KoRe@N FooD

Today, we went for Korean Food in Qlap. It was my first time there and kind of like my first time tasting Korean food. All this while, I always take Japanese sushi but it's good to have a change of taste once in a while. The food was very tasty and not so spicy. Took some pictures as well. Little Kayden enjoyed himself so much - we were the only customers as now is the fasting month.

Rice with mixed vegetables cooked on stone

stove

Seafood with seaweed pancake

and bean stew soup (not spicy)

Beef (supposed to be wrapped with lettuce and some spices

or seasoning paste)

Busy, bUsY, BUSY!!!

Two weeks have passed and assignments start pouring in. This is kind of good as it keeps my mind stimulated. God knows it has been ages since I last did my assignment...

Clasees have been fun so far especially Korean lesson. There are still lots to remember - I always confuse myself with the sounds but I know one day I will know it by heart.

Though busy, I still have time to go in to Facebook, haha... Oh ya, last night, Kayden has learned to use the toilet. It was actually very funny though. I had to use his toy duck to show him how. It was a fun experience... ;D

ClaSSes oFF!ciaLLy sT@rtED

LE-1501 starts today. My lecturer is Mrs. Brown, who is a Filipino but married to orang putih. She's very friendly and humorous. I volunteered myself to be one of the group discussion leader today - discuss about ground rules. It was fun...

On my way back home for lunch, smokes can be seen almost everywhere. Because of the haze and the terrible weather, it causes forest fires. Fire engines are found at different locations and water puddles everywhere.

Korean class was very exciting. There's a lot of tongue twisting and pronounciation, making it fun. The lecturer even joked with us. I always thought that it would be easy to learn but it seems so difficult now, especially if you don't recognise the korean alphabet (Hangul)... However, I will try my best to master and memorize these letters.

I!t's eVerYwHeRe

Because of the H1N1 going on, we rarely take Kayden out for shopping. Though the number has lessened, the environment is still not safe as lately, the sky has become very foggy and the weather is very hot. The main cause of it is...

HAZE! HAZE! HAZE!

The picture on the left shows our underground tunnel in Qlap. See how thick the fog is....

Even in the house, we can see and feel it. This month is not a good time for outing or anything. The safest place to be is at home.

2ndD@y at Un!

Korean class was fun yet. We learned ' hello ' and ' goodbye '. Though both are simple words to learn but the way to pronounce is different. The lecturer told us the way we pronounced them is wrong. She even made a joke. She told us not to make a mistake when calling her as she had a student called her 'sensei' before instead of 'son seng nim'. 'Sensei' is Japanese for teacher whereas 'son seng nim' is Korean for teacher. Everyone laughed out loud.

This morning class was quite enjoyable. Initially we had only four students and we can't have a class if there are less than 5 students. Luckily, in the end, we ended up with 7 students so we could go on with our course, else we have to recruit students to join us.

BaCk 2 uN! 0Nc3 aGa!n

Today is a brand new start for me. It's the first day of University life once more. My class starts at 8am so I woke up early to prepare myself. Actually I did not get much sleep as Kayden slept quite late last night (around 2.30am). To prevent myself from getting stuck in a jam or lack of parking space, I left home around 7.30am. Luckily when I got there, there were many spaces available and I got a good parking spot.

So I walked over to the building, saw many coursemates' chatting around there and looked for my class. Make some friends today as well. However, class was cancelled as the lecturer is not in yet. Even though, I was looking forward to my afternoon class, which is Elementary Korean. Been wanting to learn to speak at least one foreign language, and Korean seems like a good choice.

All d0N3

I am now a registered student in UBD. Had gone through all the procedures, walked a lot and thought a lot.... Also came to a final decision on what modules I should take (after discussion with my SIL) and registered for the modules too. The result will only be out on Sat (1st Aug - noon time). Timetable for the first semester looks alright, not too tight except that most of the classes I have chosen started at 8 in the morning ;-}

Will be looking forward to start to 3rd August...

GoT iN

Yesterday, I received an sms telling me that the list to enter UBD GenNext programme is out. So I went to UBD to get my letter. When I was there, the admin staff told me that they had called earlier to inform me about my offer letter (dated 2nd June) but I replied that I never received such call. However, she insisted that she did. Not wanting to answer back (I don't want to sound rude or anything) I just smiled at her.

When I opened up the envelope to have a look at the offer letter, I was surprised to see the word "FEE PAYING". I thought that as a Brunei citizen, I am exempted to pay as citizenship allows students to study for free. But for my case, it wasn't. So my in-laws and I decided to appeal to MOE and UBD about obtaining a scholarship to study for free. I just prayed that it might go well as lately things are not going as smoothly as planned.

Hope God hears my prayer :0)

$h0cK!nG

This morning, I went out with my in-laws for breakfast. Because we took a late breakfast, my FIL decided to buy a kebab before playing his golf game in the afternoon. So I went down from the car to buy his one from this small stall around the Seri area.

Boy, was I in for a surprise! I am not a fan of kebab and all this while in my mind, I assume that kebab is a pita bread stuffed with beef and vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes, big onions... (like the picture shown).

When the man was frying the kebab (the beef was a lot except that it's mixed with cucumbers only), I thought the pita bread would be the big kind but it's not...

It's half the size of a normal pita bread which I think it will only fill a kid's stomach.

In the end, I ended up buying another roti john for my FIL because I really don't think that kebab would be very filling!

A wAk3 uP cAll T0 SeRa$a BeaCh, pLeaSe!

Last Monday, my in-laws and I took Kayden down to Serasa Beach - we wanted to check out the 'fish market'. It was a long drive from our house - I never realised the distance. When I was young, we used to go down to Muara Beach and most of the time, it was my dad driving. Now I know how he feels along the 'journey'.

This picture shows how Serasa stalls used to look like. Now, you just imagine it without the camp and pieces of broken sticks lying around there...

The 'trip' was a disappointment! Not only did we not get to buy fish, the environment was quite a disaster! - broken stalls everywhere, rubbish all around... But the scenery was beautiful. When I drove along the road, it reminded me of Singapore's East Coast Park. In my head, this is a perfect spot to have a replica of East Coast Park - the long stretch of road could be a pathway for joggers or cyclists, the open space could be made used of, for example, build simple but nice restrooms, some huts for people to have picnics... Serasa Beach can be fully utilised if the authorized people could just sit down and plan ahead - even Muara Beach looks nicer than before.