little things

These signify welcome or good luck or something. Hang these in your house and say welcome to visitors. Or they give these to you when you arrive, sort of like a garland around your neck. My photo s in black n whote but these thingies are quite colourful.



Its quite interesting during these little visits. You learn so much. Whereever you are in asia, especially East Asia, we more or less share the same things. Food (with slight variations), clothinng, traditions etc.


I found we all use 'tekiding' or slight variations of them for carrying rice. Its all so interesting.

Im trying to organise a trip to Vietnam soon. Take a slow train ride from the North to the south.

traditional dance

Traditional dance in Guangzhou. or Guangxi or something like that. Looks familiar huh? I think most countries have this as their traditional dance. I remember seeing that when i visited the Philippines and also in Thailand. I kinda remembered Indonesia having something like this. SO what does that mean..?


I guess maybe once upon a time a long long time ago, we all came from the same race or group. Then somehow or other we all got scattered all over Asia and a group of us found ourselves here on this island on Borneo. We certainly came from somewhere. We surely didnt grow fom here. So our cultures all intertwine. Our traditional costumes, especially our 'orang aslis' look familiar to each other. etc etc etc.


See the costumes? A bit like the ones they have in Thailand, laos, Myanmar, Vietnam etc etc.

cityscape

Still pics from my trip to China.

This is what i imagined it would be like.


This is what greeted me when i arrived!!


China is fast turning into a very modern nation. Very modern!! Skyscrapers popping up everywhere. Everywhere. Its amazing there. Within a few short years, the country is transformed into an ultramodern country. With many many modern cities filled with towering skyscrapers. I imagined within a decade, you wont see much of the old china within the city walls.

I went to a city to te south-western part of China. Far away from the West. Far away from Beijing. And alas, far away from the Great Wall.

old woman

This old woman sells oranges. This is in China, at one of the tourist sites there. She hangs around waiting for tourists and sells them oranges. She sells them cheap. So cheap. And tourists with lots of spare change dont mind giving her some. She looks so old and many pity her.



We tend to not see this much in Brunei. But increasingly we are getting older folks venturing out as small scale hawkers and sellers. Extra income. Good on them for making the effort.

Tea

Tea. Chinese tea. Quite nice once you get used to it. This one time we were served green tea. Chinese green tea. A staple in china. Tastes funny but good. Different from the Japanese green tea. That taste really fishy. haha. Really..have you tried japanese green tea? Ugh!


I'm a coffee drinker. Would choose coffee over tea. Well, except when its teh tarik ("kurang manis please"). But when you're in China, and they serve Tea everywhere, you dont have much of a choice. They do serve coffee but it tastes blah!! So stick to their tea. Its quite nice once you get used to it. You have to get used to it because they serve it everywhere!! They dont drink water...just tea.

And on plastic cups. Hot tea on plastic cups. Is that ok?

flowers

I like taking pics of flowers. So bright and colourful. So i give u..more flower pics!!!



These are some new flowers in me mums garden. Was hoping to get a good pic of a bee or something just to make the pic interesting. But waiting for loooong minutes and still nadaiii. Mabe bees are not attracted to orchids. No pollen maybe. I dont know. I dont like gardening.



I have lots of friends who garden nowadays. Keeping flowers at home and tinkering with them and little pots during the weekends. I have friends who jump over the border to Limbang just to buy flower pots there...they have many kinds and its cheaper. I guess its much cheaper there. Doesnt much help our local sellers but customers are king! People dont have much money nowadays so everything depends on price. And since Limbang is just a half hour away...

Speaking of Limbang....... mmmmmmm

Junk

The things people keep in their back yard!!! I know in Brunei people tend to keep their things even tho cannot use anymore. Donno for what lah. Maybe in the hope it will be useful again someday? At home me mum keeps still her old refrigerator and washing machine. Now its all rusted up and is home to insects.



This house keeps their old cars!! Not in the picture is an old Mercedes saloon that probably had a major accident by the look of it. Why still keep? WHy not junk it? Maybe can earn some money from it. Honestly..some people.

Why do we still keep things we dont need? Worse, we keep things that dont work anymore. Why? Funny lah some people...

wine girl

This girl stands at the entrance of a temple. Thats wine in those little cups. For good luck. The idea is you drink from the cups before you enter the temple grounds. And you give 'alms' or some money as a gift for the temple. The wine is homemade..made withn the temple grounds itself. Supposedly its sweet. I wouldnt know lah.


Took this pic from my last trip overseas. I've been lugging my heavy Nikon with me everywhere i go nowadays. Pictures for remembrance. Its a great hobby!!!

The photographer

This guy was busy taking photographs the other day. He looks so ... uh...cool? I dont know. What do you think? I thought he looked funny.. a bit of a showoff with his probably new Canon SLR. Oh and he was taking photos of a group of us.. including some hot looking women in our group. Probably that set him off in this pose. hahaha.



Its funny sometimes when we see photographers doing their stuff. We focus on angles and getting a good picture. Sometimes that means we having to crouch, lie down, sit, squat, stand on chairs and whatever it takes to take that killer shot. When we are so immersed in our shots, we are invisible. We dont realise and we are not aware of the people around us. Nor do we care that we might look akward and funny. Sometimes we look downright silly. Thats us most ofthe time.

But then again, most times you see people who take camera shots 'decently', meaning they stand upright and proper. These people are showoffs..hahaha. I like to think so. The shots dont matter as long as they dont look silly taking the shots. In the end, they get decent enough shots that could have been better had they crouched lower or stood on a ledge or something.

Something to think about.

Corn

Drove down to KB the other day. Along the way, somewhere near the junction to Labi saw street vendors selling corn. Lots and lots of lovely corn. From Labi they said. So we stopped and bought some. And took pics. hahaha. Biasa ler..sign of a crazy photog is when they start taking pics of just about anything they see.. And if you see my pics, i am a crazy photog.


Its amazing that we grow corn in Brunei but the growers can only manage to sell them at roadside stalls. And its not expensive. Do we have anyone who process corn into say, canned something or whatever? Is there a big producer of canned corn or something in Brunei??

Anyway, the trip to Belait was okay lah. Took an hour to reach KB. Would have been faster if the highway is complete all the way from BSB to KB. Just a 10 mile or so stretch thats still the original 'kampung road'.

nuts and bolts

Nuts!!! I wonder why they're called nuts? Inda jua macam kacang usulnya.



I saw this very neat pile of old nuts and bolts (and everything else) piled up neat the office. Someone must be doing renovations.