kingdom of unexpected treasures

golden week travelogue part 2 ~ bandar seri begawan


whenever i told people that i'm going to brunei, they would look at me in suprise and asked, what's there in brunei?

exactly. that was why we planned this 'short diversion', to see what brunei is all about. i mean, do they drink oil after food? haha ok that was a bit too much.


our first stop in bandar seri begawan, the capital, was the royal regalia, a museum where they stored all the items which are deemed sacred and symbolic of the supremacy and authority of His Majesty.

for me, it was just a place full of stuff that commoners like me would never ever get to have in my whole entire life.

next, we made a stop at jame' asr hassanil bolkia, a gloriously golden domed mosque in town. for whatever reason, we were not allowed to take photos anywhere in the mosque area, but we took some anyway. i mean, it's not that taking photos are blasphemous or anything, we were just spreading the greatness of the house of god to other people.

by the way, it was a totally grand and exquisite mosque.

even more grand? the empire hotel and country club. man, this is what seemed like unlimited supply of oil could make. i heard this place was originally built for the royal's holiday escapade but in the end turned into a 6-star hotel.

despite such a big compound, there wasn't much crowd. it was as if the whole thing was made for display. probably the rich is allergic to sun, or maybe only royals could afford to stay in this place. i don't know.

we had fun exploring the entire place though, as if it was ours.

these pretty much summed up my feelings at that moment. gosh i wish i could do this every day.

the next day, we explored the famous kampong air. if you ask me, it's ironic that brunei is so well known of its water village when the common conception of brunei is their rich citizens.

we took a boat ride for 20 brunei dollars per person in that flaming hot afternoon. no wonder the boatman was only showing face while covered all over. worse, halfway our tour, the boat engine suddenly died in the middle of the river, and i felt very much like a piece of medium done steak under the heat.

i was not very impressed. i mean, i have seen this water village elsewhere in the world (venice, anyone?).

so at the end of the 2nd day, i still struggled to answer what was brunei all about. i feel it was just a place to parade oil wealth. all the rest has been sub par. the people was unfriendly. i encountered bad customer service at department store, even as early as at the airport.

in short, take the oil wealth away and you'd get dysfunctional community. maybe then, we would find the real unexpected treasures.



...ed

to the land below the wind

golden week travelogue part 1 ~ kota kinabalu


being a malaysian, i've been to each states in the peninsular. somehow sabah and sarawak in borneo island escaped my radar, until this month. well actually we planned to go sipadan island but apparently the resort was fully booked, so we decided to go kota kinabalu instead.

we flew from singapore by silk air. now when i think about it, SGD350 fares sounds a bit expensive. oh well at least it was a full frill airline, which should not make me feel like a 2nd class citizen.

my first view of kota kinabalu

we touched down kota kinabalu international airport at almost noon. the airport was under upgrading but everything was straightforward and went on smoothly. i guess partly because there wasn't much crowd to begin with. i might be selfish but i would like the oxygen within 2 meters around me to only belong to me this week, so i must say so far so good.

the weather outside was wonderfully sunny with couple of clouds hanging in the otherwise clear blue sky of kota kinabalu. we bought the fixed rate RM20 town taxi coupons outside the terminal and off heading to king's park hotel.

by the time we were having our first glance outside the taxi window, i already forgot about silk air external power trip before we took off. i mean, really. that seemed like a world away now...

i prebooked this hotel from the net for RM128 per night for double occupancy. it's at the hill edge side of the town. still it's actually just a few blocks away from the sea front.

after checking in, we set our foot out of the hotel main door, took a deep breath and thought, kk town, here we come!

180 degrees view from Signal Hill

we could see people enjoying lazy afternoon fishing at the waterfront. while walking around the city, we also noticed this toilet direction signboard complete with the exact distance. i just thought it was unique.



this is the kota kinabalu state mosque. it's pretty out of town we had to take a short mini bus trip to get here.

from afar, the mosque looked nice. but a closer look revealed that proper maintanence had not been done. the building looked so worn-out, and to a certain extent, it looked abandoned.

late afternoon, we took a mini bus to tanjung aru beach. it's a very nice place just to chill-out. the restaurant by the beach was not very expensive too. we were hoping to see nice colourful sunset but there were too many clouds so it wasn't anything spectacular.

my only complaint, it was difficult to get out of this place. there were no public transport in sight at the entrance so we had to walk quite far outside to find the bus station.

kota belud

the next day, we took a cab to kota belud. it was sunday, and they have this tamu (open market) every sunday morning. kota belud is the main city of the bajau tribe, about 45 minutes drive away from kota kinabalu. the taxi driver charged RM15 per person for 4 passengers for a one way trip.

the tamu was just like the morning market in the peninsular, minus the backdrop of the majestic mount kinabalu of course. i was hoping to catch the bajau tribes donning their traditional costume riding their horses around, but either they were not there today, or they already left when we arrived. one thing that amused me though was that there were a lot of tabacco powder tradings, definitely not common elsewhere in malaysia.

we returned to kota kinabalu shortly after noon. after kota belud tamu, we decided to continue exploring the cultural side of the locals today, so we headed to sabah heritage museum.

frankly, i'm never a big fan of the museums. i always think it's just a short cut way of learning about whatever on display. plus, normally there are lots of facts cramped together which make you feel like living a school textbook.

the good thing about sabah heritage museum though, was that there were local people inside the various local house models. we even got to chat to some of them, and almost being offered their local home made liquor. we got to see some human skulls hanged on the roof too, although i did not know whether that was the real on or not.

we got back in time to catch the sunset from the waterfront.

at night, we went to sutera harbour magellan resort grand ballroom for sabah fest 2008. actually we only found out about this annual event from local newspaper that morning. it was a 2 day event, and tonight was the final closing night.







we paid RM30 for entrance, which was pretty worth it considering the colourful performances at such a grand ballroom. plus, at the end of ceremony, we got to join the dancers on stage to strut our stuff out in kadazan-dusun's way.

one of many thing's sabahan has to offer. but for tomorrow till the day after, we'd see what brunei has got to offer.



...ed

C-R-U-I-S-E control

it's Labour Day today, so i'm off work. whilst celebrating economic and social achievements of the workers, whom should include myself, i'm glad i could wake up late too this morning after staying up past 2 last night.

i was at robinson's sale till late yesterday. i got a couple of vouchers, so i thought i'd check the sale out even though my friend already warned me about the crowd. man was she right. i took 30 minutes in the queue just to get to the cashier.

i bought myself a bedsheet, quilt and cover from balmain paris which had 30% off, plus another 20% off group discount since i am a robinson member (it was a long story). still, it ended up a good $200++ just for some bedsheets.

which was a bit pain in the ass, if you asked me. well, i've never had quilt on my bed before. after all i'm gonna sleep on it everynight, although now i'm not too sure about the brown ensemble that i chose for my blue bedroom.

sometimes i think i'm just prone to making bad instantaneous decisions, just like this. really. like when i chose to go home instead of staying outside hanging out and score in early part of the night just because i felt i was slightly out of my comfort zone.

i mean, what was that about?

you know, sometimes i wish we could abandon all those social integrities and all craps like that and just follow our inner instinct. like when we have to make decicion, we should just do what we want. full stop. you know, rather than thinking about the consequences it could incur in that split seconds.

not only instantaneous decisions, i made bad life judgements too. like how i ended up doing engineering in the first place when my interests were clearly in biology and chemistry fields. worse, deeper i went into this wrong till now i ended up doing semiconductor engineering.

being in this industry made me feel as if i'm on a sunken ship. or at least the ship that sail into eternity with zero assurance we would ever see dry land. every now and then, people took chances and jumped off the ship, leaving me looking at them enviously.

seriously, i really need to get out of this career mess. serious with a capital s. i've updated my online resume and actively buying saturday newspaper, although i still don't have any idea what else i could contribute in this work circle.

8 years into this business, and i still have the feeling that i was just fibbing my way through the promotion ladder. i mean, i'm not even technically savvy and all that. i seriously doubt i have any talent whatsoever to easily land me my second career.

gosh this is depressing. when i look at it, everything around me is a failure too. the house loan i'm taking right now sky-rocketed in the 3rd year to 5.25% interest when the average outside interest is about 3.5%. i mean, how on earth could this have happened?

ok ok don't panic. let's just put things into perspective.

first, i need to select a good plan for that house loan refinance. UOB quoted 2.8% per annum fixed 3 years interest, and OCBC already counter-offered 2.75%. I think I'm gonna take OCBC, so I better start preparing all the documents.

ok check.

about work, well i just have to keep browsing, don't i? probably look at the possibility of embracing a bit of paycut too to venture into another industry. the other day, my friend mentioned about doing logistic. hmmm.. i don't have any idea what that is but it sounds cool. maybe i should check out DHL.

foot note. check out DHL.

for my bed linen ensemble, i guess i have to be colour blind for awhile until i come across another sale rip-off. brown just look totally out of place at the moment. it's not even the same brown shade as my cupboards and floors. or maybe i just have to get used to it.

foot note. wait a few more days and decide.

what else. oh and i must remember to be bolder in every possible situations. everytime when people ask, always say yes no matter what it is. how hard can it be? i could introduce myself and offer to strip in the same sentence. no big deal.

best chance to do that, is during my vacation starting this saturday. i'm so excited. i'm going to sabah to climb mount kinabalu as well as island hopping, plus a night stay in brunei.

where i could forget about work, my home loan, and where hopefully the bed is not brown.



...ed