When she travelled.

Day #1

So today, officially my first day here in Sarawak, Mama Grace and Uncle Cyril took me to guess where? :D Brunei! How cool eh, on my holiday to one place I get to go to another too! So Mama Grace, Uncle Cyril, Elo, Joy, Eleanor and me went to Brunei. The boys stayed at home. So we drove to Brunei.

 The backseat passengers

On the way there we stopped to change money and buy some crunchy thing called Crepe. This is what Brunei money looks like. 

$$$

Anyway, on our way to Brunei we saw like a whole gang of bikers. They were going to Brunei as well. It was so cool. They like drive in a convoy kind of thing and the head is at the front and another at the back to control their traffic. They even had like one or two police among them. And their bikes, OMG  Suzukis, Ducatis and all. Damn nice. We kept passing by them and us girls got excited and elo and I started waving at them and taking pictures. Then when we reached Brunei immigration we got down and took pictures with them and the bikes.

Biker guy =]

 

 Bikes =]

 

So so soooo sexy ;]

 

 Heheh. Cun ah? Do I look like some gangster-biker chick here? No? okay never mind la.

Anyway in Brunei I swear its beautiful here. Nicer than Singapore weyh. Its sooo clean. And the thing I love about it, like Miri is that the roads are clear. Not a lot of cars on the road. We passed by some towns and all and we saw these things that pump oil from the ground which are called “donkeys”. They’re all owned by Shell.

 

 Meet Donkey =]

And we went to the capital of Brunei, Bandar Seri Bergawan (I think) and we saw the mosque which the dome is made of gold, like really gold. It was beautiful.  

The Mosque with the gold top.

 

Today I found out that Brunei is actually really nice and peaceful. There’s like no politics here! There’s only one king and unlike in Malaysia, he ACTUALLY rules the country. And his army is all of like Nepalese or Gurkha people who are apparently extremely loyal to the Brunei king. The king here actually owns the country, well, except for the land which Shell owns.

Also, Brunei is really RICH. Mostly because of all the oil there is here. Uncle Cyril said that by owning just one of the ‘donkeys’, you can be a millionaire. And dudes, seriously the government provides the poor people here with homes right, and I swear the “poor” people here live like the average people in Malaysia. Like as in the poor people here actually have like two or three cars in each house. In Malaysia, I don’t think poor people even have cars!

I think I’m going to come to Brunei, meet some guy working at shell, and marry him la. Cos he’ll be like frikkin’ rich. Heheh. So far I’m loving my time here. Brunei is lovely. It’s so green and scenic. So unlike KL. I love it here.

I HAD to put a pic of me camwhoring here =]

Day #2

Today, we were awakened by Uncle Cyril’s sisters who came over. So I met Aunty M and Aunty Zita, they’re really nice =] Uncle Cyril’s family, he has like frikkin NINE siblings! Crazy man, so many!!

Annnyway. After lunch, Mama Grace, Uncle Cyril, Eleanor, Elo and I went to the hilltop. We went to the Grand Old Lady. There’s a Petroleum Museum there. It was so cute. And the view from the top of that hill was sooooo just like “OHHHH!” It was beautiful. So we went in the museum and played and well, I guess we didn’t really learn much. Eheh. The most fun museum I’ve been to lah, well, except for the planetarium in KL. 

 

 

 =]

 

 Me, in a museum?

Priceless. =p

 

 Me, driving? HAHA

 

We'd be happy during an earthquake la.

We are retarded like that =]

 

 Morse Code

 

 =]

 

My new man ;] He's waiting for me back in Miri. lol

Oh and outside the museum there’s this informational things engraved in cement right and another one of those “donkeys”. And we were all camwhoring. And we came to this thing engraved thing with like old men’s faces on it. And I suddenly went “kay this is elo’s grandfather, that’s my grandfather, and that’s carmeni’s grandfather. And elo just stared at me. And we were both quiet for like five seconds and then we both just slid our phone cameras and were like “facebook tag”. Lol. It was such a moment la, you had to be there. 

;] our forefathers la.

Anyway, after that we went back down and picked up Joy, Clyde and Brandon and we went to the beach. It was gorgeous. We spent most of the time just taking pictures and talking randomly. We took so many gorgeous pictures. And we were waiting for the sunset but then the clouds started blocking it so it wasn’t like a real sunset. But the clouds were soooo gorgeous. It was like pink, blue, grey, yellow and orange at the same time. I swear I have never seen the sky look so beautiful. 

 *sigh. rindu.

 

 Love this =]

 

 

 Fav shot EVER =]

 

 

Crabstand =]

 

 

 How can you NOT fall in love with this?

I know I did.

 

 

That view, was almost enough for me to want to never leave Miri. Almost. Don’t worry, I’m still coming home =] in fact by the time I actually post this, I will be back home =]

I like being here in Miri, with Elo’s super large family. It’s nice =] And the way talk is like catching on. I learnt three words. ‘Paloi’, ‘Uchak’ and ‘Buduh’. I like how when they talk they all say ‘ba’. It’s catching on to me. I keep saying ba instead of la. And when I start to stop myself from saying ‘ba’ to say ‘la’ it comes out ‘bla’. Hhehe. =] Anyway, tomorrow they’re taking me to the long houses and on Sunday elo is organizing a ‘bonfire’ on the beach with her friends. Should be interesting =] mwaaahhhh!

Day #3

So today, Mama Grace, Uncle Cyril, Elo and I went to the long houses. We didn’t go to like the really wooden ones, we went to the ones that have already been cemented. There were 18 homes, as in 18 families in that particular long house. The one we went to was called Rumah Panjang Ampik. We went there and sat and talked with the chief and this old lady in a sarong served us coffee. 

 

 

 

  

As usual, Elo and I took loads of pictures and we wanted to see how long it would take to reach from one end to another so we walked from one end to the other and times ourselves. It took two minutes. That might seem short but hello, it’s wayyyy longer than the five seconds it takes to walk from one end to the other of my apartment kayy. 

 

Anyway, after the rumah panjang, they took me to some hill and a cemetary where we onlu took pictures like these =]

 

 

Then, we went shopping. I bought tons and tons of stuff for the family and friends, and some for me too. We went to all sorts of handicraft places and all. And I’m saying this now to my friends, don’t expect much from me from Sarawak kayyy. It’s so hard shopping for other people, that’s why I only shop for meeee =]

Anyway, after that we went to Elo’s uncle’s house for a family gathering. One of her cousins underwent sunat that day, so there were having a family lunch. I met more of her cousins and uncles and aunts. There’s so many of them!

Oh and I got to try traditional Melanau food too =] The other day I tried mee kolok which is kinda like wanton mee but without the kicap and all. And yesterday at the family gathering we had linut which is like starch? I don’t know. It’s like this powder which you mix with cold water and then pour boiling hot water on it and mix it vigorously and it becomes this glue kind of thing. And we at that with this sambal thing. It was actually good =] And there was also something called umai which is raw fish with lime. It’s really nice =] 

How to make Linut

 

How we ate linut =]

 

Raw fish with lime. yummmm.

Anyways, it was a good day =]

Day #4

Today, for the first time in almost three years, I went to a catholic church for normal Sunday mass. Surprisingly, the mass here is nicer than the ones in KL. The church elo took me to was really nice too.

Anyway, after mass we came home and bummed around til 4pm then we left for our ‘bonfire’. Funny story, it rained. So we couln’t bonfire. And also cos the place we went to, some boat club, had no place to bonfire. 

 

 Boat Club

 

Hoodie.

 Silhouette.

 

Shaun Adrian.

 The two =]

 

 Kat and Diana =]

 

 Andrew, Shaun, Alvin and ummm. J? K? :P ELO's mistake. LOL

 

Almost enough to make me not want to leave. Almost

It was interesting really. It wasn’t boring, but it wasn’t min-blowingly exciting. But I got to meet some of elo’s friends which was nice. Everyone in Sarawak is actually really nice. Not like bloody rude kl people =p

When we got home from out ‘bonfire’, the family started karaoke-ing at home. Lol. With my cough and all, singing and screming to some songs made me lost my voice and yeah, it didn’t make things any better. Lol. But it was fun =]

Day #5

So today is my last day here. I just woke up and everyone is getting ready to go out. We’re going to do a bit more shopping and then we’ll come home and pack and I’ll leave.

I don’t really want to leave. The beach here has just captured my heart. And I love spending time with elo’s family. They’re quite fun. Plus, I’m not exactly looking forward to going back to all that Christmas madness and mum’s birthday party madness.

**

They took me to do a little more shopping today, and then we went to Marina bay where Elo and Eleanor made me close my eyes til we walked to the most beautiful areas there, and that was scary okayyyy. Cos we were walking on this like bridge thing and with WATER around us, I kinda got scared la. But it was totally worth it, the VIEW was just AH-MAY-ZING. More reasons why i didn't want to leave.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we went home and I packed. Uncle Cyril gave me a gift form the whole family which was very sweet. I was truly touched =] And we loaded the car and left for the Taman Awam where we spent about half an hour walking on bridges and watching skater boys ;)

 

 Meet Claire =]

 

 

 

 

 

 He was a skater boi ;]

 

 

Then we left and went to the airport. I checked in and almost lost my head when i thought that I forgot about my passport which i had given to Mama Grace to keep, but she remembered to bring it so yeah. Then it was time to board and I said my goodbyes, then when Elo hugged me the last i started crying, not cos i wouldnt be seeing her for only a month or anything, but because I knew I'd miss everything about the Dan family and Miri.

 Thank you for the present =]

 

The siblings and me =]

 With the girls

 

 Uncle Cyril and Mama Grace =]

 

The whole family =]

I'll miss you til January.

*The End*

Right now as I post this, I'm back in KL, and indeed, I still miss everything about Miri, the beach, the NO TRAFFIC JAMS, the people, the sun.. everything bout it.