A special Sunday morning

Today Nathan and I went to our first wedding here in Brunei!
Instead of trying to figure out what in my wardrobe would suit the Bruneian dress code, I decided to go all out "local" and had a baju kurung made last week. I must say it turned out rather nice!
(I will take it back to make it a bit more fitted though, but it was still ok for today.)






I was happy I wore this baju, because there weren't many other orang-putihs (=white people) there, so at least I fitted in a little bit more with the traditional clothing on.

I had heard before that weddings here are very different to weddings we are used to in our part of the world, so I was very excited to take part in one. They are very traditional, and follow conventions and traditions that have been the same since many, many generations back.

We were invited to this wedding by the groom, who is one of Nathan's cycling buddies. So we went to his family's place this morning. The bride and her family celebrated elsewhere.
A wedding here can go on for a month - but most do the "short version" and celebrate during a week.

JJ & Liyana's wedding week started last Monday, with a ceremony called the "Hantaran", best described as the exchange of gifts. The groom party (minus the groom) come over with gifts for the bride (usually jewellery, clothing, fabrics, toiletries etc). The bride's family then return the favour with gifts, though never more than what the groom party has brought.

The wedding ceremony itself took place this Friday at the bride and groom's local mosque. Unlike the conventional exchange of vows, only the man does the "I accept...."-bit here, but it is not as easy as is sounds. He has to say it without pausing and he cannot make a single mistake in the order of words, the amount of dowry or her name. If he makes a mistake he will have to start over from the beginning again, and maybe again until the wedding kadi or the appointed witnesses think it is ok. It is not unusual for some grooms to repeat the lines more than ten times before it is accepted!

Today was then time for the "Bersanding" ceremony, where the bride and groom gets presented as man and wife for the first time. We were invited to see the groom off from his home, before this happened.
It's quite a short event, in the invitation it said "Arrival of guests 11-12. Ziarah 12.00. Departure of groom 12.45".

We didn't know what to expect much, although we had tried to get some info from different Malay friends - this was a very big wedding with lots of VIP guests. When we arrived, we just followed the flow!
There was special parkings created outside the spectacular house, and about 20 big tents set up where people would sit. We were lucky though and for some strange reason got directed inside, to the AC and into the VIP ball room where we were seated with a big part of the family and other nice people.

Then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally the groom arrived together with his close male family members, he made his way round the male side of the seating (yes, we sat on different sides of the room) to say thank you and to get wished 'congratulations'.

I had my camera with me, but I felt a little bit out of place taking photos, so I only have a few I can show you. I took this photo from my table, across another table of women - and then you can see Nathan at the left, at one of the table of men across the room:



The groom then had a few photos taken, and so he went off to the bridal party for the bersanding ceremony (=it's really the bride and groom just sitting on the dais together). That's all we saw of him.
Most of the other traditions had been done behind closed doors and in other ceremonies earlier this week.

Once he had left, all us guests ate. Good food, and lots of it, is one of the most important ingredients to every Malay celebration!



There was no kidding around though, you ate - you left! The "lunch" didn't last more than 10-15 minutes, tops, and after the most VIP people in the room had finished, we all left.

I got complimented on my baju by some of the ladies at my table, and it was rather interesting to talk to them about all these traditions. They were astonished that in our over 2 1/2 years, this was our first wedding! Many people have to go to up to 3-4 each Sunday here in Brunei!

It's a shame I didn't get any photo of the groom. He was stunning in two different outfits for this occasion. First in a traditional outfit, and for his departure he changed into military dress.

It sure was an experience, and I hope we will get invited to many more weddings, it was exciting!

Our gifts!

There was no one bringing gifts to the couple today. Neither had they been send in advance, like in the USA. It's a tradition here rather to give some money in an envelope to the bride and groom, to help start up their life together.
Instead, we got gifts, when we arrived!

Little souvenirs from the wedding. A pink box for the women and a blue & purple box for the men:



They contained pretty, flowered cups! Perfect for a posh afternoon tea-for-two!

Official Hong Kong race photos

If you would like, you can see the official photos from the Hong Kong race here (you have to enter my bib nr, K0883 and Watson). I won't be buying any of them though, for two reasons - one: they are ridiculously expensive and two: I had my own photographer!

You can also see me in a video crossing the finish line! I'm in a yellow shirt so quite easily spotted, to the left in the field.

Ouch!

As I wrote in my story about the Sunday race, I managed somehow to pull a groin muscle and was in a lot of pain afterward.
It's eased off and have become better during the week, and as I was eager to get out and run again not to loose the momentum, I went out yesterday for a cheeky 5k.

Well, it actually didn't become any more than a very painful 1k, barely... I ended up not even walking, but stumbling back to the car in tears and with huge pains again... Bugger!
Not very familiar with sports injuries I decided to google a bit, and it seems like it's a grade III groin strain (adductor muscle tear). Seems like I'll have to do at least one week, maybe even two, of resting, until it's completely gone. Not good.

I'm not too worried about the Stockholm race. If I cant do it I cant do it. (It might be still snowing and in minus degrees anyway, which would be a no-go for me!) That's just life, it's more important I get well.

I'm not too worried about loosing the fitness either by having too long of a break. If I do, I know I can always get it back - as long as I start again.
But that's exactly what I'm worried about, not feeling it and not starting again... That's happened before...
I really do hope this time will be different. I have to remember, it's all about lacing up the shoes, right!

Awas!

Awas means 'Warning' in malay. If you see this car on the road here in Brunei you better slow down, as you will be passing the Brunei National Biking Team.



Nathan often waves at these guys when he's out on his bike. Apparently they are happy for anyone to join in their rides, but their times are not always suitable for Nathan, so he has only done it a few times.
I'm glad to see that they are taking this kind of precautions though, and has a proper follow-car to make them more visible in the traffic.

Full speed ahead

This is one of my favourite photos from our Disneyland visit on Friday, Ion and Linnea steaming ahead into the Magic Kingdom...

The coolest dog in Hong Kong

Let me introduce you to Buster, the coolest dog in Hong Kong:



He was big and cuddly and no puppy anymore, but sure behaved like one! He loved playing fetch, and was super with the kids.



My grandparents used to have a boxer when I was very young, Jesper. I only vaguely remember him but boxers still have a special place in my heart. Buster and I became great friends this weekend - and we all agreed that if we ever get a "real" (not a street mutt...) dog, it will definitely be a boxer!

The Abode of peace

Back in the Abode of peace.
Two things make you really appreciate what you have or rather, where you live: having visitors and going away.
I was really ready to go away for a bit now. I needed a bit of a break from Brunei and the "bubble" that is our life here, on a bad day.
Coming back, is always nice! We have a good life here.

I usually say, and that is from quite a bit of experience of living in different places and countries - there IS no perfect place. You always have to sacrifice something.
Let it be the weather - who honestly likes to live in Scandinavia now for example, after months of cold and snow, without longing for spring and sunshine at all?
Let it be the lifestyle - if you want to live in the center of a capital f.e, be prepared to have to live in a smaller house than if you were in the countryside.
Let it be family & friends - you can't bring everybody along wherever you move unfortunately.
Let it be choice - living where we are f.e, there is a lot of things we can't get, especially grocery wise. You have no choice, you just have to make do with what there is.
Let it be roots - living like we do, where will our kids feel that they "come from"? Will they have roots somewhere at all, or just become citizens of the world?

Yes, you always have to sacrifice something; and if you focus on everything you miss, can't get or can't do - you will be miserable wherever you are.
As I said, having visitors and going away for a bit really makes me appreciate the good things though! Visitors always makes me see this place with fresh eyes and really just see all the positive things with living here; and going to other places makes me happy that we live where we do too!
There are bad things with all places, but here they are (for now, don't get me wrong, I have no intention of staying here forever though!) well overshadowed by the good things.

We have a good life here. We just need to remind ourselves of that on days that it all feels a bit gloomy and far away from home.
Like now, after coming back from a busy long (and fab!) weekend in the noise, fog and commotion of Hong Kong - I'm back to appreciating the Abode, of peace.

The only way to finish...

... IS TO START!
Here is to my first big running achievement! Yay for me!
The medal, front:



Back:

Stanley

Yesterday we spent the afternoon together with some old friends of Nathan's: Kurt, Brett & Dordor - and a brand new 3 weeks old baby Oliver Kai.
We met them at Festival Walk, and I got free pass for an hour of shopping while the rest of the gang went for coffee. I did my best, and power shopped some great things!

Then Brett took us down to Stanley, on the south side of Hong Kong Island. It was a beautiful little place, rather peaceful and a pleasant escape from the hustle and bustle of the city.







We walked along the waterfront, saw the famous Murray house (Neo-classic relic dating from 1843) and went into the market for a quick browse. Hourray - more shopping!



It brought me back a bit to the shopping we used to do while on sling in Phuket. I got two supernice Jimmy Choo (well...) bags for a ridiculous bargain price, and walked along and had a good look amongst the stalls. They had everything from clothes, bags and other accessories; silks, jewellery, paintings and plenty of tourist tat.

Finally we tried to go out to the "Floating Jumbo restaurant" but the place we wanted to eat at was closed, so after a quick boat ride out and back again on a sampan - we took a cab up to Victoria Peak instead. We had ribs (what else?) at the top with initially great views, but it fogged completely over again during our meal, and on our way down from the peak again we saw nothing but clouds. So Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong 2010 race - Some statistics

There was a huge section in the South China Morning Post yesterday morning about this weekend's race, interesting read of course! Here are some facts from the newspaper:

The 60 000 slots for this event were filled up already 3 weeks after applications opened - although apparently 8000 runners failed to show up Sunday. Lucky we got a spot!

It said in the newspaper that the ideal conditions for running a marathon would be below 15 degrees Celsius, and with the relative humidity being between 50-60%.
In Hong Kong on Sunday morning, we had 24 degrees and a relative humidity of 88-93%!!! No wonder it felt a bit sticky!

This year they had a record number of admissions to hospital (most probably due to the weather conditions), 55 people - 43 men and 12 women. Three of whom are still in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

Although they had changed the course of the full marathon this year, to include one more bridge and give the runners a different challenge; the HK marathon is apparently quite different to other marathon races. In other locations people cheer for you all along the route. In HK you can only find fans and spectators for the last few kilometers, other than that the run goes mostly on the highways.

The results:
Men Full marathon - 2h20:12, a Kenyan who won for the 2nd consecutive time
Men Half marathon - 1h11:27, a Japanese
Men 10k - 34:15, a local

Women Full marathon - 2h47:35, an Indonesian
Women Half marathon - 1h23:40, a 42-year old (!) Japanese
Women 10k - 38:29, a Brit

Me? I had an official time of 1h06:13, and came in nr 125 out of the 1691 women in my category, nr 998 out of 4430 runners in total in the 1h10-1h20 category. Not too shabby!

Some final race thoughts

So that was it. My first race.
The goal for all my training the last three months.
Already last night it all felt so distant and like in a dream. It was a weird feeling to have it all over and done with by 06.40 already!

So how was it, really? How do I feel about it all? Better now than yesterday actually, yesterday it felt a bit like an anticlimax...
It was a great experience, don't get me wrong! The experience itself was really the main reason I signed up in the first place. It was so cool to be a part of such a huge arrangement, and coming out of the MTR and moving towards the start was incredibly exciting!

Unfortunately, the run for me wasn't so good. It's not about my finishing time (which was bang on what I'd hoped for!) or that "maybe I should've/could've pushed myself harder, if not this or that". It was that it wasn't a good run for me. I was in pain, and couldn't enjoy the running itself. It's like when you get a stitch or when you need the toilet or when you feel dehydrated and can't enjoy it properly.
I think that's why Vicky and I reacted totally different to this big crowd of runners. She thought the massive amount of people gave her a buzz and made her just run faster and faster, all with a smile on her face. I on the other hand thought it was totally annoying that I couldn't create my own space, that I kept having to criss-cross between people and concentrate too much on not being in someones way; that sweaty people kept pushing to get past etc.
Maybe if I'd been enjoying the running, that would've been different. Who knows.

All in all, it was cool!
I'm happy I've got two more races coming up before the summer, and I'm eager to get out there and train and run and get even better and faster! :)

Slide show from the Standard Chartered Hong Kong 10k race

The Hong Kong 10k race - My story

The alarm went off very early this morning, but actually I was already awake by then with Linnea who had been complaining about an ear ache and had trouble settling.
Suited up and packed the last few things into our bag, and off we went at 03.30 this morning, down to the MTR.
It was such a cool feeling to be in the MTR this morning, since everybody else who was on the train were also going to the race. There was race t-shirts, sneakers, time chips and power bars galore on the train! Ha ha! Probably the only time nobody cared if there was eating going on on the train, something that normally is against the law here in HK.

We got up to the start area rather early, and since Nathan was with us we didn't need to go and use the drop-bag service. Instead we used the porta-loos (!) quite a few times!
The start was on the high way, on top of a big rise. We were early so we saw the first group set off, and got first in line for our start. We had signed up in the group "Can complete 10k in 1h10-1h20".

And - off we went, under some fireworks and by lots of cheering! It was still dark outside (the start was at 05.40), and actually for most of the race. We ran along the highway and could see the mist lift off the sea, it was quite a sight.
The first kilometer I ran like the wind, trying to create some space for myself at the same time as I was concentrating on not getting run over. The 2nd to 4th kilometer were probably the worst, and then there was the first water station and a turn point.

Starting to run back made slightly perkier, but not much... I experienced some groin pain which made it painful to go especially down-hill (yes, there were hills!), and as fast as I would've wanted.
At 8k we passed the starting point so after that it was unknown route. Just before the finish it was one last, big hill and then I tried a big sprint into goal! I'm not sure what the official timing will be, but my watch stopped at 1h05:45!
The fastest 10k I've done yet - and I nearly met my goal of under 1h05.

At the finish I stood waiting for Vicky for quite a while. I thought she was behind me since I hadn't seen her go past, but she had (sneaky!) already at 4k! She came in on 1h01! Well done!
After the confusion we finally met up, got our goodie bags with water, bananas and müesli bars etc - and found Nathan too.

Imagine the masses though - there was 37 000 participants, in just the 10k race! 37 000!!!
And at least two of them were very happy with their efforts!

Very early this morning...

Shopping day

Today was shopping day here in HK, my favourite! Vicky, Linnea and I went to a big mall called Festival Walk, for one sole reason: it had H&M.



As you can see, the day brought on desired result with lots of shopping bags hanging off the buggy - but unfortunately H&M was a big disappointment, at least for me. I didn't get anything there, only the kids. I managed to find a few things in other shops though, so it wasn't a total disaster..!

A magic day

We've survived the first of this weekend's two big challenges today: a whole day at Disneyland! (Vicky thinks this might actually have been the bigger challenge of the two.. ha ha!)

It's been a great day though, especially for the kids. They weren't too impressed with the Space Mountain (inside roller coaster in the dark...) but apart from that, they had a magical day!



Lucas got to meet Buzz Lightyear and liked the rides in the 'Tomorrowland'. Linnea finally got to meet not just her favourite princess Snow White, but also Cinderella! Oh happy day!





What surprised me though, was how full the park was of groups of adults - without any children with them! They even went on all the rides, by themselves... very odd. It was kind of creepy and slightly annoying too, since it made the wait for the children so much longer at every attraction.

The Disneyland visit wouldn't have been complete without the big Disney Parade, although we watched the middle-of-the-day one since we (very rightly) didn't think either one of us would last until the evening one.



Instead all the kids got to choose some presents, and off we went back home all tired and happy!

Guess where!

I'm ready!

Went in to the race area downtown today to pick up my race pack, I'm now officially ready!

I'm wearing shoes!

It's very, very rare - but I'm wearing proper shoes! AND jeans!
It's great!