A Casual Trip Around Penang Island With My Toyota Alphard

After the AOC Northern TT, I stay back two more days in Penang and took the opportunity to travel around the island. I stay in a hotel in Tanjung Bungah which has a nice view to the sea.

The beach in front of the hotel

Nice sunset view

The next day, I took a slow drive up to Batu Ferringi and Teluk Bahang to check out some of the hotels and beaches there.

A nice stretch of beach in Teluk Bahang

After that I head south to check out Queensbay Mall. I have heard about this new shopping mall from TV quite often and always wonder how it look like. Well I finally get to step inside the mall and look around some of the shops. It gave me an impression that it is similar to our Mid Valley Mall in KL.

From the open car park outside the mall, it has a nice view of the Penang Bridge as well as Pulau Jerejak.

The bridge is too far. The right patch of land is Pulau Jerejak

After lunch, I head further south toward Batu Maung again looking for a fishing village to buy some seafood. The timing was just right when I reach the village as the fishermen just got back from sea with their catches.

The entrance to the fishing village

The signboard on the left in the photo above is the same restaurant where the AOC Northern TT was held the night before. The right signboard shows the way to a small fishing village about 50meter away.

I bought a kilo of big prawn for RM36 only which is rather cheap compared to what you can get in KL. I only bought the prawn as I wasn't sure what fish to buy as they have so many variety.

One kilo of big prawn, yummy

After that I head back north to visit USM. It has been more than 23 years since I left this university so a lot has changed. Some of the old hostel that I had stayed before are no longer in their former form. Most of the old wooden long houses are now replaced with multi-story building.

Driving around the campus in the giant feel a bit odd compare to those time when I ride around in a 80cc motorbike!

I went up to the Chancellery Rock to try to catch a glimpse of the Penang Bridge and Pulau Jerejak.

The Chancellory hasn't changed much

This spot used to be the favourite place for undergraduates to come here to catch a view of the open sea as well as looking out to the majestic Penang Bridge then. However that view is no longer visible anymore. Right in front of the campus now stands the Penang Twin Tower which block off most of the middle section of the bridge.

The Penang Twin Tower!

To the right, there used to be a clear view of Pulau Jerajak but now that view is blocked by condominiums that sprung up recently.

After I have spent some time checking out various schools building in the campus, just as I did 23 years ago, I passed the small roundabout at the top of the slope heading toward the main gate.

The sculpture that greet all newcomers.

In the middle of the roundabout is a stone-made sculpture that has two sides with different carving. The front section facing the entrance is rough which signify that those who are entering the university is still unpolished. The rear section which you'll see as your drive out is smooth to indicate that (hopefully) you have learned wisely and bring with you your newfound knowledge and ready to go out to face the world. With that I bid farewell to USM again.

On the way back to the hotel, I drop by at Ghee Hiang to buy some Penang biscuits (tau sar pneah and hneoh pneah) as souvenier for the relatives.

I spent the night meeting up with my former univeristy mates before I left for KL the next day.

Clear traffic on Penang Bridge toward Butterworth

Traffic on the way back to KL is smooth but slow as there are a lot of traffics. As this is the week before All Soul Day, a lot of people took the opportunity to go back to their home town to pay respect to their ancestors. That's why the traffic over the weekend in Penang was very bad.

I am not sure when I will visit Penang again but I thoroughly enjoy this trip.

A Trip To The North To Join AOC Northern TT

Last Friday, the AOC members organized their TTs at three different locations simultaneously. The northern group has scheduled their TT long time ago and when the central and southern groups found out, they also decided to hold their TT at the same time.

The idea was to hold the TT at each location and then each location will provide live updates via Internet. However I guess it didn’t work out that way since the TT location for the northern group was not ideal for Internet access. Updates were done via mobile phone so there is no live images beam across locations.

I was informed of the TT at the last minute hence I was undecided whether to attend or not. Then I found out that one member of the central group is heading up north to join the northern group TT. That’s gave me an idea that I should make a trip up north too. Besides joining the northern group TT, I also want to take this opportunity to visit Penang as I haven’t been there for quite a while.

I graduated from USM so it is probably a good time for me to go back to the campus and check out the place to see how has it progress since I left there 23 years ago. Also I wanted to meet up with some of my university mates from Penang that I have not met for many years. So good enough reason to take a long drive!

This is also a good time to give my giant another long distance run as the last one I did was 7 months ago. I left Kuala Lumpur city at around 2:45pm and the drive up north was rather casual. The original plan was to meet up with another AOC member at Ipoh and then convoy together from there. However due to last minute changes I didn’t stop by at Ipoh. Instead I stopped at Sg. Perak R&R area to wait for two other AOC members, one from KL and another from Cameron Highland.

The 3 giants then convoy together the rest of the journey to Penang Island.

Crossing the Penang Bridge

The traffic on a Friday afternoon is pretty smooth and we arrive at Penang around 6pm and had to bear with the after work hour traffic before we reach our hotel respectively.

Before Hitting the After Work Jam

Once we have freshen up, we meet up again at E-Gate with the rest of the AOC members coming from other locations before we convoy to our final destination.

Checkpoint Behind E-Gate

The convoy took off from E-Gate heading toward a restaurant in Batu Maung. As we had to wait for everyone to depart together, it was rather late when we reach our final destination.

Where We Had Our Dinner

This TT is slightly different from the other I have attended as we have a sit-down dinner instead of a teh tarik session. We only have 11 giants in our convoy but we had 40 attendees sharing the foods in 4 tables.

Two Of The Tables With Food Ready

This is slightly different from other TT as the family members of the AOC members are more involved in this TT compared to others.

AOC Memebr Enjoying Their Foods

Also it is commendable that some non-AOC members actually took the trouble to join us at the very last minute at the invite of one of the AOC members. One of them was in Muar in the morning and after he fetch his family, drove all the way up to Penang. Another was visiting Sg. Petani and drop by last minute to join the TT.

It was nice to see all the family members enjoyed the TT and have their share of fun along the way.

After the dinner, the group convoyed back to an open car park at E-Gate and start to have a group photo session and the customary showing off each other cars and sharing of technical information.

Line Up For Photo Shoot

As it is getting late, those with family have to leave early while other proceeds to Padang Kota Lama for the real teh tarik session. However the nearby stalls at Esplanade are closing at 1am so the group only spent a short time there before we all call it a day.

All in all, it was a good TT as we have very good turn out from the members and their family. Not only the AOC members get to enjoy this outing, their family members also can share their passion during the TT.

I think this is a good sign that the TT for AOC members are more family oriented and I believed more and more members will bring their family to such future events.

Having done a northern TT, I am wondering if I will be doing a southern one in future.

Late Reminder From Your IES Alarm

Yesterday after I reached my brother house with my giant, as usual I pressed the remote to lock the car. However the alarm system beep 8 times instead of the normal 3 beeps. I checked around the car and make sure that all doors are closed and tried again, still it keep beeping 8 times.

Since it is already late in the day so I left it as it is since the doors are locked and the alarm is armed. I just don't know what is going on at that time.

The next morning I decided to call the installer and only to find out that this is a indication that the SIM card is not functioning. That remind me that I have to renew my pre-paid SIM card. I bought one of those 360-days pre-paid validity SIM card last year and I thought it is not due yet.

Well today I went to Maxis to check on the status of the SIM card and apparently it expired two days ago. So SIM card is no longer functioning hence the alarm system is "smart" enough to warn the owner.

However since that pre-paid SIM card is already expired, there is no way to renew it and the only option is to buy a new SIM card. Also the alarm module is concealed inside the dashboard I have no way of replacing the SIM card mysef.

I sent the car to the installer shop to get the SIM card replaced and now everything is back to normal.

I know some of you have been asking me about the IES alarm. I thought I want to share this with you in case you are also using pre-paid SIM card. Remember to top-up your pre-paid SIM card regularly or use a post-paid SIM card.

I spoke to the installer enquiring about the price of the IES GSM alarm and it seems the price that my installer got for me is much cheaper than the suggested reselling price given by the official dealer. Also the IES alarm with the suffix M that I am using now is no longer available. It is replace with a MS model now which carry a higher price than previous model.

Just for comparison sake, the dealer quoted me the RM2,600 for the IES GM60MS model. You can get it cheaper if you go to other accessories shop to install it.

Hope this help.

Update. A reader reminded me that the manual for IES GSM alarm does provide explanation on the 8 beeps reminder. It stated that "1. No GSM coverage this could imply: No network coverage, Sim Card not functioning properly, among others."

I guess I hasn't been reading the manual since the day I install the alarm!

Should I Keep the Forum Alive?

The original idea of setting up the AlphardOwnerClub.com forum was to provide an alternative to those members who wanted to have their own forum as they move away from AlphardAsiaClub.com forum. Also the domain was acquire in anticipation of the setting up of an official Alphard Owner Club and this domain will be used for that registration, hence becoming the official website for that club.

However since the inception of this forum, things has change quite a bit hence it is time to review if there is a need to keep this forum alive. Currently it is kept alive as an information source as it is felt that some of the discussions and reference information might still be relevant to those who want to learn more about Toyota Alphard.

However since the last major meeting among the members from various regions in October last year, it was agreed that all active Toyota Alphard owners will participate only in one forum which is the AlphardAsiaClub.com forum. Since the domain registration for AlphardOwnerClub.com is still active therefore it is decided that it should be kept open until such time when the official Alphard Owner Club is registered and then a decision will be made on the existence of this forum.

However, lately there has been a lot of registration of new members from the western world that has no presence of Toyota Alphard in their own country. Most of the IP addresses shown that they are coming from UK, USA, Canada, and Russia.

I think most of these registration are done by the so call "robots" that go out to search for forum and try to do an automatic registration. The idea is that once they are registered, they can either spam the forum with whatever they have to offer or try to trick members to click on certain link that will cause some malicious codes to be executed and infect their PC.

Luckily the Alphard Owner Club forum is set to required activation before anyone can participate in the forum. Therefore those registrations can be safely rejected and remove from the forum.

However the frequency of new registration is getting higher and higher each week so clearning up these new registration become a chore. I am thinking of temporary shutting down this forum for now. If you are registered in this forum, please take note that this forum will no longer be active from April Fool day.

If you have any other questions on this forun, you can post a comment here or send me an email at askds@live.com

Why Do You Choose Toyota Alphard

I had a discussion with another giant owner and we go were sharing why we love our giant.

We summarized that the two main factors why we fall in love with Toyota Alphard because:

We like the style of Alphard, the spacious, comfortable interior and the abundance features.

1. From anywhere, any place or anytime you see Alphard from far or near, you'll see the sharp edge and muscular look of the Alphard from the front or the 3/4 view.
2. There are plenty of space inside the Alphard. You can stretch your leg straight anywhere inside the Alphard, be it in the front, the middle seats or the rear seats. You normally expect this kind of spaciouness in a limosine and now find it in the Alphard.
   
   The seats in the Alphard are comfortable. You can slide the middle seat along it track to accommodate whatever space size you need. Unfortunately the 2nd generation Alphard has do away with this sliding middle seat feature.
3. The Alphard is fitted with a long list of features that is ahead of many of it competitors (even as early as 2005). It has DVD, MP3, Mini-disk, HDD, Satellite navigation (only in Japan), bluetooth, front and rear camera, sonar sensors, cruise control (two versions), power sliding doors, roof-mounted LCD, Automated Front Lighting System (AFS), sunroof/moonroof, electric curtains, heater seats, sound theatre system etc etc.

The Alphard is easy to drive, it is rather quiet, smooth revving and bring a fresh look to the local automotive industry. Although some who are used to the soild build of the continental car tends to think the Alphard can do better in the sound proofing department.

Of course we also agreed that it is a Toyota brand. Toyota car is know to be reliable and easy to maintain. The fact that it share the same engine and mechanical components with Toyota Harrier, Camry, and Estima means that there are plenty of spare parts and venue to maintain your giant.

The low point of the Alphard is the it is not generous in fuel consumption. Of course we can't expect too much from a car that weight almost two tons. After all it is fitted with petrol engine and fuel consumption depends on how heavy is your right foot!

We think the the 3.0L 1MZ-FE has plenty of torque and horsepower to drive the Alphard. However with a maximum speed limit of 180k/h, you can't fully utilized the full power of the 1MZ-FE engine on our road. Most owner of the 3.0L model will probably be cruising at the official speed limit on highway so the 1MZ-FE power is under-utilized.

The common complain about the driveability of the Alphard is that it understeer when pressing into corner. It has soft suspension setup (for comfort) so you cannot throw the giant around corners.

The evergreen 2AZ-FE engine has been around for a long time and it has powered many generation of Camry, Estima and Harrier. It is long lasting, economical and has lower road tax. Despite it lower power rating, it can still haul the Alphard on long haul or short trip. I have take it up to Genting Highland with the incline from 20-30 degree and I don't need to use 2nd or 3rd gear at all.

It would be nice if the Alphard come fitted with a diesel model.

So what's your reason for choosing your giant?