Tour with John Price (Headteacher)

This was arranged by the head teacher and was small tour of some busy areas. We saw the Sultans' Palace and went to a beautiful mosque. For some reason we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the inside of the mosque but it was beautiful. Very peaceful.

We also went to the flower market which had some beautiful flowers and plants.They were so incredibly cheap. I think we will be going back again to buy loads for the apartment once we're settled in.


(my favourite)


(Chilli plants)





(We were really impressed with these until we noticed the guy had cut some branches from his lemon tree at home, stuck them in a pot and was trying to sell them!)


(The Sultan's Palace)

Tungku Beach

This was the most amazing gorgeous beach EVER!! We came here on the day we landed and it really helped make us feel slightly better and less homesick. The water was literally turquoise. We felt we were in heaven!

This is how we felt at the end of the day :-)

Are you all jealous yet?

Giant, Night Market and Gigantosaurus!!

They didn't fit in anywhere really........

Giant
Luckily where we are living, there is a huge hypermarket as they call it here called Giant (original name!). It is basically a warehouse that stocks pretty much everything- like one of the huge Tesco’s. It has some weird and wonderful things and there are lots of little stalls with some bargain items, a food court and a play area for children which is cute.

(This was tastier than it looks. The seem to add a fried egg to everything here for some reaosn......)

Night Market
During Ramadan the restaurants offer a lot of discounts on meals so it was perfect timing for us to try different types of food for really cheap prices. One of these places is called the Night Market. Basically its lots of stalls selling all kinds of food for really cheap prices. We had $10 (about £4.30) and we bought 3 main meals plus two desserts! And it was delicious! We were very impressed.

Gigantosaurus
See picture. Creation of Yusuf.

The First Day of Brunei

This one contains pictures of Brunei!

We arrived in Brunei on Friday 21^st august at 9am local time (2am UK time). It was a fairly smallish airport and the humidity really hits you. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be to be honest but it was 9am so it was the 'cool period' (!!!!) really but standing outside for more than 5 minutes was pretty impossible. The new schools head teacher, John Price welcomed us. We then went the place we were gonna be staying at which is called Rimba. The drive was amazing. It’s pretty much all motorway and dual carriageways- no little roads or streets.

We drove into our palm tree lined complex and I was just like WOW!!! It is a beautiful complex and our apartment just felt huge to us (its apparently one of the smallest apartments in Brunei!) it was all empty and white walls but it was more than big enough for us. It has three bedrooms, (ours has an en suite) and a bathroom plus balconies on every bedroom and the lounge and kitchen. It really is amazing. The kitchen is small but big enough for the three of us. The only down side is that the cooker is an electric one not gas but I’m sure I will get used to that. Here are some pics of the outside- the inside isn't all that impressive!

(the second floor balconey is our apartment)

We also hired a car for the first month as you literally cannot walk ANYWHERE. There are no corner shops- just nothing. Everything is a car journey away. The car we got has got to be the nicest car Zaheer has ever driven. AND its AUTOMATIC!!! Its like driving a go-kart everywhere. Its brilliant. Although the speed is in kmh so driving at 100kmh is NOT the same as driving at 100mph (though you can pretend your driving really fast...)

(the proud owner....)

Anyways that was the first half of the first day. There is just sooooooooooooo much to write about so you're just gonna have to wait..........(and yes the pictures do get better- i'm building it up...)

Take care xxxx

Finally!!

We just got the internet last night! yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!! Being without internet for the last 2 weeks in a very different country has been quite hellish! There has just been soooooooooooo much I have wanted to post about. So basically I will be posting everyday about everything that has happened so far here in Brunei so you can all catch up. (I really just wanna show off the pictures and make you all feel jealous! muhahahaha...........)

Anyways.............I will start with...

Departure
We departed from Manchester Airport on the 19th of August and landed in Heathrow airport where we spent a night and then flew on the 20th to Brunei. EVERYONE turned up. I would have put up pictures but there are people (cough tayyaba cough) looking extra special in some of them and I know they would really kill me so lets just say loads of people turned up. Very emotional goodbyes and all that.

(As you can see this was yusuf mid-way crying)

(All that crying- very tiring)

Our luggage checked in fine- 20.4kg which I was very impressed with! What I wasn’t impressed with was the fact they didn’t even weigh our hand luggage! I could have taken so much more stuff (like my Twilight books- damn you RBA!) after that everything was pretty much plain sailing. The aeroplane journey however was just a killer. It was sooooooooooooooooooooooooo long! The stopover in Dubai was a god send! Although we didn’t get to see much of Dubai- just their OTT airport which I wasn’t too impressed with really- slightly tacky but there you go! The food wasn't half bad either although this isn't that great a shot of it...........

I know this post doesn't contain any pictures of Brunei but patience- the next post will have loads. For now enjoy the weather wherever you are. We're just on the way to the beach.......

I am in BRUNEI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is absolutley gorgeous here but a litle overwhelming and emotional. Missing people a bit too much already! We currently have no internet connection at home so we are currently in a cafe with internet connection which has been a bit of a god send really! We are plaaning on getting the internet soon so i will post pics and write a lot more then! We have mobile numbers and address details so will be emailing them to people ASAP.

xxx