Musings by Grace Chng

It’s been 30 hours since I received my iPad. I’m not really using it yet. Just getting ready to use it. So am looking at the apps and getting the content ready. But it’s really a cool device.

Mr Yoshida at the Japanese restaurant last night came to wow at it. So nice and cool, he said as he bent over the table. How heavy, he said. I let him carry it and he said “Oh not so heavy, neh.”

Yes, but if you carried it like a book, your hand will tire. It’s nice, sleek and sexy. If you’ve used an iPhone, this is really a walk in the park. But read my review in coming Wed’s Digital Life (April 21).

I dithered about pre-ordering the iPad when the Apple store was open for orders. After a few days, I decided I would buy it. After all, if I’m really a gadget freak, I should get the latest - well almost all the latest - gizmos.

Then I spent another couple of days thinking about how to get it. One friend tried booking with Vpost and had his order cancelled. Oh, oh, I thought. I thought of Borderlinx but you need a Citibank card and I don’t have one. Apple developer Hon Cheng suggested comgateway.

That wasn’t a bad idea. I’d also received a comgateway voucher. Some special discount on shipping if I bought it with comgateway. So I did. When the iPad arrived in US stores on April 3, I hurriedly checked my comgateway account that day and every day after that. No news.

I was worried that the order had been cancelled. Then on Tuesday, it said the device had arrived in its warehouse. I quickly signed up for express shipment and comgateway said I’ll get it on April 11.

Well, not bad, getting it about 8 days after it hit US stores isn’t a bad record. Well I’m not in a race to see who’s first to get it. Then, it suddenly turned up at work yesterday.

My colleague put a DHL parcel on my table round about 2pm on Friday. It didn’t dawn on me what it contained until I saw the label that it’s from comgateway. My heart gave a lurch and I screamed (think it came out as a croak!): “It’s here. My iPad is here”.

Well the unboxing was captured on video and is up on Digital Life’s Facebook account. It’s as I saw it during the Jan 27 launch in San Francisco. No surprises there. It’s all in the apps. I’m now downloading and spending a whopper on iTunes getting it ready for use.

4 days spent reading proved a luxury. It’s great to shut down. It’s also a terrific way of doing some thinking. Ideas come to me when I’m not really thinking about thinking. So while I had some “shut down” time, I also had a list of new ideas to think about.

Club Med was a surprise to me. I’ve heard about it of course: food and drinks plenty, lots of activities to keep children and adults occupied and entertainment provided as well. I found all this true with lots of fun thrown in as well.

Drinks - all that you can take in - flow whole day. Beer, wine and liquor are available as long as the bar is opened which means practically from 8 am to past midnight. Every night is party night at Club Med. Guests are entertained to shows put up by the Gentle Officers or GOs (pronounced geos) who are the guest/relationship officers. They are yoga, gym, archery, fitness, tennis, sailing etc GOs and managers by day. But by night, they turn comedians, dancers and even magicians.

I was not bored in the 4 nights I spent there at Club Med Cherating, last week. I did my routine workouts in a gym - sparse but with the right equipment - attended some workout classes like body scuplt and step aerobics and spent the rest of the time reading. The breeze from the sea kept my friends and I cool even though the day temperature was over 32 degrees C. I won third prize in an archery contest - I’ve a medal to prove it - while my friend came out top. Then she hopped over to the tennis court, beat a handful of guys and got the third prize there too.

My other friends meanwhile, were sleeping, doing yoga or water aerobics. I would have gone for the trapeze act- ie learn to be a trapeze artist -  if I hadn’t stepped on a pebble and almost twisted my ankle. While an ice pack helped keep the swelling down, the risk of aggravating the injury was high in the trapeze event. Next time…..

I’ve 12 buffets at Club Med in 4 days. That’s terrible in the sense that I don’t usually eat buffets but it’s also nice because I could choose from Italian to local to Japanese to pizzas, hamburgers and steaks.

I would recommend keeping away from the wine if you’re a connoiseur. Beer is good because it’s fresh. Coffee was great because it had the Nespresso machine which provided us with our caffeine fix throughout the day.

The rooms are comfortable. I would give the housekeeping service 6 out of 10. The tea sachets were not replenished, neither was the tea cup - so obviously used and dirty cos there’s a tea bag in it standing in some drops of tea - washed. But the GOs were friendly and talkative. Be ready to have one or two GO sit at your table to keep you company during meal times. It’s a Club Med thing.

Overall, I would give the experience a 7 out of 10.

Since my last blog, I’ve gone to Hongkong, Las Vegas and San Francisco. The key thing in these trips was food. Yes, I was on a work trip to Vegas, but food seemed to be an obsession with everyone there. I guess if you don’t gamble, you would want to eat well and if you win, you can spend more on the fancy Michelin-star restaurants.

In Hongkong, my friend J, took me to Sichuan Kitchen, somewhere near Lan Kwai Fong. It’s a private kitchen so you eat what the chef cooks. Every meal is a 10-course meal and following Sichuan tradition, it’s spicy. Thank goodness, the chef alternated between spicy and non-spicy so it was nice. The first three dishes were appetisers, of which 1 was very spicy. Then one soup and the rest were pork, fish, chicken, prawn and vegetable dishes. I think there’s a soya-based dish somewhere there.

All I remember was that by the fifth dish, I was stuffed. But the food is good and reasonable at HKG$280. Plus you get the chef singing a Sichuan aria at the end of the meal. She’s a trained singer, very professional and although I don’t understand Chinese, it was a professional performance.

In Las Vegas, the food was good, but often just huge! It would be better to share the dishes.  Gambling is still the main business in the city but many hotels now have spas and fancy eating places. The theme parks at MGM and New York New York hotels seem silent now.

In San Francisco, a favourite city of mine, I missed going to Embracadero which is the waterfront with the refurbished warehouses. They have been turned into coffee and organic joints, specialist supermarkets and restaurants. I went there with friends on my last night there but did not manage to get into the restaurants because they were booked to the gills. So next time, I’ll check out the place.

It’s been about a month since I’ve been driving the Q5. I’m enjoying it. Handles well, steady and great drive.

When it rains, I feel safe.

But my heart bleeds because I scrapped the back as I was going down the parking ramp in Ngee Ann City. Luckily there’re only faint scratches and the paint came off.

I was hoping that the petrol consumption would be better than my previous car. With 2.5litre saloon, I was getting about 600km per full tank. On good weeks, it was 640km. It’s about $110 per full tank. Now for this price I’m still getting 600km. I guess that the Q5 as a heavier car - it’s a baby monster of a SUV - is drinking up the fuel even though it’s only litre car.

Nonetheless, this car is so-so cool. I love driving it.

I was very sad when I’d to sell my SUV nearly 4 years ago. I like driving the car. It sat very high on the road, letting me see the road ahead. When it rained, water splashed from the other side of the road only reached the bonnet, not the wind screen. This is good because I could see the road.

But I decided to sell it because the high petrol prices was just getting too crazy. When I first bought the car, a full tank - 72 litres - cost about $80. By the time I sold it, a full tank was nearly $150. Plus every time I paid the road tax for the 3 litre car, my heart bled.

So for practical reasons, I switched to a 2 litre saloon car. It was smooth, quick pick-up, easy to part, drive etc. But I never fell in love with it. I still hankered after the SUV.

Three months ago, I decided to plunge in again. I put a downpayment for a SUV. This time it’s a 2 litre one. Hopefully, the petrol consumption would not be too bad.

Since my first car, over 20 years ago, I had bought Japanese. This time, I went for a continental car. Years ago, friends would tell me that continental cars would be just plain janes. It’s Japanese cars that would have nice trimmings. This has changed. Beemers, mercs and volkswagon have taken on new designs and looks. They are quite attractive on the road. When I was in Munich in February, I drooled over a BMX series 6 Tourer. Today, it’s called the X6 series and it’s really nice.

So I was sure that the Audi SUV would not disappoint. What I saw the showroom proved be right. Externally, the Q7 had always been attractive. But it was a monster of a SUV. Too big and too large a carbon footprint at 3.6litres. The Q5 on the other hand, was a good alternative. At 2 litre, it was smaller - and more affordable.

Audi sales was so good that I waited 3 months to get my car. Finally, last Friday I got my hands on the Q5. This time, it was a silver coloured car instead of my usual black. The most attractive about the car, the grill at the front of the car.

Of course, I love driving the car. But what features I like best …. read the next blog.