JEWELLE TAN

After a lapse of almost a year, the most anticipated festival decoration in town is back.

We missed having their depiction of Christmas (2008) and Chinese New Year (2009) scenes after a few years of displays that never failed to delight us.

Earlier this week, we dropped by the NBT hill as we fondly call it, being an area owned by this company that held the dealership of both Toyota and Lexus cars - which meant that car fans have double the delight as the Lexus showroom is also located here for them to enjoy.

Our kids enjoyed the display and were a little displeased that the entrance to the model houses were barred - and I hope there are some wireless alarms as surely not all kids will obey! And who could forget the adult men who trashed the Christmas displays a few years back.

Other than that, it was another job well done by the artists and we certainly look forward to their Christmas decorations.

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My daughter’s school provide snacks for their mid-morning break so I packed her only some biscuits in case she did not want what was offered. But last week she requested that I packed her some cooked food - like some of her friends and I thought it was a good chance to use this pretty container we bought from Jakarta.

On the subject of mid-morning break, she told me that her Muslim friends are all fasting - and asked me what it meant and why they needed to do it.

After my explanation, I told her to be considerate to them by not showing off her food, like kids like to do sometimes.

Speaking of fasting, probably the most looked forward to advertisement the whole of this month is the list of breaking of fast, or Sungkai as we call it here, offers from most of the restaurants in the country. Maurina who pain-stakingly compiled another list of all the Sungkai offers in the country, thinks that Bruneians love these Sungkai offers. I think that’s because we get the best deal here - most other reputable eateries in other countries charge at least double what we get here.

Just imagine, the most exclusive hotel’s restaurant in the country offers a Sungkai Buffet of only $28 - that’s around RM68.

Even for us non-Muslim, this is also the month to indulge in eating out and eating-all-we-can : quite frankly the best month to visit Brunei for food-lovers. The problem with us who feast without fasting is that while they eat to fill empty stomachs, we eat to fatten full stomachs - so do yourself a favour and read more on colon cleansing reviews after that round of Sungkais.

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For Brunei car enthusiasts, the most talked about news right now must be the launch of the GTR R35 and BRIDEX 2009.

Although I have no interest in “super car” such as the GTR, it did piqued my interest when told - if my information was correct - that all the units from the first shipment was sold out despite the whopping price of $17xK!

As for BRIDEX (Brunei Darussalam International Defence Exhibition) 2009, the one thing that is of interest to car fans is the news that BMW cars used during this event will be offered at supposedly 20% cheaper than their normal price. That’s BMW 320i for $55800 and BMW 523i for $76800 for cars used probably only for one week.

Considering that it is relatively cheaper to service BMW cars (*after 20,000km for $200-$300) as compare to say, Toyota (**after 5000km for $200), this does sounds like a good deal. Besides,  original spare parts prices for these two brands are supposedly comparable with each other - as despite being considered a posh brand, BMW parts are of course nowhere as outrageous as say, Ferrari parts.

So that’s a summary of what’s hot in the local car scene these days.

* & ** Applicable for Brunei only. Not official information and believe it at your own cost

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I was ready to spend another ordinary weekend at home with the kids and husband when he suddenly tempted us with a “Shall we go up to Empire (Hotel) to watch fireworks?”.

My easy to entertain kids immediately yelled “Yes!”.

So a few Saturday afternoon ago, we drove up to Jerudong where we decided to have dinner at our favorite Thai Restaurant for their Green curry, my ultimate Thai dish, even though I was suffering from sore throat then - and the curry sure helped to make it worse!

But instead of watching the fireworks at Empire like everyone else, we ended up at Jerudong Park where we realized that the Festival of Lights were still on (last day actually).

Since I know that the kids will enjoy this more, this was where we ended up spending the evening at.

I had a vague knowledge of this event from Princess Nashwa’s visit two months ago but we never really thought of visiting it, until we found ourselves at the Park - much to Eu’s disappointment because to her park = playground.

She was just about ready to jump across the fence that surrounded the Alien & Fantasy themed displays to ride on them!

As with the theme, there were all sorts of display which were creatively done (although they were supposedly inferior to last year’s display which we missed).

From (Mouse) Cinderella and her coach (and I had a hard time answering to “Why was Cinderella and the Prince a mouse?” - they should have just made them in human figure).

To Transformers the robots and other displays which were quite cute actually.

We stayed on for the musical fountain show after that and it was fine although some of the songs were pretty boring.

For some reasons, Eu soon became distracted as she suddenly became hungry again (perhaps from walking around the park) and insisted that I go back to the car to get some biscuits.

On the way back, we got the kids to ask for some free balloons from a bunch of bored looking and lazy clowns. You would have thought that since giving out balloons were their only duty then, they could have done it with a little bit more enthusiasm and initiatives. Typical.

But still, Eu and Qi enjoyed themselves and tired themselves out enough to sleep on the drive home.

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It’s 4 more days before the voting for Simpur’s Best Bruneian Blog is over.

I thought I’d give those of you who are not in Brunei some info on what this is all about and share what I think about each of them.

One of the first Brunei blog I know was AnakBrunei (Best Photoblog), owned by arguably the most famous big guy in Brunei. I enjoy his people shots and it’s fun to try and spot familiar faces. Although we move in very different society, there have been some faces captured by him which I recognized - which means either one; Brunei population is really that small or he have really photographed that many people!

RanoAdidas (WildCard Blog) was the next finalist which I read since my early days of blogging. Whenever you feel like there is nothing happening in Brunei, you just head over to his place for the many public and private events and functions in the country - and the burning question for us at home for us is, does-he or does-he-not have assistants to cover all those events!

Kurapak (Best Local Content Blog) is the place where I’ve picked up a few Brunei Malay lingo - excellent place to polish or corrupt your Malay (depending on if you’re a beginner or a native speaker…) There are few pictures here but his posts are outrageously funny and original - they’re classic.

I came to know of the ArabFamilies (Best Specialty Blog) when he sponsored the first Belait district Blogger’s Meet in 2008 which I missed but from what I read, had the very intriguing session of dancing to gambus music! As his blogname indicates, he shares the many happenings in his very large and lively family.

Besides photography, yoga and scrapbooking - which I find are some of the common subjects blogged by Bruneians - fishing is also another popular activity and when it comes to a fishing blog, BruneiFishing (Best Lifestyle Blog) seems to be the most popular. I’m not a fishing fan but it’s a good place to see what kind of fish there are in our water.

Now the final blog which I want to share with you is the Spiritual Garden (Best Personal Blog).

I cannot remember when and how I found one of Brunei’s most creative and funniest teacher but I was hooked from the very first post that I read. She talks about relationship and do a lot of arts & craft and I have been inspired to try some yet it’s hard as I have none of her patience and creativity.

But it’s her ability to write very funny postings that I love about her. I like the way she sprinkles some Malay and Hokkien expressions and make her posts very very natural and hilarious.

So which is my personal choice for the Best Bruneian Blog?

I am a fan of many of these blogs and I frequent these on a daily basis. All of them are really worthy winners in their category and it is hard for me to pick ONLY ONE - the blog that has done a lot for the community or the blog that makes me laugh or the blog that taught me things?

Why don’t you (especially non-Bruneian) check out these popular Bruneian blogs and cast your votes too?

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