Formula One for the boys!

Hi Timmy! Hi Nicki! Hi Matthew!

Kiai-kiai just came back from the Formula One Race, where she saw a really fast Ferrari!
In the Formula One race, the drivers go around a race-track many times. In the race I saw, the drivers went around the race track 56 times. The Ferrari car won the race!
The cars are so fast!

Kiai-Kiai took photos for you to see! CLick on them to make them bigger.

Here is the Ferrari Formula One Race car.:


See how low and skinny it is? That's how it goes so fast!



This is the steering wheel in the Ferrari. It comes off so that the driver can get in and out of the car. That's how small the space is! Look at all the buttons.



This is the Ferrari Garage. The Ferrari doctors! They are putting the car together from all the different parts.

Here is another picture of the Pit, which is just another name for the garage. See how the car hangs up from the ceiling? That's so the mechanics can get underneath it easily to fix it and put it together. The car is very light. Much lighter than daddy's car.



Once everything is put together, the driver can take the car around the track for a test-drive to see if everything is working OK. Here he is leaving the Pit.



As the car races around the track, these are the people who make sure everything is OK with it. They have computers where they can see if its going fast enough and if it isn't why not. The computers tell them if the car needs gas or if the tires need air and even if the pilot is thirsty!



If the guys on the computer see that something is wrong with the car during the race, they tell the pilot to come into the Pit. As soon as the pilot comes into the pit, all these people crowd around the car to put in gas and change the tires and give the pilot some water as fast as they can! It is usually faster than the time you would take to say Ferrari three times. Try it! Say Ferrari 3 times. That's how fast they are!



This is Kimi Raikkonen. He is the Ferrari driver that won the race that kiai-kiai saw.

I love you boys!!
and I miss you!

XXXX Kiai-kiai

Longer KL post

Well, My trip to Kuala Lumpur was exhausting but lots of fun.

Kuala Lumpur is a gorgeous city.

Coming from the airport, taking the new highway, which is soo clean, and sooo well-constructed, you get to the city in about 45 minutes, passing through palm tree farms (for palm oil) as far as the eye can see. The vegetation is very like Brazil and Ugh, is it humid and warm.

KL itself comes into view about half an hour into the drive and is very picturesque from a distance. The new highway takes you through some nice areas and makes the mountains around the city (about another 45 minute drive north and west) a back-drop for the modern skyline, with the Kuala Lumpur tower, which looks like a spike with a ball on top, the Petronas Towers and the rest of an area which is called KLCC, or Kuala Lumpur City Centre.

They basically took a former residential area of the city which had large colonial mansions and a horse-race track which nobody wanted and transformed the whole are into a new, modern city centre. The old centre still exists, and yes, is ugly, and old, and dirty, but KLCC is where are the foreign business people go and is clean, and new, and oh so pretty.

It’s where you’ll find the Petronas Towers, the Mandarin Oriental, lots of other steel and glass buildings, a beautiful convention centre and this huge park with a cool public swimming pool in the middle.

KL was built in the middle of a rainforest, I was told and you can tell: 1 because its humid as hell!, 2. because there’s still a lot of green around.

The job was tiring. VIPs would suddenly decide the craziest things at the last moment. Most nights we were up till 3 am because some VIP would decide they wanted to hire a helicopter/change rooms/go out with us/need a plane ticket all at the last minute. We got the weirdest requests! Also, these people spend so much money just because they don’t have the saco to decide things. There was one guy who wanted a helicopter a few days before the event to go the race. We found him one for about $1000. Since he didn’t decide until the last moment, the price went up to $ 6000!!!

But it was also really fun. Seeing the F1, rushing around getting things, picking up guests from the airport (I know that new highway like the back of my hand now, riding around in a S-class Mercedes!) and getting to know people.

You can click on the photos to see them larger:

Petronas Towers This was the view from our hotel room

Me in front of the Petronas Towers

In front of the car

At the race on the roof of the paddock

Just behind me is the starting line

We could go down to see the pits before the race

Inside the Paddock

The view from the paddock

Maria and I with car

In uniform

Chinese Temple in KL

Serena and I in the Chinese Temple

Putrajaya, the government town

Ooooh, what can I buy with my salary?

It was hot enough to look ridiculous

Details of Chinese Temple

Ended up in China Town where I got a fake handbag

Outside the Mosque where menstruating women could not enter!

Karaoke with boss

Maria and I Carcosa restaurant and Hotel - stunning place!

Kuala Lumpur

Well, apparently posting to my blog from Serena's computer here works... if IE wont freeze again. I'll post some pics for now, the stories will come later.

Had a BLAST! Am completely exhausted. Leave tomorrow. London on Wednesday.

Me in front of Petronus Towers

Towers at night

The Car!

Red F1 shirt on

Maria, Me and Serena in Putrajaya

Serena and me in Chinese Temple

Short and sweet

Well, I've been trying to post some pictures for some days now but there seems to be a problem, so... a short text post for now.

Formula One is ON!! Woohoo!

For those not in the know:

Got a job doing hospitality for Formula 1 events. I'll be in Kuala Lampur next week and Bahrain a few weeks later. SO excited!

So, I'll be taking pics to show Timmy and Nicki all the Ferraris! Orders for autographs in the comments section please.

In other news: Doing well in school, the final project I wrote about below has changed a bit, I'm off on Easter break for 5 weeks starting today!

My post was going to be about going out in London and then I had another lined up about the project, but they wont work without pics. Have to fix that.

Miss you all!!

Short good news

Well, I've been trying to post some pictures for some days now but there seems to be a problem, so... a short text post for now.

Formula One is ON!! Woohoo!

For those not in the know:
Got a job doing hospitality for Formula 1 events. I'll be in Kuala Lampur next week and Bahrain a few weeks later. SO excited!

So, I'll be taking pics to show Timmy and Nicki all the Ferraris! Orders for autographs in the comments section please.

In other news: Doing well in school, the final project I wrote about below has changed a bit, I'm off on Easter break for 5 weeks starting today!

My post was going to be about going out in London and then I had another lined up about the project, but they wont work without pics. Have to fix that.

Miss you all!!