2006 British International Motor Show
A group of friends and I decided to attend the 2006 British International Motor Show that was hosted in Excel, London. Since this was my first ever car motor show, I didn’t really know what else to expect besides cars and ladies 
Being a Maserati nut and owning a Volkswagen, I was really interested in seeing what the motor show had to offer… the answer was nothing, in that respect. It seems that the bad boys, BMW included were after the German exhibition that was later. Having a quick look at the motor show’s website, my excitement started to grow again with the brands of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Toyota, Honda etc etc . In addition to that, some 4×4 track which you could take part in, and promises of some On-Water Entertainment. We were off!
Arriving there was straight forward, and parking was a treat. The specially designated wasteland that could hold 11,000 odd cars was just minutes away from the event and with the addition of a free bus ride it all looked good.
As we made our way towards the entrance of the main indoor arena, we got ourselves a nice ice cream and saw a massive yacht hotel on our left. On the right was the 4×4 track as promised, but it looked like it wasn’t open yet.
Entering the indoor arena was different story… there were loads of people yet it wasn’t stuffed.. a nice balance. We immediately turned right and saw the stand for Dodge displaying a really nice sports car. Honda was close and the Civic Type-R was always a treat to see. Lexus was displaying their new convertible and hybrid cars and made our way towards the Toyota area. I had a chat with the Toyota crew and asked why my beloved Celica wasn’t on display! They replied that the MR2 and the Celica have been discontinued and a newer mixture of them both will be produced soon! I couldn’t decide if this was a good or a bad thing, but the looks of the new RAV4 was all it took for me not to care… much 
As we made our way through each car, we finally passed by some bid bad boys, the Ferrari F1 car, and some other beauties. Pictures pictures pictures of course! We also spotted some weird fish-like looking “car” was over 10 meters long! Whatever it was, it looked fast
After a quick Ipod/Camera sync, we had some lunch and made our way towards nothing short of the beloved Mercedes McLaren SLR. Costing over £350,000 and with stunning looks we spent an extra minute appreciating this beauty… *sigh*
The second have of the arena had the more common manufactures displaying their new models. Ford was an attraction, handing out free orange ice cream with live DJing and an ice bar… That reminds me, we saw some wicked Toyota that once the boot had extended outwards by around a meter or more, you could see DJ with her setup mixing straight from the space between! The doors themselves were also speakers and the whole site was nothing more than amazing! Even cooler than the converted dance floor-like Hummer!
Look at the time, we decided to make our way out and opted to have a stroll around London. After picking up our free Coke Zero at the exit, we went back into our mate’s car and drove to some weird place where we were sure to find parking. Around 45 minutes or so of walking, passing St. Pauls Church, we were still trying to figure out how come all the shops were close and why there were hardly any people around… it almost felt that something major had happened :S
We managed to reach Leicester Square and the masses of people was a reassuring sign that we were in fact in London. A little tour of convent garden, a waffle and a nice opera like play later, passed by Trafalgar squre and Nelson’s Column. It was a lovely walk and full of life. We truly enjoyed it!
Just before we started leaving, we went through China town again and had some dinner there. Also, we discovered some really weird, spiky fruit and was pondering what to do with it if we bought it Our Singaporean expert suggested that if you can’t smell it from the other side of the road, then it ain’t worth buying! Hehe, who were we to disagree 
We started to make our way back and took a slight detour to discover a bit more of London… It was around 8pm and people were getting ready to hit the bars and go out for a nice walk around the place. We truly enjoyed ourselves and have plans to go back again at some point and explore that wonderful city. By the time we all go home however, exploring was the last thing our poor feet were thinking about and it became apparent that they were completely warn out. What I forgot to mention was that the night before, I had three mosquito bites on my right foot and discovered when I took my shoes off that a whole day’s worth of scratching caused foot to swell! Man, it wasn’t a site! Later we discovered that it was in fact some weird infected mosquito and… *sign* I’ll save that story for another day