The 787 Dreamliner

I've said it before, traveling from Brunei to Singapore is such an easy trip to make. I went over again this weekend, and this time I was lucky enough to get to fly on RBA's new Boeing 787 - the Dreamliner for the first time. It was launched here in Brunei on the 12th of October, and only did it's inaugural flight on the 18th.

We were spoiled with lots of space on Friday morning, there was only 6 of us up the front. I took the opportunity to take some photos. Nice and roomy:

My seat for the morning, by the window:

The windows are bigger, and they don't have blinds. Instead you push that little button under it, and you can gradually control the tint of the window from transparent to dark:

 

Unfortunately there was another couple sitting just across the aisle from me, so I felt a bit silly (especially on such a short flight) starting to play too much with all the buttons! I would've wanted to check how the seat reclined, and how flat the bed went etc. Instead I just put my feet up and enjoyed a movie.

Ha ha, not sure I can send the kids to the toilet by themselves anymore though, they'll take forever having far too much fun with all the buttons in there..! :D

It was nice that when you opened the door to go into the toilet, the light was blue, until you locked the door from the inside. Makes for less disruption for the passengers sitting right outside the toilet I guess, they don't have to get the bright light in their eyes.

It really was a nice flight. I'm looking forward to getting on the Dreamliner again when it's time for another Europe trip.

Junior hares

Before the summer, Carol (my GM at the Hash) and I got roped into laying one of the Kids Hash runs this year, as representatives from the H3. It was the one scheduled for this weekend, and the last three weekends we've been out doing rekkies for it. It's pretty straight forward laying it, as you don't do any checks on the Kids Hash, but it's not just one run, it's usually three: a toddler run, a medium run and a long run.

We had to re-rekkie, as our initial plan had to change when what we had planned to be the medium run became far too long, and had to be the long one, and we had to come up with a different medium one. Also, the short one became super short as the rain had flooded a river crossing that is normally doable, but now was far to deep for the toddlers.
Ah well, in the end we had three runs, so we were happy!

This morning we went in to lay it. The kids and I were responsible for the toddler run, which we laid on orange paper that the kids had helped me cut up:

Off we all went in different directions, Anna and Carol's daughter did the medium run, and Carol and her husband laid the long run.

It was nice for the kids to see a bit of the work that actually goes into the Hash each time. Although they obviously haven't been there for the rekkies, still getting to walk on an empty trail and lay down the paper that people were going to follow later on, was pretty exciting.

They did a good job, laying lots of paper to make it easy for the toddlers to find their way around.

So later in the afternoon, it was time for people to actually run the hash! There was a huge turn-out today, so many new faces, really nice! The kids were excited to see people go off on their trail, and Lucas even went on the medium run with a friend; Linnea claimed she had done her exercise for the day...

We take the hash seriously here! The Brunei Kids Hash is the oldest kids hash in the world! Here 's one of the youngest hashers, in a very cute outfit, on-on!

At the shout-up it was time for us hares to get called up on the chairs to get our down-downs:

Yeah... Lucas' can wasn't empty when he decided to put it on his head... The things you only can get away with at the hash...

 

Happy Dance Day

So, after 7 1/2 weeks of summer holidays, today the kids went back to school. A day that has been highly anticipated by all I think, the kids have missed their friends and we've all been looking forward to seeing everybody again.
Lucas is starting Year 5 with Mrs Rickell and Linnea is starting Year 3 with Mrs Fowler-Watt.

Junior School has been split this term, into Pre Prep, which is Nursery to Year 2 and Prep, which is Years 3-6. So both the kids are now supposed to be in the "proper" uniform:

Although of course I had waited until last minute to try everything on, so Linnea's skirt is a bit long - even though this is the short version! Plus, I couldn't figure out this morning how to take the pleats out, ha ha, so we will have to sort that out this afternoon.

And, since my friend Kim wasn't there to do it, I did the traditional "back-to-school happy dance" all by myself in the parking lot, before I went home to have coffee in my peacefully quiet house!

Too many lasts

It's a weekend full of lasts, too many... boo. This morning Kim and I did Bukit together, which was going to be her last jungle stroll.
 

 

We walked really slowly, tried to take it all in - the noises, the views; and stopped to take a few photos here and there. 

After we were done we had a coconut, turns out it was Kim's first! She didn't seem to impressed though, ha ha!