New Camera, you'll have to bear with me

I've managed to get a hold of a new DSLR camera here to photograph the local cretins but I'm still trying to work out all of its wierd and wonderful functions so if my images look a bit pixellated in small form just click on them and they should look a lot better all big a clear.

Belated Labeling and some more photos

Well the pictures I posted before from memory are of Tony and My expadition to Bandar Seri Begewan this past Saturday. We doodled off for Yum Cha (Dim Sum) at a dodgy little restaurant we found doing a fast paced business during Ramadan a few weeks ago and discovered it was just as good the second time around. The picture of Gadong Mall all lit up is one of the only 'big' malls in the country. Its absolutely tiny compared to the Middle Eastern ones but has a suprisingly small number of chain stores. The Menu is from a famous pizza restaurant and the water picture is of Kampong Ayer. A 30000 people village in the middle of Bandar. The boat you can see is a water taxi. (One of many that zoom around like Saudi drivers on crack). Oh and there's the Sultan's mosque with ornamental boat sculpture out the front. It was absolutely pouring down with rain on Saturday so we didn't get to sight see as much as we wanted.









Of the pictures I've loaded up today are Tony and his increadibly gay and fabulous hair dresser. One of our perverted toad hmmm one of Porch Cat, a hideously scary stray tom cat I'm trying to keep around our house because he terrifies the Monkeys (biological warfare!) hmmm what else. Oh and there's a photo of the beach down near the country club. Its fabulous but for the box jellyfish and the crocodiles so the crabs pretty much own it:)

We're thinking of doodling over to Miri this weekend and staying at the Marriot and spending Saturday and Sundar doing a serious trek or two through Lambir Hills national park which apparently well worth it. I'll update away if anything eventful happens.

Expidition to Bandar Seri Begewan

Well we went for a wander this past weekend to bandar to see what we could see. The pictures above are of Gadong Mall all dressed up for Eid, Tony scarfing yum cha and a few other piccies... I'll label them later but at the moment its Chicken Rice time and I'm hungry

Hari Raia in SIngapore

Well we've just had the most amazing weekend in Singapore. We were only there for three days but it feels like a lot longer and I'm feeling tremendously fat and slightly pate'd from all the food and booze we managed to consume.

We stayed with friends from Saudi Craig and Ayumi's place and they took us to a bevy of pretty outstanding restaurants. I'm afraid the 2 dollar satay here in Brunei might not live up to the standard! Unfortunately we didn't manage to take any photos being as permanently inebriated as we were... although I'm sure Ayumi got some and they're probably hideously scary.

We also managed to find out that you can drive through a tropical storm to an airport an hour away in the dark at a ridiculous speed not actually knowing where the airport is (hoping for a sign) and still find the airport with 45 minutes before the flight. I think Tony had a baby at that one. The roads in Brunei aren't that bad at all but when it wants to rain it really rains.

Otherwise we've received our shipment which arrived completely intact and I've finally gotten round to unpacking the last of things. I didn't think everything would fit but its looking pretty good I must say. I'm currently contemplating a venture to the local markets to pick up some fish but I don't have any wellies to wade through the melted ice.

Random Photos and a trip to Miri

We toodled over to Malaysia last weekend to have a look around. Miri, the closest town is another Shell Oil town and it was much more like an Asian city than those in Brunei which are a lot more organised and a lot quieter. Miri was a lot of fun. Tony got completely caught up purchasing every tacky souvenir he could find and we managed to have a dodgy market lunch where the resident grandma decided to laboriously chew her noodles at us for half an hour. Fabulous. We're off to a rock festival in the jungle near miri this weekend... should be good. Well here's a few photos of our resident 'friends'. The frog is our local pervert. He comes up to the sliding door and just looks in... not sure why but I think he gets turned on by Tony's hairy legs. The preying mantis is officially named McSticky and is our current mascot. She (I've decided its a she) hangs upside down looking through the aforementioned sliding door too. And the large cicada is the bane of my existence. They are about 7-10cm long, make a massive noise and set up just outside our bedroom window every other evening.

Frog Herding and jogging Ghurkas

Well we're still leaching the internet off the neighbours while we work out how to get to the main provider's offices during Ramadan hours. So communication is generally pot luck.

I've just spent the last few minutes eyeballing a pretty surly monkey that is sitting about 10 meters from our front door who looks pretty pissed off the garbage man collected our rubbish before he could get to it. There were three Durians in there that let off an almighty pong. Tony has discovered a love of the Durian that has seen him banished to the front porch and the benighted fruit hung up on the clothes line. He couldn't eat them all though (brought a bunch of them off a roadside vendor) and had to dispose of the wretched things before the monkeys and the wild boar got a bit too affectionate with my washing.

Its been a pretty eventful week. We've purchased a car - a spanking new Toyota Vios in a delightful shade of silver and have done some exploring of our nation's capital which revolved around chomping down on a whole lot of dim sum and getting fat and wandering around the only large mall in Bandar which had a delightful lack of chain stores.

One of the most bewildering things we've come across so far here is the 'ramadan lunch special' hmm. go figure. Because all the Chinese Bruneians don't fast all of the eating establishments seem to stay open all day and because there is nothing like people fasting to make you hungry I think I've put on a ton of weight the last week alone.

We're been exploring the local food markets and have discovered the joy of 1 dollar nasi goreng, fresh cane sugar juice and 2 dollar satay. Life is good:)

At the moment we get up every morning and happily munch down on breakfast while watching the guys from the 2000 strong Ghurka batalion in the housing next door do their morning run. These guys seriously have legs like ham-hocks... I wouldn't mess with them for fear they'd get you in a thigh grip and squeeze the life out of you.

Every night a large group of frogs converges on our driveway and refuses to move unless you physically get out of the car and herd them out of the way. I have no idea what they do out there other than just stare at each other maybe they are telepathic and we've just not noticed.

Well so far Ramadan here has been an absolute breeze... everyone's in a pretty good mood, the driving's not got too much of a psychotic edge to it and the rain washes everything clean every night...

Tony's so relaxed I'm worried I'll wake up one morning to find that he's just become a blobby puddle on the floor. I'm still missing Bahrain and Saudi (believe it or not) but am starting to relax quite nicely... you can't not with the lifestyle here.

Thats MY Chicken!

So I've just had a run in with the local wild life. Put out the bin and the little buggers worked out how to get the lid off (screw top) and take off with the remains of last nights roasted bird. I spent the last ten minutes chasing a hoard of the little buggers back to the Jungle and picking up half chewed aluminium foil... and then chasing them off again when they decided to make another attempt... It appears that they favour roasted garlic leftovers...

The Indian lady down the street spent quite some time looking at me with a bemused expression...I should have thrown a monkey at her

I think the neighbours have yet to click I'm leaching their net this morning... this could be a good day.