Celebrations and parties in Brunei

Due to all the expats in Brunei, there are often parties and get togethers.

We recently did a bit of trick or treating around our compound for Halloween and had a great time! Lauren was a Mummy and Alana was a Scary Fairy!

We went to see some dancers from Okinawa with some of our new friends from school. After this Kamila was able to meet the Japanese Ambassadors wife who is Czech. It was a really cultural month because the next day we celebrated International day at school by dressing in traditional dress. There were kids from over 30 different countries!

Living the life, Brunei style

We have been placed in an apartment complex called The Armada. It's quite good as we have lots of expats around us. We are going to move into our Penthouse (pictured here - its the 2 storey brown section on level 3) soon which should be good.

We shop at Giant Supermarket and Supa Save where you can get most things and it is cheaper than Australia overall. Eating has really been interesting - either people aren't eating (fasting during Ramadan) or they are having buffets or parties in celebration during Hari Raya (which has been quite fun).

On the weekend we went to the kids Hash, which is basically a jungle run. It was so much fun and the kids did great!

Bound for Brunei

2008 was an awesome year as I got tranferred to the Primary School
and taught PE with Lauren(in Year1) and Alana (in K3). The girls had lots of great friends and we developed some great relationships with people from the USA, France, Sweden and Denmark. We also travelled to Ireland and met a ton of relatives including my 92 year old Aunt Mary who showed me pictures of nearly 100 cousins I have, including Erin O'Connor (cool stuff). We managed to travel quite a bit in China to places like Nanjing, Hangzhou, Guilin, Hong Kong and Sanya.

2009 was an interesting year with Kamila getting pneumonia for the second year in a row. Unfortunately this was a combination of the cold and the pollution which is why we finally made the decision to leave. On a positive note I was able to complete Ironman China and we also got a visit from Kate, Vicki, Kirsty, Gerard and Melinda. We had some big celebrations before we left which was great fun. One of the highlights was out Karaoke nights where we bought a room and invited our friends to sing like Rock Stars (followed by a massage of course!).

A friend of mine told me about Brunei on the island of Borneo so we looked it up. The move was pretty costly because we didn't start till August but thanks to Torrens Valley I was able to get some TRT in Australia which helped us out.
Now that we are here we've found it is really different from Shanghai with less than 400 thousand people. It's a pretty good place if you like sport and the outdoors but if you're looking for a party scene you have to cross the border into Kula Lurah (40 minutes drive) or Miri (90 minutes away)
The girls have started at the International School of Brunei and are loving it. Alana is in Reception and Lauren is in Year 2! They finish school at 1pm every day and we go to one of the pools, the forest, or go to the beach. We also have an amusement park called Jerudong Park which has rides and costs about $5. Unlike Shanghai we don't spend too much time at the shops.