The Edge, Larry and Adam with my bare eyes. The 88,000 crowd at Wembley surged and thrived with energy as soon as Bono took the stage. We screamed, sang, waved throughout the 2-hour performance and were sad when they waved goodbye. More of the concert has already been covered comprehensively by Han Sen , another winner, earlier.

So what did we cover in London? The changing of guards at Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, London Eye, British Museum, Natural History Museum, V&A Museum, Sherlock Holmes Museum, Tate Modern, The Royal Albert Hall, Hyde Park, Leicester Square, Picadilly Circus, Trafalgur Square, Covent Garden, Camden Market, Portabello Market... perhaps the list of what we DIDN’T cover is shorter!

We managed to squeeze in a baroque performance at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, without realising how famous they were! We also caught We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre, just a few steps from the hotel. The show was amazingly entertaining and ended with a thunderous applause from the packed theatre. Everyone walked out smiling and laughing, having had a great time.

Since we were there, we extended our stay and took the opportunity to hop onto the EuroStar to Paris and spent 4 nights there, also covering museums, palaces and other famous structures. Besides the usual suspects like Lourve, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Eiffle Tower, Arc de Triomphe, don't miss the Chateau de Versailles! We fell in love with the incredibly humongous gardens! If you're planning to visit museums, do consider the Museum Pass as we cut long queues at some places.

If we had more time and money, we would have gone more places as Europe is well connected.

More of photos and stories on London, Paris and U2 on my personal blog.

All in all, we had a blast and really are very grateful that we had this chance to visit London and Paris, thanks to AirAsia!

What a week it has been! And we're glad to see that there are many of you who's so excited about Chengdu. Trust me, we're equally as excited, if not more... coz we're rubbing our hands with glee, deciding who to send to Chengdu as winner of Week 1. Woohoo!

While we do that, we've put together a set of pictures for "Chengdu, Here I Come" Week 2 Contest, and the focus is FOOD! Oh, glorious food!! Tell me now, which of you out there do not appreciate food?

If ur reading this for the first time, welcome! We'd love to hear your dream vacation in Chengdu (and be in the running to win yourself a Return flight to Chengdu, yeahh!!), or if you just feel like submitting another blog post on your travel stories with us, we'd totally love that too.

So, are you ready for "Chengdu, Here I Come" Contest Week 2? Here's what you need to do:

1. Check out the pictures below on the yummy-licious Szechuan cuisine available in Chengdu
2. Tell us ur dream vacation in Chengdu based on the pictures
3. Send us a blog entry here (simply register & submit ur entry)
4. Pray really hard we love ur entry above the rest... n wait for the announcement of winners! :)

There you go, the pictures!! Have a blast conjuring your dream vacation, y'all!

Szechuan Hot Pot
Dan Dan Noodles (Picture source: FF the Broiler)
Kefir Yoghurt (Picture source: Eat Drink Chengdu)
Szechuan Lai Tang Yuan
Wash it all down at the many Tea Houses available throughout Chengdu
Not only can you go to Tibet from Chengdu, it is also a gateway to XiAn, China! (Picture source: Wikipedia)

All the best, and lookout for Week 3!! :) Oh, and Selamat Hari Raya from all of us here. Have a great one!

Terms & Conditions Apply (read more...)