At Open House for CNY

In between the morning's CrossFit session down at the waterfront in the capital, and the afternoon's Family Hash (for the 50 years) through the jungle; the kids and I managed to squeeze in a visit to an Open House for Chinese New Year.

It was really nice to be able to take part, as we have missed all the other Open Houses we've been invited to this year unfortunately, for different reasons.
This invite came from one of Lucas' class mates and her family. Here are the kids outside their house, at their 'shrine':



A Chinese New Year Open House works a bit like a Hari Raya gathering - you come, you eat, you go! Usually there are so many guests not all can be accommodated at the same time, so you have to vacate your seat when you are done.
We were amongst the earliest visitors yesterday though, since we had a busy afternoon ahead, so there was no rush for us really to get out of the way. We had plenty of time for a chat, for the kids to play, and to enjoy the huge diversity of food that they served:





They live in a beautifully decorated house. I guess some of the decorations are typical for the Chinese New Year celebrations, but still, it's gorgeous.



Chinese New Year is usually a very red affair, red symbolizes luck, life and happiness. Gold is also often used, for wealth and prosperity. Many people decorate their houses with pineapples and oranges, real and fake. Fresh flowers are also important, they symbolize life.



The kids even had time to sit down and enjoy some shawarma, and some noodles with their friends:



Lucas and Tom:



When we left, the children got gifts - ang paos (the red envelopes with money) and oranges. Such a lovely gesture!

A morning with the CrossFit family

This morning Reebok CrossFit 673 (where I work out) did a special demo workout for the public in Bandar, down at the waterfront. Us members had been asked if we wanted to come along and help out, and afterward do a bit of a demo WOD - and of course we did!

It was a super fun morning together with the crew from the Box, and most of the regulars. We helped setting up the nine different stations, for the workout for the public. We all got assigned a role either at a station or as a team leader taking the different groups through the workout.
Me? Well, I was the photographer..! :)

Quite a big group of locals had turned up, and believe it or not, even though it was only 7.30 am on a Sunday morning, they were all eager to go and full of smiles!
They got started off with a quick warm-up, after that they walked around and got all the stations demoed, and then their workout started. One minute at each station; and one minute in between to rotate and regroup.
They all did really well, and most importantly, they seemed to have lots of fun!

When they were finished it was our turn to take on a quick demo WOD. I so enjoyed when Mike grabbed the microphone to call us up and said: -"Now it's the CrossFitters' turn, come on athletes!" Yeah! A-t-h-l-e-t-e-s! Ha ha!

We did a quick WOD made up of a 400m run, 3 rounds of 15 thrusters @ 35lbs (for the girls, 65lbs for the guys), 15 kettlebell swings at chosen weights (I did 12kg), 30 ledge jumps/step-ups and another 400m run.
Man, it was HOT!

After the WOD we got a bit of an extra workout helping out packing it all up again and carrying it out to the car.
I had so much fun, and what a fantastic backdrop we had with the Water Village and the Istana Nurul Iman! It was great spending a couple of fun hours with the CrossFit family!

As I took so many photos, I had to put them all together in a slide show.
Enjoy!

50 years of hashing in Brunei

This week has really been one of the biggest hash weeks Brunei has seen!
The BH3 Men's Hash is celebrating their 50th Anniversary, hence also 50 years since hashing began in Brunei. The Ladies Hash acknowledged this big anniversary at our run on Tuesday, and of course there was a big celebration on the normal BH3 Wednesday run as well.

The BH3 is the third oldest Hash in the world after Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Today there are around 15 Hash chapters in Brunei itself, and more than 500 Hash chapters throughout the world.

Yesterday, there was a special run put on for ALL hashers, followed by a big party at the Yacht Club, and we attended of course!
Unfortunately neither Anna nor myself could do the run, but we came for the shout-up afterward. We got some celebration t-shirts, and these cool armbands:

The three JMs of BH3, and the hares of the day getting their down-downs:

Quite a big crowd, hashers had come from near and far - from Tutong, Kuala Belait, Kota Kinabalu and even all the way from Philippines.

Here's the BH3 horn blower, quite a cool dude. Whereas we have bicycle horns on our hash, they actually have a proper horn on theirs! Sounds like a hunt is about to set off in the jungle!

All JMs from other hashes were invited up for a down-down as well. Anna and I were matching in this years hare t-shirts:

We all got to introduce ourselves:

I'm not sure why we always do these strange faces when we are getting down-downs?! We really must work on being a bit more photogenic the two of us! :)

The proceedings continued with the hashit. Not sure really why this guy got it, there was a lot of heckling and bantering going on so it was a bit hard to hear - but he sure took it like a champ!

At the end of the on-on, hashit came out again!! This time I think it was for a very bad taste joke...

After the on-on, the party continued at the Yacht Club. Nearly 200 hashers from a lot of different hash chapters had gathered for this memorable occasion.

The decorations were of a bunch of old hash t-shirts, suspended all around the Yacht Club. Very cool! The playlist while we were mingling about consisted of all the Nr 1 hits, all the way from February 1963 until today.

The evening started with the saying of the 'Hash Prayer', continued with some light entertainment and greetings from previous hash members (=Hashbeens) that couldn't make it. We had buffet dinner, a live band and even some fireworks! Nathan and I left after that, while the rest continued to party into the night...
A great Hash night!

Today the celebrations continue with a special Family Run this afternoon. We are all geared up and ready to go, but first we have a Chinese New Year Open House to attend! Busy weekend!

Our Valentines Day

Love love love... - of course you should love and celebrate love every day, but as I enjoy marking special days, I had looked forward to Valentines Day. This year I wanted to make a special effort!

I was dressed in red, of course!

While the kids were at school and Nathan at work, I had decorated our dinner table - with red streamers, hearts, balloons, confetti..! It looked really nice!

Lucas and Linnea got their own Valentines Day cards, with Moshi Monster collector cards in them.

We had our absolute favourite for dinner, sushi. Enjoyed by all!
We also had gorgeous cakes from Bakerlyn from dessert, but I totally forgot taking photos of them, I was too busy scoffing them down! :)




Mmm, Happy Valentines Day!

Even Mr Watson had made a special effort, look - a Pandora parcel for me!
Well done Sweetie, thank you!

CNY at JIS

The Junior School is celebrating the Chinese New Year today with a 'Colour Day'. The kids were asked to wear red or yellow, or traditional Chinese wear.
It took me a while to convince Linnea that this dress was ok, since it's Chinese. No, she wasn't all convinced because her teacher had said red or yellow, ha ha!
Once she got to school she was happy when she saw a lot of her little friends also in Chinese wear.

Didn't manage to snap a photo of Lucas before he ran off unfortunately. He was a bit more casual in just red shorts and a yellow polo shirt, but - red and yellow, so all good.

Groovy baby!!

2013 marks 50 years since the start of hashing in Brunei. The Men's Hash is celebrating their 50th Anniversary this week, and even though we are not far behind (the Ladies' Hash started in 1966) with our own golden jubilee, we thought it was definitely something worth celebrating even on our Hash.

Anna and I laid the run, and the theme had been decided to be "50 years ago". The tent was decorated accordingly and everyone was urged to dress as they would've back then - maybe groovy, maybe a bit psychedelic or maybe a bit flower-power. Many possibilities!



The hens were told to look for flowers in the jungle, to win a prize!





Anna and I had tried to find our inner flower child, but somehow neither one of us thought we succeeded very well... Ha ha, when I picked Anna up to go, she said she felt like Steven Tyler - and me, I felt a bit like Björn Borg, so there you go! :)

Everybody had made a great effort, there was peace and love all over!





We had a bit of a 60s music quiz going on...

... "Curry-Dave" had cooked some of his famous curries for us - and we had chocolate cake!

Us hares getting our down-down:

Clare told us some elephant jokes that apparently were popular in the 1960s! :D

It was a very good night, good food, good music, good company! What would I do without my Tuesday evenings in the jungle..!