for your reading pleasure...all recorded since day one... 142245FEB2005ZT <Brunei>>
well, I’m finally here. In Brunei. Gosh. After a butt (read: economy class syndrome class) painful ride on a C130 Hercules turboprop diva queen of an aircraft. We landed at Brunei International airport.- which also serves as the country’s airbase. Trust me when I say that it’s really a pain in the ass ride. 3 solid hours in the air-no friendly hostesses, no in-flight movie-how’s a new age guy going to live???
Anyway, Brunei as a country reminds me of Malaysia yet with a Singaporean twist. How come? Let me indulge in the explanation. The roads, the places to eat, all remind me of my previous Johor Bahru/Bangkok trips. Yet the shopping complexes may not be much in terms of content, BUT they all have a certain shop that springs out like moss from undergrowth. It happens to be, you’ve guessed it! It’s the ye old VCD/DVD shoppes!!! Dear heaven, piracy heaven should be crowned upon Brunei, not sedate Singapore. The fake stuff even looks real and somemore, they sell it all like nobody’s business! Copies and copies of the stuff are all prominently displayed on the shopping aisle in such stores, which happens to be no less of 6 such stores per shopping centre. Somehow or rather I think that the authorities turn a blind eye on such ‘legitimate’ businesses. Heck how should I care how the Sultan of Brunei runs his country.
The Chinese community here in Brunei remind of Chinese Malaysians. It so thickly accented till you can’t hear much about their pronunciation. But I’ve learned that speaking Cantonese helps. So I guess I’d better be re-learning my Cantonese…
151423FEB2005ZT <>
what’s there not to like about serving a detachment in Brunei? Good food (well, only my 1st lunch here so far…) not too bad accommodations, a so-so level of entertainment here (lots of VCDs and DVDs-pirated ones as mentioned in my previous entry in ALL the rooms.) No pubs, no bars, no alcohol, no females around the neighbourhood. But lots of peace and quiet, nice jogging places, maybe a nice gym too-which I have yet to visit. But the heat, now that’s THE main issue. Its no wonder that during my aircraft servicing, I’ve obtained a lot of ‘help’. Now I know why. the aluminium of the aircraft structure warms up particularly fast here, thus frying an egg on the vertical fin of the UH1H should be a relative snap…
We do our work here in only 2 or 3 places. Basically it depends where our aircraft are. The first spot is Jalan Aman Camp which we share with the HQ Lancer people. Their the guys who organise the training here for the army personnel eg OCS. The 2nd spot which is BIA (where we landed) is where we do out guard duty and keep a few other aircraft. The 3rd is Lakiun Camp, deep in the Bruneian jungle of Temburing, which is now not usually used-unless in extenuating circumstances. The Bruneian heats drives people indoors. That includes me that so much so that I’ve head bumped onto one of the aircraft’s starboard elevator with a slamming broadside. I guess its heaven’s way of welcoming me to this part of the world with an initiation…
161530FEB2005ZT <>
once again I’m slotted for guard duty, this time in Brunei-not in Jalan Aman Camp or JAC as its known, but in BIA or our detachment office in Brunei International Airport. It happens to be a stone’s throw away from Royal Brunei Air Force’s hangar as well.
Its another bloody hot day again. Being roasted and toasted is part and parcel of work here or should I say life here. Its good weather to work on a tan but not without sunblock. I’d have to be careful and not go without drinking water.
191214FEB2005ZT <st weekend>>
hmm, woke up at 11am to the startling realisation that its my 1st day off here. No work today. The other guys in the detachment or det as its more commonly known, are planning swimming-yah and me without my swimming trunks, damn! Oh well, gotta settle a little laundry, finish part of my assignment, and play a little game on my colleague’s PS 2 hehehe…
committed a little faux pas yesterday. Won’t get into the details much due to the confidentiality of the matter, but it was a gentle nudge in the ribs for me. The other guys were ok with it-thankfully and didn’t make such a big fuss over it.
212230FEB2005ZT <nd Monday in Brunei>>
Its official!!! It’s the 2nd Monday in Brunei. Counting down to the days left before boarding another C130 for another butt painful ride heading home. 15 more days. 15 more days of boredom, eating, slacking off, doing my exam. Doing some simple household chores like sweeping, the pots and pans, laundry takes up a wee little time but that’s it! Heaven’s its perpetually boring here!!! The majority of my time is spent on the laptop finishing up the Star Trek Fleet Command 3 or Red Alert 2 or watching VCDs/DVDs. Good to star catching up on movies I’ve missed but ARGH!!! The idleness is driving me nuts.
I’d do my shopping with my fellow virgin det mates Elijah and Sheng Jie maybe tomorrow or on Wednesday. Who knows. Bottom line is I HAVE TO get a few more VCDs/DVDs. I’ll WILL get ‘The Last Samurai’ and maybe Pirates of the Carribean, Star Wars Esp 2, and I’ll see if I can find any Babylon 5 stuff. Or maybe an el cheapo CD-ROM game. So bored here that I miss home a little now and my friends all in SG, my kids in SJAB CTSS, parents, younger brother and all plus clubbing with my god bro Marcus and hanging out till late.
271654FEB2005ZT <nd Sunday…>>
…here in boring, hot, humid, Brunei. Went out to do a little shopping today this morning-the 2nd time I’ve left the camp for leisure. Bought a book here at a ‘popular’ like bookstore. I can tell you something, it ain’t no borders. Pricy too. Got that as my 1st souvenir here. The second one was an Evian mineral water bottle. Not the usual run-of-the-mill type. This one’s shaped like an ice sculptured mountain. Its not even bottle shaped!! If it were smaller, it would look like some designer perfume bottle. Very chio!!! A colleague told me that if it were sold in Singapore, might be high priced. This two purchases were, safe to say, made out of pure self indulgence.
I’m still doing my exam, typing it. Feeling lazy all the while and suddenly tired too.
282218FEB2005ZT <>
I’d finally had the drive to finish the 2nd last question of my exam paper today. And it was sure satisfying as well. The burst-drive came from my phonecall to my mom to ask of my brother’s O level results. He performed magnificently! A1 for English…(see ang moh runs in the family)… A2 for Accounts, B3 for com-science and other subjects which enabled him to get an aggregate of 12 points! How come? Should have been at least 14 points (which includes the 1 CCA point). Because of the fact that he achieved A1, the system deducted 2 points to effect a better entry for poly or JC.
I’m super proud of him. I only managed 20 points and less 2 for CCA which was 18 to get into poly and I only had a B3 for English back then plus my only distinction was for pure history with an A2. He had me and my parents worried that he wasn’t putting in effort and spent his time ‘worshipping computers’. Now he has a broader choice on where and what to study in poly. It’ll be either mass comm. or IT security. I’m sure all 5 polytechnics which offer both courses will be eager to accept him as a student with talent. My brother is one guy who works and perseveres and I guess I can take a lesson from him in that case.
021352MAR2005ZT <>
Which is a pretty cool anime cartoon spanning three seasons. The show is essentially showcases mechanised robots piloted by individuals-The Gundam genre started from ages back and features different aspects and different plots, different circumstances and different realities. But all the shows feature the ‘GUNDAM’ robots as the feature. In the ‘Seed’ variant, human kind has experimented with genetic manipulation. The enhanced humans are called co-ordinators and established themselves very well but faced prejudice by the naturals. Thus they established themselves in outerspace in space colonies. Details from this point onwards are sketchy as the VCD series I watched here in Brunei was in Japanese and with subtitles in Chinese (which I cannot read so I could only watch and guess what was going on. Singapore broadcasted the English variant but I only caught a few episode here and there and didn’t get the gist of it thus losing interest. However, I’m gonna get the English variant on VCD as a collection.
062202MAR2005ZT <>
My 3rd and final guard duty at BIA-and its on a sunday. Going home on Tuesday. We had a change of Detachment Commander and the changeover was held in a nice cosy little hotel food was ok, wasn’t expecting it to be that good. The following day HQ Lancer celebrated its 21st anniversary to which the detachment was invited. Somewhat fun having to get into the swimming pool for games like I did. Hilariously funny to see some of the pilots and our colleagues ‘kena’.
