F1 Race Day

Sunday, April 10, 2011
Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia
Our alarm went off at 9:30am and I had some difficulty in waking up, whilst Andrew as usual immediately put on the light and grabbed his towel before heading for a shower. I was told I had to get out of bed before he came back so I managed to pull some clothes on before lying back down to snooze until he returned. This made me look as if I was up and ready! We then went for breakfast and it wasn't as busy around the toaster as we had expected, as clearly everyone had already set of for the F1. We got ready and walked to the supermarket in search of a hand-held radio. We went up three escalators looking for an electrical department but all we found were clothes on each floor. We were about to give up but on the top floor I spotted a microwave so we went up to the last floor. There were only normal radios, so we went to walk back to the escalator, but I spotted a hand-held one beside the calculators! Andrew was happy that we would now be able to follow the race and know what was actually happening. We bought a pizza to eat before we entered the circuit as the food yesterday was a rip-off and not particularly nice. We arrived at 'Kuala Lumpur Train Station' ready for the 11:24am train, but as always it was a little late. It eventually turned up and it was so full! We managed to squeeze on and stand by the door but then everyone else continued to pile in behind us to the point that I had no space on the floor put down my left foot! I kept standing on random feet as I tried to stand on my two feet, but I just kept banging into everyone as I couldn't keep my balance. It was the same story at 'KL Sentral Train Station' but a lot of people got off at the next stop so we had a little more room to breathe, but there was still no chance of a seat for the hour long journey. I then started to desperately need the toilet! We reached the stop before Nilai and I was debating whether I was going to have to get off the train, but the doors closed so the choice was made for me! I just made it to the toilet, after paying 20 sen, which was the dirtiest I have been to yet. We then got onto a 'Skybus' and even had a seat! There was barely any traffic on the way to the circuit and once we arrived we got onto a shuttle bus to take us to our stand. However,it was like being on the train all over again as people kept piling on so that the bottom of the bus was actually scraping along the floor and we didn't think it was going to make it up a hill as it almost came to a stop. We were stood right at the back so if it had rolled we would have been fairly squashed! 
 
We grabbed a can of Tiger before we went to sit in our seat . There were a load of people stood in our view, again, with huge cameras taking photos of every single car that drove past! I have no idea what they do with all the photos at the end of the day. We didn't mind as it wasn't the actual race, but we just hoped they would sit down later. We got talking to an English couple sat next to us, Phil and Steph, who were really nice. Phil worked in KL during the week, while Steph had just come over for a bit of a holiday. The race was about to start so we tuned in our radio. Vettel had a good start, but I suppose he couldn't really have done much wrong, whereas Button had a bad start. I was so glad we had the radio otherwise we wouldn't have had a clue what was going on after the drivers started making pit-stops. Schumacher went wide right in front of us, which Andrew pretty much missed as he was looking in a different direction. Hamilton also went wide, just after being over-taken, so we reckon he just lost his cool! He then made a pit-stop, claiming that something was wrong with his tyres but we weren't so sure! After a bad start, Button made up quite a bit of distance and the final result was Vettel 1st, Button 2nd and Heinfeld 3rd . Hamilton only managed 7th place, but after the race he was given a twenty second penalty for moving direction more than once whilst defending his position, which put him in 8th place in the end. Phil and Steph offered us a free taxi ride home as they had already pre-booked one. We couldn't really refuse as it had taken us over two hours to get home last night and knew it would take us a lot longer tonight.   
 
The queue just to get out of the circuit was immense! As the circuit was next to a highway you had to go in the wrong direction to turn around, so after an hour in the taxi we drove past the circuit in the right direction! There were cars and taxis driving on the grass next to the highway to try and beat the queue. The traffic eventually broke up and our taxi driver picked up the speed at an alarming rate! Andrew spent a lot of time talking to Phil about his line of work and as it turned out it was exactly what Andrew had thought about doing when we returned to England. It really did feel like fate and Phil gave him some good advice as to which area of work would provide the best job opportunities and pay! We got dropped off two hours later outside the rather grand 'Shangri-La Hotel' where Phil and Steph were staying. We couldn't thank them enough for the free lift back. We walked back to Chinatown and called off at McDonald's as we were starving. I had a 'Quarter Pounder' but it was literally doused in salt and pepper. We got back to our room and went straight to bed.
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