Fun in Brunei

It has been so long since I last wrote a real entry,  I need to do an overview of some of the fun things we've done here in Brunei so far!  This is going to be a long post, mostly in pictures...

People tend to say that there's nothing to do here, but hopefully this entry will prove that statement to be false.  We have found plenty to keep us busy and entertained, so far!

JERUDONG PARK

OK, so Jerudong Park is no Disney World.  But for those of you who know about our Disney vacation (not necessarily the happiest place on earth for us- haha!), Jerudong Park is just perfect for a few hours of fun for our family.  It opens around 5pm, but then the rides shut down a couple of times after that for "prayers" (aka rest/dinner time for the employees.)  Odd, but it's ok because there are no crowds or lines to wait in when the rides are open.  Beautifully landscaped, there are large playgrounds for the kids, and only on our most recent visit was the peace disrupted by some awful local music playing over the loudspeakers.  Another nice thing is that it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to go!   We've spent no more than $200 total in 3 visits over the last year, and that includes food!

The "Engagement Ring" out front

Beautiful night view of the carousel

Camels, of course!

These adult bumper cars can give you serious whiplash!  

They also have kids' bumper cars.

This shooting game squirts water at you when you hit the targets.

The little train takes you on a tour of the park

Natalie was excited that they've added this "jumping spider"

 Paddleboats

Landon and Lacy on the carousel

 The older kids love this pirate ship, but this was Lacy's 1st time on it.  

She squealed with delight!

EMPIRE HOTEL

The Empire Hotel and Country Club is a fancy 5-star hotel about an hour from our house.  We have stayed there twice as a family, and my sister Rachel and I spent one night there when she came to visit!  Situated on the South China Sea, it is beautiful.

Rachel and Me in June

Forget The Empire's bowling alley and movie theater...

My kids are thrilled to ride the hotel's many escalators!

We had the pool to ourselves for several hours 

during the recent October break

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

Bandar is the capital of Brunei, and driving around there is an adventure in itself.  Luckily Keith has always been able to use The Force to guide him.  I prefer not to drive there with all the round-abouts, 1-way streets, etc.  When Rachel visited us, we enjoyed touring the famous white mosque, and taking a boat down the river to see the Kampung Ayer (water village) and to search for proboscis monkeys, which are unique to Borneo.  During our October trip to Bandar we found the large-ish SupaSave grocery stores, Toys R Us, and Stride Rite!   Small pleasures. :) One thing The Force did NOT lead us to was a supposed hike to a waterfall at a park in the heart of town.  After driving around for awhile looking for it (even after getting directions) we had to give up due to carsick children.  Other things on our Bandar to-do list: the Sultan's palace, Royal Regalia museum, Muara Beach, and more.

The magnificent Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque
No pictures are allowed inside

Setting sail down the river

Can you see the proboscis monkey?  

We didn't get very good shots, unfortunately.  He was too far away.

Kampung Ayer - "Water Village"

The wind and rain made for a very chilly boat ride!

Aunt Rachel

SHOPPING

Shopping in Brunei is unlike shopping anywhere in the US.  You just never know what bizarre things you'll find in random stores.  One of my favorites is the shop that has hamsters out front, overpriced out-of-style women's clothing and accessories in the middle, and about 100 tanks of fish for sale in the back.  I am not a shopper, but I have fun shopping in Brunei just for the sheer entertainment and laughs!  You definitely can't do much serious shopping here.  As a side note... grocery shopping is a whole different story.  That does NOT go under the blog entry "Fun in Brunei".

FUN FINDS

Glass greens for display

The captions on these shirts are priceless.  Say Wha??

Seriously, what are they thinking with these freaky mannequins?

 Good laughs

    

EVERYDAY LIFE

POOLS

PLAYGROUNDS

                       

SPECIAL EVENTS


A British Armed Forces fun day

Harton at school

Natalie's class made obstacle courses for a water fun day

A ferris wheel at a Dutch party for all the kids on camp

At a Hari Raya "open house" celebration at the end of Ramadan

"The Great Race"

Brunei Brits Progressive Dinner

American Club Chili Cook-off

German Oktoberfest

Playback performance - "Creme Brulesque"

BEACH

Yes, there are sandflies and warnings about deadly jellyfish, but 

the beach is still a nice place to spend a morning or an evening.   Afternoons are too hot!

 Jellyfish!

 Every Friday there is a "Fun Run" on the beach, 

followed by a buffet dinner in the beach shelter 

as the sun sets.

Well, that's all for now!  

Maybe this begins to make up for almost a full year with no blogging?  Anyway, this is just a glimpse at some of the things that we've done since moving to Brunei.  All of these things are IN Brunei.   Next up, a post on our travels beyond Brunei!  Life is good, we are blessed.

You know you haven't blogged in awhile when...

... it takes you 3 tries to remember the password to log in to your account!  Now here I am, with no time to actually blog, but maybe this will jumpstart me for next time, hopefully one day this week.  Stay tuned!

Chinese New Year

The day after our Niah adventure, the Marriott had a celebration for Chinese New Year.  There were drum performances and traditional lion/dragon dances.  It was really neat to experience this part of Asian culture in person!  This is the year of the Dragon, and I also happen to have been born in a year of the Dragon, so I think that means this will be a good year for me.  :)

The 2 guys in this yellow costume were amazing acrobats, 

doing stunts on these little pillars and elevated platform!

GONG XI FA CAI!

Niah Caves

This past weekend was a long weekend for Chinese New Year, so we decided to go to Miri, Malaysia and stay at the popular Marriott Resort and Spa.

Our main goal was to make it to the Niah National Park and caves, a 1 hour, 2 hour, or 3 hour drive from the hotel, depending on who was giving the directions.  We were hoping for the shorter travel time!

Keith decided to get directions from Google maps, which told us 1 hour, 40 minutes.  We figured that was do-able.  Some friends who happened to be at the Marriott with the same plan, set out before us and told us they would text us and let us know how long it took them to get to Niah.

After packing up sandwiches, snacks, drinks, diapers, wipes, sippy cup, books, toys, camera, umbrella stroller, flashlights, and baby backpack (surely I'm forgetting something!), we loaded up the van and left around 9:30am.

Now picture this:

A 9 year-old girl saying, "I just want to stay at the hotel and swim!  WHY do we have to go to see CAVES?  Let's just stay at the Marriott!"
A 7 year-old boy saying, "Why does Natalie get to sit in the middle!  I want to sit in the middle! It's not FAIR!"
A 4 year-old boy saying, "HarTON... stop touching me!  Stop!  STOP!!!"
A 1 year-old girl... hmmm... actually, I can't remember what Lacy was doing because of all the other COMPLAINING going on in the back of the van!  I was thinking 'this is going to be a long trip.'

I finally got the kids distracted by singing songs from Just Dance, and we were on our way.  Just an hour and 40 minutes, right?  Wrong.

The streets in Miri are pretty confusing, and not well-marked, so we took a couple of wrong turns before finding our way to the route set out for us by Google.   Then we took a few more wrong turns because the street names on Google maps did not match up with the street names in real life.  Keith even stopped once to ask directions (I know, a rare man), and the person insisted that the road we were looking for on the map didn't even exist.  Well, Keith thinks that's what the guy was saying, although there was a bit of a language barrier.  We forged ahead, hoping we were going to start seeing signs soon.  No such luck.

After awhile our friends texted us, "1 hour, 5 minutes on coastal road."  Guess what?  We were NOT on the coastal road.  And we'd already been driving for well over an hour at that point.  After about 2 hours we finally passed what had to be the correct turnoff, so we backtracked and went winding down this gravel road to a DEAD END.  About that time, Harton started saying he was going to throw up, and I told Keith that I felt like we were in a Stephen King novel where something is trying its darndest to stop us from going to the caves (Anyone read 11/22/63?).  It felt like the universe was against us.  I mean, why couldn't we find the place??  How did our friends get there in just over an hour?  What was wrong with us?  Maybe we just weren't meant to go to the caves that day.  But we had come too far to turn around.

Then Harton threw up.  At least I had given him a plastic bag, but then ALL of us started feeling sick from the smell, and we just wanted to GET THERE already!  Keith never stopped driving this entire time, and finally, we found it.  Almost 3 hours later.  We obviously took the long route.  Note to others: take a RIGHT turn out of the Marriott, which will take you on the coastal road!

Once there, wouldn't you know it, we couldn't find an empty parking space!  After circling the lot (car park) several times, all the while still with Harton's bag of puke in the car, I finally told Keith to just pull off to the side under a tree.  We stepped out into the blazing sun, threw away the barf bag, and carted all our gear to a ferry which would take us across the river to the trailhead.

After a 1 minute boat ride, we were on the boardwalk path to the caves, an hour-long walk.  Harton was feeling much better out of the car, and there was a nice tree canopy to shade us from the equatorial sun.  It was good to stretch our legs and get moving.  We stopped at a little gazebo along the path and ate our sandwiches for lunch.  Everyone was happy now!  Aahhhhh.... so nice!

With renewed energy, we continued onward, taking note of the beautiful butterflies, curling Tarzan vines, and giant fin-like tree trunks and roots.  Outside the entrance to the caves, some locals set up shop with handmade souvenirs for sale.  Natalie bought a bracelet, and Harton bought a (crocodile?) tooth necklace.   Spirits lifted from their purchases and an invigorating walk, the kids were now eager to see the caves.

I can honestly say that the whole journey was worth it when we finally entered the giant caves and the kids ran off happily exclaiming, "This is AWESOME!  Cool!  Woo-hoo!  Let's play hide and seek!"  It WAS pretty awesome.  If you live in the area, you should make the effort to go some time.  :)

We went in 2 caves: Traders' Cave and the Great Cave.  Traders' Cave was more open, with lots of boulders to hide behind and climb.  Great Cave was enormous, very deep, dark, and full of squealing bats dropping poo all over the place.  The odor was a bit off-putting, but we got used to it.  I was surprised at how still and humid it was in the caves.  I was expecting it to be cooler, but I ended up sweating quite a bit as we climbed hundreds of stairs down into the depths of the cave, and back up again.

At one point I started feeling claustrophobic, and asked Landon if he wanted to turn around and just meet Keith and the other kids back at the entrance (Landon was VERY SLOW on all the stairs), but no, he wanted to keep going.  So we did, with only the thin beams from our flashlights to guide us in the pitch black darkness.  Every now and then we would stop to admire the many spider webs along the stair rails, as we shined our "torches" on them.  We spent over an hour in the Great Cave before emerging back into the light of day.  What a neat experience.

As we were leaving, these locals wanted pictures with our "white" children. :)  They're pretty rare, I guess.

The trek back to our car was long, and the kids were absolutely exhausted.  They were real troopers for sure.  Luckily, our friends told us how to go back via the "coastal road", although they themselves got lost trying to retrace their route!  But they were able to give us the correct directions, and it only took us 1 hour, 20 minutes to get back to the Marriott just in time for dinner and an evening swim.

Now picture this:

4 kids, asleep in the car  :)

AAHHHHH.... What an exciting adventure!

REASONS I AM LOVING LIFE IN BRUNEI continued

This is long overdue... Happy New Year, and 5 more reasons I'm enjoying life in Brunei!

5.  WEATHER
     Being just 5 degrees north of the equator means it's usually HOT.  But, we also have surprisingly mild days with nice sea breezes.  Heavy rains, typically in the evening and overnight, give the illusion of it being cold outside.  I could do without the humidity, but honestly, I would rather have it like this than to have cold weather!  Getting dressed is so easy.  Packing is so easy.  Summer clothes are small and light-weight!  I like wearing summer clothes, I like not having to bundle up the kids, and I like that we can go to the pool and cool down when we just can't take the heat anymore.  And, as the sea breeze blows in across the pool in the late afternoon, it's downright chilly!

A fake snowball fight on a hot Christmas Day

4.  PEOPLE
     Whether it's the local Bruneians, Filipinos, or fellow expats, people here just seem warm and welcoming.  In general, the people I've encountered are very friendly, helpful, humble, and respectful.  The locals absolutely love children too.  When we're in town with the kids, shop employees are so eager to help us and they love to carry Lacy around.  The same thing happens in restaurants.  It's like having free babysitting when we go out to eat!  The waitresses take Lacy off our hands and just play with her!  Very friendly people.

3.  PEACE
     Brunei Darussalam is literally "the Abode of Peace."  Life is peaceful here.  With the beach nearby and the jungle in our backyard, nature is all around.  No bright city lights, no horns honking, no rushing here, there, and everywhere... just peaceful, quiet, small-town living.  Even though I'm a city girl who has lived outside of Dallas, L.A., and Houston, I think I was actually made for small-town life.

2.  EXPLORING
     I've already written about some of our exploring involving local nature trails and parks, but there are so many other things to explore in Brunei and the surrounding areas.  Over the next few years we hope to do a lot of travel and exploration of places that we would never be able to see otherwise.  Hopefully I will be good and blog about our adventures!

At the Empire Hotel in Bandar Seri Begawan

1.  HAVING AN AMAH
     I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined that I'd employ a full-time maid/babysitter.  It is amazing, but also the norm here.  What's funny to me is that some people here are actually surprised that I don't have 2 amahs!  With 4+ children, apparently, some people hire 2 amahs!  I figure that if I could do it all on my own before, then someone else can do PART of what I was doing.  I mean, it's not like I'm just superfluous now.  Am I??  :)
A question I get ALL THE TIME is, "HOW did you do it in Houston every day without HELP???"  Ha!  Well, now I ask myself that same question.  Of course, you just do what you have to do in whatever situation you are in.  Now that I have someone, however, to do the 14 loads of laundry a week and the piles of dishes after every meal, not to mention babysitting Lacy so I can run errands alone, I'm thinking I will have to bring my amah with me when we leave here!  I can always dream...

Rosalyn & Me with my birthday cupcakes she baked