Miri Holiday 2012

With airfares sky high for these holidays we decided to drive to Miri (Malaysia) which is over the border and stay at the Marriott which takes approx 2.5 hours from our house. It was a great holiday where we just relaxed mainly by the pool. The kids loved it as there was plenty of kids they knew from school. First day we went to Bintang Mall, all the Brunains go there but I really don't see why as there is nothing there. We then meet up with friends and relaxed around the pool. We went to Ming's Cafe, a great place to eat and drink and the staff are really friendly to the kids.
Second day we just stayed around the pool with Rob and his family which was good to chill out. I did manage to beat Rob in tennis in about 32 degree heat. We found a great restaurant for tea down the road the prawns were beautiful about 14 large ones for 18Ringit which equates to about $7 NZ or Brunei dollars.
On Wednesday we went to Lambir Waterfall a beautiful spot in the National Park in Miri. We went swimming in the waterfall area after about a 25minute walk in. At first the water was very cold but after a few minutes it was beautiful. We caught up with Rob, Julia, Hannah and Ella there. There is a long rope with a sign of "Do not swim past here" of course we did as we had to reach the waterfall. Not sure how deep it was but I would imagine it was extremely deep. A great day followed up with a great dinner at the restaurant we went to the previous night. Again I had seafood a whole fish for about $11 dollars. It is the first place we have found that has descent burgers as Jordy had one, it had egg, pattie, cheese, coleslaw normally you get a crappy bun with just a pattie in it.
Thursday we were mainly around the pool and Liam was a bit tired like the rest of us. It was a great relaxing day. On Friday we met up with Grainne and her daughter Izzy who is in Jordan's class. They got teased a bit about boyfriend and girlfriend stuff which they aren't but they still got teased. She's a nice girl and her mum likes to drink so she gets our approval. Liam didn't want to go out for tea so Amanda stayed with him while Jordan and I went to tea (we ended up eating with Izzy and her mother)
Saturday we went to the market not a heck of a lot there but we had a great breakfast. Back to the pool, Jordan and Liam ordered their milkshakes from the swim up pool bar then we organised with Izzy and Grainne to meet up at Ming's Cafe to watch the All Blacks play Ireland in Christchurch (Grainne is Irish). A fantastic day and night where many jugs were emptied. It was a great night!! We have no idea how much we drunk as no one could be bothered focusing on the bill.
We only booked for 3 nights but stayed 5. Kids loved the pool and the holiday.

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My School

My school is called Sultan Sharif Ali and it is a very interesting school. I am the form teacher of a fantastic (loose term) class. There is at the time of this photo 19 boys and 12 girls. Many of them could have some great learning opportunities but they still need to develop their learning skills which they lack big time. It is a system dominated by summative assessment and not formative assessment which does not help the students at all. But with the gradual increase of formative assessment the ideal balance seems to be getting closer. I got use to the heat in the classrooms pretty quickly as there is only fans and no air conditioning. The Principal is a top guy, he is working hard to ensure the students get a positive and well balanced education. One of his mottos is that "His door is always open" and it is very true which is great for the school environment. I work with 4 other CFBT teaachers and the rest are local teachers.

See how they don't like working in groups. I do try!

Segregation, boys - girls

Must be hot for the girls in their baju's and tutongs

The walls are dirty, we are not allowed to stick things on them but I have begun too!

Looks just like Christchurch Mens Prison in the background (East Wing)

They're pretty good kids!

Touch - Wahine Toa

Just when I thought I was getting used to the heat, I decided to play in another touch tournament.  The team chose not to tell me it was all day.  This meant 8 hours in the heat.  We played 9 games, they were 15 minutes long however they felt much longer and I helped ref 4 games (the standard is not that high over here)  We came second to another expat team from KB  (about 1.5 hours from here).  During our top of the table game with this team and 1 minute into the game the referee blew his whistle (and  received  much abuse from both teams) it was of course, prayer time.  This meant the game had to stop for 5 minutes while prayers were conducted.  Only in Brunei would this happen, why I asked, could we not have started the game after prayer time, they were already running over 1 hour late (time keeping is not the big over here) but that apparently would have been too obvious.   I can tell you by the last game not even the mind was willing let alone the body.  It was however a great day out and a great bunch of expat Kiwis girls (I say that lightly) that I play with (note I'm the only white Wahine in the team).  Looking forward to our next tournament and being able to walk freely again!!

Half time - water needed (was the quickest I moved all day)

The poor ref stood no chance with 6 Kiwi chicks given him advice on every decision!!

We had already scored and on our way back to half way, not sure what she was doing!!

Park Visit

We decided to go early one morning to the local park, unfortunately we didn't go early enough as after only about 10 minutes of cricket and touch rugby the heat was unbeared.  Next time we will have to go at 6.30am.  The boys had a great time though and loved our local restaurant breakfast on the way home. Going out for breakfast is a favourite pastime of locals in Brunei and is very cheap $15 for all four of us including drinks. Eating out local food is very cheap, expat food is quite expensive.  As there is not much entertainment in Brunei eating out is very popular with the locals.  Below  photos of the park, (which we were the only people at) and once again magnificant features but have not been looked after.

The boys had a great time ripsticking down this marble path

Exercise equipment (rearly used)

199 - Yeah right!!  Too hot