Happy Chinese New Year!

Today marks the 9^th day of Chinese New Year. Happy Chinese New Year to all my Chinese friends and everyone celebrating this event. My family doesn’t celebrate this year due to the death of my loving grandmother last year. It has to be more than a year before we can celebrate again.

On the first day of Chinese New Year, we went to Miri, stayed overnight at Imperial Palace Hotel. Both my sister and I shopped the whole afternoon at Parkson. My wallet gets thinner while I get fatter. Oh gees, why do I have to do this to myself? Before returning to Brunei last month, I told myself that I will increase energy expenditure and reduce food intake but it is the other way round now. For the past 25 days, I have been eating out every single day, either in my hometown, Tutong, or an hour drive to the populated district, BSB. Also, mom has been cooking delicious home-cooked meals. No wonder I gained 2 kg and pimples pop out every now and then. It is not helping when I also get eczema breakouts thank to yummy seafood and deep fried oily snacks. Freckles are blooming as well like it is spring every day. I do get really frustrated but I have come to terms with it since I don’t have a good skin complexion to begin with.

 Lobby of the hotel

 My sister and I shared a bed while my Brother conquered the other. Layout: 2 double beds

 Hungry! Majority of the Chinese restaurants were closed for CNY.

 

 Teh C special

 Met up with my uncle and auntie

 Just a snapshot of Miri

 Family photo at Parkson

 Ron, my cousin, and I

 I still prefer NZ's! I miss the times I had this with Keith

 Complimentary breakfast the next morning

 At the hotel's lobby

 My twin sister

An old-looking public phone

I am still jobless, waiting for phone call for a job offer. At the meantime, I just enjoy life like a queen. The difference between a royal queen and a jobless queen is I don’t get paid. Is there anyone out there who wants to pay me? *lol* I don’t mind 10 dollars per hour =P Anyway, it is a blessing for resting and keeping mind and body off work. It is the best time for me to take a break before facing the reality again. The only thing I need to focus on right now is to learn Brunei’s road. It is extremely difficult for a direction blind person hence a GPS would come very handy. However, Brunei is so small that a GPS is really unnecessary. Having said that, I would love to have it if only I can find one. Of course I can always google map but Brunei’s internet is too slow =( The sign boards in Brunei are really vague. I only wish they are as clear as NZ’s. Also, at some areas, there are no arrows on the road so newbies like me don’t know whether it is one way or two ways. For example, yesterday, I was driving at a roundabout in Tutong. It was supposed to be two lanes but for goodness’ sake, there was no line or whatsoever on the road indicating they are two lanes and I have seen people just driving at the middle of it and sometimes two cars side to side. This is totally unbearable. I only wish for the emergence of MRT in Brunei. The number of cars on the road has increased horrendously. This is because we can loan car easily and if they can’t afford to pay off every month, these cars are added to the ‘used cars collection’ to be sold. Therefore, I am seeking for a reasonably priced, good quality second-hand car. 

Stop about car and back to Chinese New Year. My family and I went for a quick photo session at the NBT CNY display yesterday. Before that we visited the museum at Kota Batu. Let pictures do the talking. I only managed to take photos outside the museum since photographs inside are not allowed. =(

 Had to take the stairs to the museum

 Only three cars at the car park

 My papa and I

 My sister

 

 At NBT

 Bumped into my uncle and auntie

 Ichiban!

 All 5 families have a Suzuki Vitara each

In front of Bismi bookstore

I just want to say even though I miss life in NZ, it is good to be home again with my family. Next thing that I look forward to is my boo coming home in 2 months time! 

-The end-

Start of 2013!

Dear blog,

Happy New Year 2013! Can’t believe how fast time flies. In another 3 months time, my life will be entering a quarter of a century with wrinkles becoming more visible, memories failing, and more obstacles and responsibilities as I grow older. Fear not, I have overcome quite a bit last year and surely will do the same if anything crops up. For this, I have to thank God and everyone for supporting me throughout my hard sufferings. In life, everything is unpredictable and only God knows what happen next. What I am trying to say is let’s be optimistic, cast all the worries away and live life to the fullest. There is nothing better than able to live in this beautiful world surrounded by spectacular Mother Nature, fantastic inventions and every single creature on earth. Well, there is always exception like reptiles and crawlies. I really don’t like them. *GO AWAY!*

Today is a Wednesday which is my Friday! Yeah, as I might have mentioned in one of my earlier entries, my working days are Sunday to Wednesday. And this makes Sunday my Monday. Sounds lame? Yeah. Just ignore then. I am really glad I could sleep in tomorrow! Yippee! Sometimes I get tired of working. When I am at work, I never stop working. Yeah, I guess I am a workaholic, more accurately, a perfectionist-workaholic, always aim at quality, accuracy and efficiency. My motto is patients come first. =) It is with mixed feelings that I am going to leave NZ for good soon. On the one hand, I am happy to see my family back home, but on the other hand, I have planted good friendships and rapport with colleagues in NZ and leaving them is like leaving my family too. I feel so loved in the pharmacy. In addition, I enjoy working in NZ due to the friendly team and health system. Ranking is not placed as top priority here compared to Brunei. I just have to say attitude is basically everything when you deal with people regardless of your background.

  Kensington pharmacy x'mas do 

Last year was the worst year of my entire life as of 2/1/2013. It was a huge blow for me in terms of my health and the loss of my loved one. To be honest, as much as I try to think positively, I am still under the fear of relapse whenever I feel the symptoms. Oh well, if it does happen, I just have to deal with it and there’s no way I can escape from it. On a positive note, I do understand how patients feel and empathise with them so this may not be a bad thing after all. Forget about all the sadness for now. I met my dear boyfriend three times last year and am looking forward to our next meeting in April. Even though he could be an average and simple guy to you, he is amazing in my eyes because he is always so wise, funny, complements my personality and most importantly, cares about me a great deal. Now, I have to say I rely on him to a certain extent. He always tolerates my fiery attitude and my curiosity wanting to explore wonders all the times. I know he does not do this but for my sake, he is willing to step out of his comfort shell and come out to see the world with me. It is so ironic when I say this because he travels way more than I do and he is the city boy here while I am just a semi-country girl. I promise I never will take him for granted and will always love him fully with my sincere heart. This just means one thing, my love relationship is still going good with ups all the time and downs occasionally. 

One more thing worth mentioning is this beautiful lady in the photo below. She is my Whangarei mom and has been a great inspiration to me for his big and kind heart. I have to thank her for taking good care of me all the time I am in Whangarei. She's just so lovely and she is certainly one the people I miss the most. The others will be mentioned in my next blog. Oh yeah, I finally say goodbye to my old love. =)

I hope to update my blog more often once I return home.

-The End-