Happy New Year!

How did we spend our New Year eve?

Both aiai and me had the chance to get invited to the Sky Symphony Countdown 2008 at Jewel Box, Mt Faber. It was an event organized by Canon Singapore and 7.30pm, we had the limo taxi waiting for us right at our doorstep and he drove us to the Habourfront where we took a cable car ride to Mt Faber.

Before entering into the Jewel Box, we even had a couple shot taken by the photographer, how cool was that!? But I still havent get my picture from them yet. Must get it from my Canon sales exec.

The food was good but I only managed to have a mouthful of the desert, my favourite yam paste and then we were told to go to the Kingdom Garden to watch the fireworks display by the world's tallest artificle Christmas tree.

The display lasted around 10mins and we took a cable car back to the Habourfront and then the limo taxi to get back home.

A brand new year has started and we wish everyone a Happy & Prosperous 2008 !

The best country club in Singapore?

Starting membership cost was just $15K and after 6months, the membership fee has increased to 75K and raising - 1 Degree 15, Sentosa Cove. Its one of the best club in Singapore which the fee has tripled in less than a year. If you are one of the members, congratulations!

Our dear Cindy is one of them whom purchased the membership in June and paid 35K for it. She would have doubed her investment if she wants to sell it now.

Anyway, she had invited Aaron, aiai and myself to her club to the fitness centre, dinner at the Latitude as well as to have a dip in the pool. At night, the whole place was so beautifully light-up.

Zaino DIY Workshop #2

Its my 2nd round conducting the Zaino workshop at HYCARE! Its better than the previous one, I guess. Partly its because its not the first anymore and I was more confidence in myself.

We had people like Welbo, Budi, Jeff joining us this time. Taking Jeff's as our demo car and it was really a problematic car as it had lots of swirl & water marks all over. After the Zaino session, his car shined like a superstar.

Xmas BBQ Party

Food, food and more food. Seems like food is never enough during the festival seasons. We had chicken wings, sotongs, lots of scallops, fried mee siam, satay and lots lots more.

The BBQ was held at Mike & Lydia's new condo at Sun Plaza which they just moved in recently.

And of coz, the happiest person of the evening would be Isis whom had presents more than anyone there.

[More pictures here]

Clara Wedding Day

Clara - my former IT Colleague, programmer, and we worked together in Sumitomo Bakelite and when I first knew her, she was only 20. And now, she is getting married.

I was invited to be Jimmy & Clara Wedding Photographer for the day. I was there at Clara's house at 6am together with Roger (videographer) getting ready for all the make up session.

The day was long and thank goodness there wasnt any downpour. The weather was perfect for an outdoor shooting which the wedded couple decided to go to Robertson Walk to have some shoots.

After all the tea ceremonies, I went back home without even taking the lunch buffet at their parents' place. I went straight to bed. Oh boy, how to tahan part II (the dinner banquet) when I only had 4hrs of sleep? So, slept for another 1hr or so, got up and get changed and ready for the dinner.

Dinner was held at Hilton and parking there was tough. But I was there early so waited for merely 10mins and I got a good lot.

Met up alot of ex colleagues there night and had a good catch up sessions.

Dinner ended ard 11pm and went straight back home.

[More pictures here]

Alison's little birthday celebration

It was just one of those evenings where 5 of us had our regular dinner & movie gathering. It was also to celebrate our dear Alison's birthday and so we had our little party at Secrect Receipt's at Marina Square followed by the movie 'National Treasure'.

Xmas Shopping

After our mini Zaino session with at Rodz's new condo. Together with Deck, Jonz & Rodz, we went to check out the limited editional U1 Sinn1 Watch at Hour Glass, Taka. The masterpiece was listed $3000 but it was all sold out.

Deck, our poison master, kept asking me to get the U2 or the next coming Limited Edition version. I am now deciding to get this for my Xmas present or just call it a miss.

Whitford Xmas Lunch

Its our yearly event in Whitford here to gather together at the main office to feast and exchange gifts among the colleagues.

This year, we had so much food and wine but yet, nothing stopped me from taking pictures with my colleagues.



Everybody had something from their partners to buy a gift (min $15) but my partner just forgot about it and I did not get any present this year (sob sob sob).

Anyway, we all had a great time!








[More photo here]

VAGSG Annual D&D 2007

Here we closed our chapter for 2007 with a bang. We held our 6th D&D at the Night Safari's Ulu Ulu Court and we had 50+ Vagsg members as well as our sponsors turned up for the event. The event went very well & organized. Everyone enjoyed the company, the food and of coz, those slide shows Jon had put up. It was so nicely done up and I seriously am considering to buy a Mac book now. hehee..

15Dec is also the day which I annouced the stepping down of my Administrator role in Vagsg. It really was a long time and I wanted to make this change because I believe the new blood will drive the team further and I need a break too. 5yrs of Vagsg Admin and now, I am going to sit back and relac.

So, what are the new changes in placed for VAGSG? We should see...

Asia Pacific Manager Meeting 07

That does explain the silence of the 'Karsoon Blog' ya? Together with other 16 managers and our 3 directors, we flew to Zhuhai (珠海) for our AP Manager Meeting which started from 4Dec and ended on 7Dec. Not just having those boring presentations and meetings, kudos to Mr Heng (GM of our Jiangmen Plant) and our 3 directors (APMC) whom came out with such an interesting agenda and programs for our 4day events in Zhuhai.

Day1 was just free and easy. Took almost full day of travelling from Spore to Zhuhai where we flew to HK and took a ferry to the terminal of 九州港 and another of 1hr20min of car ride to our hotel at Ocean Spring Resort.

Day2 was still lots of fun filled with city tour and sight seeing. Check out my fokti site for some interesting photos.

Day3 was a real intensed session where we brought up 16 critical issues to address amoung all the managers. It did get very personal but that was the whole idea of our directors. We resolved them one by one in a very structured matter and came out with a monitoring progress plan.

Day4 was kinda like a quick wrap-up session and then we all had to take a long travelling journey back to Singapore.

My conclusion and contributed to the meeting was indeed was a very successful and fruitful meeting. Its one of its kind for such a meeting held among the AP. Good to bring out all the teething issues of our daily operations and resolve them constructively and then follow up by a progress plan.

[More photo here]

Zaino till your heart content

1Dec Saturday mark the opening of our Zaino DIY @ HYCARE shop. We had gathered around 20 people to come and attend the free workshop which I conducted. It was a 3hr session which I covered product introduction, car washing, claybar, zaino application till buffing. The response was good and most of them find that Zaino is still one of the product that gives the most wet look, longest lasting shine and best of all, very affortable.

AC69 was so excited about the product and he bought the Z5-pro combo kit and zaino right away.

Do watch out for our next coming workshop session.

[More Photo Here]

Its an Audi Day

To celebrate over 70 years of Audi's innovations in motorsports, The whole nation witnessed Audi's 3 historic racing cars in action as they sweep through Orchard Road. The AutoUnion TypeC Grand Prix, Rally Quattro® A2 and the Audi R8 Le Mans flaged off at the Marriott Hotel at 10am. In a spectacular display of men and machines, these historic cars proceed in a convoy down Orchard Road making a pit stop at Raffles City.These 3 cars will be followed by Audi's new supercar, the Audi R8.





At both locations, motorsports fans and enthusiasts came up close with these cars and meet with international rally drivers. The AutoUnion SilverArrow dominated motor racing in 1936 with over 10 GrandPrix victories. Audi quattros® won numerous races until they were banned due to superior quattro® technology over other cars. And the Audi R8 LeMans Prototype made headlines with the famed FSI technology.

[More Pictures Here]

SGR Gals at Silra Home

The Singapore Gal Racers raised a toal funds of S$1,650 for the residents in Silra Home. Part of the funds was used to host a nice buffet dinner and the reminding goes to the operation funds. 24 Nov, Attituder (the event organizer), together with Jewell (the forum admin) and FiercePink(the moderator) joint hand-in-hand to give their support by playing games and karoake with the old folks. Its their first time doing such voluntary work but all of them enjoyed the moment. It was a great afternoon for the new members.

[More photo here]

The Audi R8 Launch

A magnificent night for the Audi Singapore, the distributor - Premimum Automobiles, and their VIPs at the National Museum. A totally unique concept of launching a new car - table-seated dinner (served in either fish or beef), free flow of red and white wine (too bad, Jon. Aint no beer for ya) and lengends of the Audi Motorsports, the Silver Arrors accompany with the Le Mans R10. Of coz, the limelight of the night is our super star, the new R8 pricing at $485,000.

Thanks to PA for inviting the Admin team of Vagsg to witness and share this special launching event of the R8. It was indeed a enjoyable evening. Audi, you done it again !!!

Oh.. did I tell you my next new shopping list? :-)

[More Photo Here]

DIY Zaino is here!

Finally, the DIY Zaino session is here.
For the very first time, we are going to invite all DIY amaturs and gurus to come and zaino your cars under one roof.

Dont think we need any further introduction to Zaino as we all know how Zaino Show Car products can do. We carry the standard Zaino Starter Kit at shop to let you start DIY away. Bring you own Zaino products and we will equip you with the water hosing and vacuum cleaner.

For S$28/-, you get to wash & dry your car at the washing bay. Once the car is clean, you will drive your car into the air-con showroom to do the Zaino detailing. Each car time allocation will be estimated 3hrs.

Benefits:

• Clean and aircon room for your DIY detailing
• Good lighting system
• Refreshment
• DIY with your buddies to learn more about detailing with one another
• Free DIY workshops will be conducted once every month by our in-house Zaino guru, Karsoon (TBA)
• DIY = save cost and great workout
  

Featuring the Washing Bay:

Featuring the Air-con Showroom
Zaino Complete Care System, sold seperately:
Price TBA

Please call to make your appointment to avoid disappointment!
Thank You



How to make appointment:
Contact Matthew (9191 1515)

How to get there:
3032a Ubi Road 3 #01-123
Singapore

Opening Hours:
Every Saturday (except Public Holidays)
9am - 6pm

Donation to Silra Home

Hi Friends,

I am sure by now, you should have received my emails to you. Sorry if I got to do a mass email to all of you for the reason that the HOME I had been regularly volunteered in, Silra Home, is now indeed of operation & building funds. I urge all friends who can kindly contribute your gener0sity to the HOME.

Below is the email we wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------------

Dear friends,

We're conducting a donation drive for Singapore Leprosy Relief Association (SILRA Home) from 18 November to 28 December 2007.

The home is founded in 1971, it provides residential and basic nursing care to ex-sufferers of leprosy. As a result of their previous conditions, many of them suffer some forms of physical deformities. Currently, there are about 62 residents in the home of age 60 years and above. SILRA Home is in need of regular donation from the public to support the elderly in their medical care, daily neccessities and the maintenance of the home.

Double Income Tax Deductable
Donations to any approved Institution of Public Character (IPC) which benefit the local community is tax-deductible. Your donation to SILRA Home will qualify you for Double Tax Deduction. For instance, if you donate $2,000 to SILRA Home, Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) will deduct $4,000 from your income tax statement.

The donation details will be provided to IRAS by SILRA and the donation deductions will be included automatically in your tax assessment. Tax deduction is given for donations made in the preceding year. For example, if you make a donation in 2007, tax deduction will be allowed in your tax assessment for the Year of Assessment 2008. When the tax deduction for the donation exceeds the income for the year, you're allowed to carry forward the unutilised deduction for a maximum of 5 years.

How to Donate
Please give us your support by making your donation today. To faciliate our administration, please make a cheque donation, attention to "SILRA Home". Kindly indicate your FULL NAME, NRIC NUMBER and CONTACT DETAILS at the back of the cheque. You may hand the cheque personally to SILRA Home or give us a call to arrange for cheque collection.

Contact US
Singapore Leprosy Relief Association (SILRA Home)
80 Buangkok View, Buangkok Green Medical Park, Singapore 534191

Joy Gathering Group
Karen Loh (9691-0818)
Jason Gan (9487-4848)

For more information on SILRA and Joy Gathering, please visit our blog: http://joygathering.blogspot.com/

Please forward this message to your friends who can help.

Thank you!

VAGSG Mega GTG

Yes yes yes... another record breaking for VAGSG! This year, we managed to gather more than 80 VAG cars at the Marina South carpark A. Not just we had the most cars hitting the GTG, we also had a few new things which we had never done before - Remote Control (RC) cars, VGS staff to join us and giving us free caps and chocolate candies, and SGR ladies backing us up and join in the fun.

Till then.. catch you all at the annual D&D on the 15Dec.

[More pictures here]

SGR Silra Home Donation Drive

This coming Saturday - 24th Novemeber 2007, we are going to do a very unique charity drive for our Silra Home. We will be inviting one of the youngest car club in Singapore (berely 2months old) - Singapore Girl Racer to Silra Home together with the joygathering group to share the volunteer work. This SGR car club not only host a members of F&F (fast & furious) and they are all ladies! Yes, you bet, they are all females with one mind in common, they are all passion about cars!

They will be preparing a buffet feast for the Silra residents as well as contributing a fund as a donation to the home. Most of the SGR members will be doing their first time voluntary work and they need us to guide them.

So, please join us, 24/11, 2pm together with the pretty ladies from SGR and make it a special day for the old folks.

Wealth Academy #07

Right on the Deepavali evening till 12 November early night ~1.30am, Aiai and me are just one of the 80+ participants who went through the 4day Wealth Academy course by both Adam Khoo & Conrad Tan.

Within only 4 days, I learnt a lot of ”secrets” about wealth, especially about the investing and financial management (speaking from a non-finance guy like me). I don’t know how long it may take me to read all financial books to find out how to do value investing and momentum investing properly. However, it took me only 2 days to learn all of them from Wealth Academy

The course not only make both of us how to generate more multi-stream incomes, but also taugh us alot about techniques of investment. Thanks to Adam & Conrad! Now, I beginning to know whats the Ultimate Way to Success!




[More pictures here]

Zaino at its next level

Zaino - being one of the best car wax products in the world and its also one of my passion of zaino-ing cars. After attending the Zaino DIY workshop run by Auto Rage, I started to wonder, am I going to be the next Zaino guru or I just wanna do zaino for others for free? Thats the question always ponder to me when I wake up in the everyday morning.

Ideas had been generated. But putting them all in actions are another big step for me. I will update you all about the plan once the proposal has become more concrete. Right now, they are just bits and pieces. Wish me luck!

Me at Mount Tit Tits

Dinner at the Bottle Tree Park (Yishun)

Having gone to the Bottle Tree Village (Sembawang) for so many times, it was the first time that we dine at BTP (Yishun).
Mike treated us a good feast at the restaurant for his first prize in his 4D winning. The food was good but slightly pricey as compare to other zi-cha places.
Lots of parking space and the park was big. Great venue for a mega GTG or a foodie GTG for the Vagsg folks. ;-)

Grand Opening of VGS

The very first car manufacturer which will be dealing with its own sales in Singapore, VW, has now opened at Alexendra Road. The VAGSG admin team was invited to their first day opening on 15 March. After so many years of the having their authorized dealer, Car&Cars, VW has finally taken over the dealership and VW customers will be dealing directly with the master itself. Thanks to Dr.Olaf Duebel for the invitation.

A Trip to the Super Zoo

Here comes the school holiday and brother decided to bring his whole family out to the zoo and asking me and mei to tag along. It was a hot bloody Sunday and we arrived at the zoo @ 2pm. Damn bloody expensive, 7 adults and we were charged for $120/- and without the rides somemore. The whole zoo was packed with families bringing their little ones. Nevertheless, we had a great time with brother & sister.

Met Aaron and Lynn at Bugis in the later part of the evening. Thanks to Aaron for the lovely Japanese meal and desert. Aiai got her maricure done up at Tip Top Nails, Icon for FREE !!!!
Oh yes.. tao hway again, to end the whole weekend episode.

Engagement Party for Rodney & Ally

Congratulations to Rodney & Allison for their engagement. A party held at Il Lido Cafe, Sentosa. They invited the Admin team of Vagsg and together with their other 60+ guests. To view more pictures of them, visit http://public.fotki.com/karsoon/rodneys-engagement-party/

Brotherly Love

I like this picture also. It tells me how close these brothers are and specially in such an occussion - Wedding Day.

Lonely man in thoughts

What can you tell from this picture? An advertisement piece or simply a snapshot?

6th month in Whitford

Time really flies when you are enjoying the good times. Within this 6 months, I have done the following projects/tasks for my company:

- Leased lines upgrade for both Hong Kong / Jiangmen offices

- Set up Disster Recovery Plan for Singapore office

- Complete IT Audit Findings

- Roll out Sharepoint Portal for AP offices

- Implemented Paperless and removed standalone printers

- Implemented Recyle Program for printer toners

- Implemented new password policies for AP offices

- Implemented paperless faxing and terminate old smart fax

So, boss.. when is my next pay increment? ;-)

I have turned BAD!

Mama says smoking is bad... Papa says smoking kills... and now, I am smoking just to feel HIGH

My best friend's wedding

Knowing this dude for more than 10yrs already and finally, he is tighting his knot. After so many years, Daniel found his love, Elizabeth.

Daniel and myself used to rollerblade together every weekend at East Coast Park and during the young days, Pleasure Dome was our favourite spot to party. Daniel is a sincere and helpful buddy which someone you can trust and lend a listening ear too.

04 March 2007, Daniel & Elizabeth made that vow at Fort Canning ROM center. We simply feel happy for both of them and wishing them blissful marriage and happiness always.

The Topless Babes

You just cant beat these babes !

A group photoshoot with the cab buddies at Riffles Range Road near bukit timah. What a sight!

CNY at Kampong

Every year is the same lah! Nothing special. Dinner at Kampong and giving ang bao to the little cousins of ours. Whats there to write about? I miss those days when I can still collect my ang bao from my uncles and aunties and go buy heaps of fire crackers and play with my cousins. When mid night comes, we will set up a gambling deck and start playing our black jacks. Love those days.

Eve of Lunar New Year

We were just done with our reunion dinner and the kids will begging us to bring them to Chinatown. We wanted to bring them last year but due to Val's chicken pox outbreak and thus we cancelled the program. But this year, we couldnt find any excuse not to bring the kids out.



Just look at their faces... kids just simple hate the crowd !

Pups at the Yishun Dam

This pups are just simply adorable. 6 pups and they all born on the Valentines' Day. Cool ah? You want one? Then you got to go see my Daddy as they are now currently under special care by the folks at the Yishun dam.

Birdies on the Charity Act!

Weeks of hardwork and minutes of glory. The Birdies have done it again. Thanks to Aaron and James for the chronography and without the support from Alison and Azmi, this performance will not a success. We did a hip-hop dance show for the residents in Silra Home for the Lunar New Year celebration.

Tiong Bahru Market

Since 1999, havent been there to makan already so today, before we drive to Vivo to meet Alison, we managed to get to Tiong Bahru Market to have our dinner there. We were lucky to get a carpark lot as it was packed with cars and its always a problem finding a lot there.

Had prawn noodles, pows, Chee Choo Fun and Carrot cake. This picture is especially for Aaron. Red red one..

An evening in Chinatown

Just like any other tourists, walk walk, shoot shoot a pic.. thats what a tourist do in Chinatown.

Had dinner with Jaslyn & Eugene at the famous porridge shop and later shopped around the Chinatown to get the early lunar new year atmosphere.