I just realize that there’s a version of Google Earth for Mac. So I downloaded it and had fun browsing around Jakarta & Indonesia.

Then I tried to find Aston Villa FC stadium. Found it here.
Since it’s located right next to the backyard of my house in UK, I browsed a bit to see if I can see my house there.

To my surprise, I even managed to found my car in the photo, a red Toyota Estima Lucida X 2.2 liter (Turbo Diesel) 4WD, 8 seaters MPV. Yay !
(I’m so helplessly geeky)

Here’s the screenshot of Google Earth, in case they updated the photo (which will erase the car from the old photo).

The Toyota Estima is a joy to drive. Smooth, stable, easily takes over other cars despite its bulky size (hey, it’s a 8 seater), fits the whole family with room to spare (massive cabin size), rotating / folding seats (you can even set the backseats to face each other). Will easily pass over the speed limit if I’m not careful.
On the roads with no speed camera (such as Scotland’s highland / countryside), it takes no time to get close to its maximum speed, thanks to its automatic turbo capability, while still a joy to handle (low centre of gravity, heavy weight, excellent power steering).

I have an especially fond memories of its 4WD (seriously) capability — at a time, Birmingham was under a snow storm, and the roads are covered with thick, (very) slippery ice. I was trapped in the traffic jam in the middle of the road, while we need to see my wife who just gave birth to our 4th daughter.

After telling the kids to brace themselves, I activated the 4WD switch, went over the lane separator, and over into the icy, snow covered fields just next to the lane. We quickly arrived on an empty road leading to the hospital, and arrived there safely.
On the way back we went offroad in the city again, and arrived home in no time.

In the morning, people told stories on how they were trapped on the road for hours, some for 12 hours, some were even trapped until the morning. Told my story, and people were having problems believing that an 8 seater is a 4 wheel drive; much less the in-city offroad adventure that night.
Whatever

Anyway, my house is located not far from where the car was parked. It’s right here.

Loads of fun. And not only that, I’ve started to got projects which will be using Google Maps extensively. More in a few months time inshaAllah.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 12th, 2007 at 7:58 and is filed under In English, Teknoblogia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.