23 Apr 2015 – Goodbye Brunei, Miri And Camera
PixCredits Linn
Tue: congratulations to my first born for completing the Boston Marathon and beating her 2014 time by nearly 10mins. Good job Linn, so proud of her.
Headed off to Miri and was there by noon. Checked into the Kingsely Hotel, decent clean room with bathroom attached – good deal S$58. The ceiling shower felt like refreshing tropical rains and the best shower I have experienced. Good afternoon snooze. Was told by LuLu that the receptionist told her that he did not think I was in the room when she called. Lulu told him to just put the call thru’. Now how difficult it is to put a call thru’??? PixCredits KingsleyHotel.
My camera decided to run away between the cake shop and the Esplanade Beach 🙁 (PixCredits VariousSites) Thank goodness all pix were loaded to hard disk.
Anyway it is time for a new camera as there is a piece of S-shaped dust stuck in-between the lenses and sometimes one can see it clearly and it is rather annoying!!!
Tkx to Lulu for a great evening and pix credits to her.
Sunset at Canada Hill. We were trying to get to the Cafe for dinner but at the looks of it, I think that place has packed up for good!
‘The Sky Garden’ alfresco dinning 17th floor Meritz Hotel. Best Satay I have tasted and even better with the moon smiling on us…
Night scenes in Miri.
Like many places in the world, the social consciousness with maintenance of the environment are still lacking. Being a visitor to these places, will only show the pix of the best sides but does not mean that I am not aware of the other sides but choose not to dwell on them.
Magnificent as those mosques are in Brunei, I just cannot help thinking how this extravagance including the life-style of the royal family could have been used for the people and the nation for education, environment and health. The consequences of total power is usually total corruption.
Others might think that there is charm and soul to these scenes. Panoramic pix credits to Leonard. Personally it is nice for a short holiday, but preference of places where education, environment and medical top the priorities are places where I will stay a little longer, like these 10 countries.
PixCredits CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/23/travel/feat-world-happiest-countries-2015/index.html
Appreciate a good and constructive relevant dialog here, especially with one from UK, the other from S America – coincidentally Liz and Brian spent their childhood years in SIN. Makes it more interesting and less subjective. Tkx Liz and Brain for their comments.
Liz O’Regan/UK: interesting that most of them are Northern cold countries.
Me: less populated and more space.
Brian Hadfield/S America: I do not think that this accurate it is a snapshot of more Westernised countries another survey voted colombia as the happiest country in the World but who knows how they do this.I do see with all my travels that generally the countries that still have a bit of their culture remaining are more content which just goes to show that democracy is not the always the best way
PixCredits CNN
Me: all these statistics etc are relative. This is the only list that I have been to all the countries listed and having lived in Norway, I am of course bias and subjective about the Nordic countries…
Wed: appreciations to LuLu for getting me to the airport and for breakfast – the Kolo Mee was disappointing. Everything on schedule with AirAsia, safe and sound back in SIN and looking forward to buying a new camera.