Welcome Dam Family!

Erika left on Friday. Dam Family arrived on Friday:



Yes, crazy busy here at the moment! :)
They spent a few days at the Empire Hotel and today they moved up to us. The kids made friends in about 0,5 seconds when they met and have been playing in the pool yesterday and inside and outside at home here all day long.
It's nice to hear about how their expat life in HongKong is, compared to here, and the next few days we will be showing them the best Brunei can offer.

I so enjoy having guests!

Happy Valentines Day

Thanks to school mostly, the kids know everything about Valentines Day. They have been spending this week making hearts for each other in class, and on Friday the kids came home with some lovely gifts for us. Both of them had made pretty Valentines Day's cards. Here is Lucas' card:



And the inside, saying "Dear Mum and Dad, Happy Valentines Day, love Lucas xxxooo". Very cute!



Here is Linnea's card, saying "Happy Valentines Day. This one is for my daddy, mummy, mummy's friend & Lucas. I love you... Because I want to."



They had also made some heart shaped cookies, and since I wasn't there on the Friday they woke me with mine, served on a plate, very solemnly on Saturday morning. Cutie pies!

From Nathan, I got a lovely heart charm for my Pandora:



Thank you sweetie - and Happy Valentine!

Bye Erika!

After almost two weeks, we said goodbye to Erika on Friday. Finally the rain stopped and she got a few good days with sun and heat at the end of her stay.



On Friday we went together to Singapore for the day, as her connecting flight to Europe wasn't until in the evening. We spent the whole day cruising down Orchard Road, shopping, browsing, lunching, enjoying the hustle of the big city. It was great!
And yes - I did convince her to got to the 'mothership' (IKEA) with me even though she wasn't really keen; she did see how important it was to me (good friend!). We finished off with a (not so yummy unfortunately) semla in the restaurant, before going back out to the airport.



Thanks for coming my lovely friend! I'm so glad you have seen a bit of my life, and enjoyed it!

{365:44} Heavy load

Heavy load.
This is how we crammed our arms were with bags, after a whole day shopping in Singapore. Felt great!

{365:43} Casual clothes day

Casual clothes day.
"Casual clothes" means different things to different people.

Girlfriend pampering session

This morning I took Erika to the Zen spa, for some serious pampering. We had booked in for an hour of back/neck/shoulder massage, which was fab - and then when we were sitting there relaxing after it was done, having our green tea, we thought "Why not go for something else while we are here?". Since none of us had ever tried reflexology, we gave that a go!



Well, it was an hour of really good, deep foot massage, basically. I almost fell asleep a few times, until the girl pushed her knuckles into the ball of my foot as hard as she could... Felt good afterwards though!

Then we had sushi for lunch, and as usual it was delicious. What a lovely morning! I seriously should do this more often!

{365:42} Teamwork

Teamwork.
Today we did some quick baking with the kids. The simplest recipe of them all: chocolate balls. The kids got right into it and we had a proper little assembly line formed, everybody helped. We tasted a few just before bedtime, and brushing our teeth - and they have been promised a few more when they get back from school tomorrow...

{365:41} When you're smilin'

When you're smilin', the whole world smiles with you.
Doesn't it sure look like this croc is smiling? He wasn't big, but he was looking pretty happy with himself, like someone had just served his lunch up for him. We didn't stay long...

{365:40} Better than a spa treatment

Better than a spa treatment.
Today Erika and I went to Temburong. The weather has changed (halleluja!) and it was a beautiful and sunny day. We sailed in the long boat, climbed up to the canopy walk, did the canopy climb, had lunch on the riverbank, walked to the waterfall and Erika later 'tubed' downstream in a big rubber ring!
But here, on the photo, I am getting my feet done, by little fish. The pool at the waterfall is full of them, they nibble at your dead skin - just like the 'doctor fish' used at some flash spas around the world. It was a weird, but fun, feeling.

{365:39} Marked

Marked.
Today we saw the sun for the first time in what seems like weeks! We hurried down to the Empire for a swim and to soak it all up - and I did the ultimate tourist trick, forgot to put on sun lotion... I got slightly red, and even managed to get a mark after my (new, thank you Erika!) necklace. How silly.

Chinese New Year Hash

I brought Erika to the Hash on Tuesday, even though it was raining like never before, the downpour was crazy. But it was the Chinese New Year Hash, usually a good one - so I thought it would be nice.

We got told at the start only to go to first check and back because of the weather conditions. Only the front runners were allowed to go all the way around, but once we got to first check all I heard from Erika was "Please lets go all the way around, please, please, pretty-please!!"
We were already completely soaked through at this stage, so we certainly couldn't get any wetter! We picked up some speed to try and catch up with the front runners, and since they had been busy looking for a check we were able to tag on.

The on-on was held at one of the Chinese girl's house. They had put on a lavish dinner for us, and decorated very nicely. The hares were in traditional clothing and all the hens were dressed in red. We had the usual announcements and Erika got her down-down (as you do when you are a first time guest) - and, we tossed the noodles!
Yes, apparently something you do for good luck, good health, prosperity etc in the new year! We all stood around and tossed noodles in the air, lot's of fun!

Here are some snapshots:











Erika thought this was the best thing ever! She really enjoyed the run and she said she felt a bit like a child who was allowed to be out in the mud and play without any reservations!

Front page news

Linnea's teacher Ms Jo and Linnea's class mate is on the front page of today's newspaper.



Inside there is a short story, and a photo where all of us take part.
You can maybe spot me and Linnea in the top corner? (Very hard to see though.)





Apparently we were on the evening news yesterday too, but I didn't see it unfortunately. Hopefully someone recorded it!

{365:37} Water issues

Water issues.
We are without water supply at the moment. While there is sure enough water coming from above, there is none in our pipes as they are busy fixing a burst pipe along Jln Muara somewhere - since Wednesday... They have been with a big tank truck to fill up our tank outside, and also given us 5 gallons of water in blue drums - but, we are still coordinating our toilet visits and have showers very sparingly...

{365:36} Feast

Feast.
That's what we had today. Erika was kind enough to bring the 'goods' from Sweden to make semlor (=typical Swedish pastry originally eaten on Shrove Tuesday, as the last festive food before Lent); the kardemumma bullar (=cardamom buns) and mandelmassa (=almond paste). So we made some (strange looking) semlor and invited my fellow Swedes. They may have looked funny, but they tasted fantastic... mmm!

Some schooltrip!

This morning Linnea had her first school trip. Since they have been talking about travel, mostly air travel, the last few weeks, the trip went to the Sultan's Hangars.

The school has done this trip several times before, but I guess it has it's perks to be school mate with one of the Princes, because we were actually allowed to visit not just the hangars, but the inside of the three Royal aircrafts too!

We had a couple of hours there, walked around the offices and surroundings, saw a short slide show and then we were escorted down to visit the airplanes and the two helicopters that had been brought over just for us.
Even though we were 6 teachers and 8 parent helpers (on less than 20 children) it was a bit like trying to manage a puddle of water - they are so small and so fast! They were everywhere!

We even got to board the 'big mama', the 747. It was very... golden!
There was an impressive amount of people escorting us, all upholding different functions. They were all very helpful and friendly and took good care of their little visitors. Most of the Lufthansa pilots were there as well, and we bumped into our friend Fredrik, which was extra nice of course!

After the tour, we were invited to have a bite to eat. They had prepared a lovely buffet table for us, and all the kids (and helpers!) dug in to yummy noodles, spring rolls, pasta and other delicacies.
Then it was time to get on the bus and drive back to school again after such a very special morning that we all will remember for a long time!

Severe weather

I feel really sorry for Erika. She is only here until next Friday (11 days in total), and the weather is really atrocious, day in and day out.
Last night there was a 'severe weather warning' issued and it got sent out via sms to everybody with a mobile phone.
The rain doesn't seem to stop more than 5 minutes at a time and the rest of the time it's raining so heavily, you f.e have to drive super slow, because you see nothing!

We did do the Hash on Tuesday anyway, in the pouring rain. You could only kind of get wet, and once you were soaked through, it wasn't that bad...

But so far she hasn't got any use out of her bikinis unfortunately, and I fear that she will probably not get to unpack them at all...

This is the worst weather situation ever, they say in the newspapers, today they are expecting flash floods again, and a tide over 2.5. Well, she won't experience these tropical weather conditions anywhere else at least!

{365:35} OTT

OTT.
Took Erika on a cultural tour this morning. We visited the Brunei Museum, the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque and the Regalia Building.
Same things my parents were interested in. Only today we realized that we were allowed to take photos, in the big hall of the Regalia Building! Yay!

{365:34} Making friends

Making friends.
It's taken a while, but now at least Linnea is really into the puppies and wants to play with them and cuddle them all the time. Lucas, still not so much... but it will come.

{365:33} Pretty

Pretty.
My friend Erika is getting beautified. Her first day here, and we already have done our nails and have had her eyebrows groomed. Tomorrow it's time for massage!

{365:32} Australian Open

Australian Open.
This afternoon has been all about the tennis in Australia. We were a small group of people who had pizza and watched the game together, on a big screen of course.