Kellaz, A Journal

I'm back offshore... I wasn't dreading it so much this time round as I am going to work for only a week, and then off for two weeks and then offshore again for 16 days and spending my new year here. Perhaps my next trip offshore, I'd be dreading to go with the knowledge that I will be here throughout Christmas and New Year.  Not that I celebrate Christmas, but I suppose any reason for celebration is a good time to be onshore.   So what have been happening to me recently?  Oh, life onshore has been really hectic.  I found new friends to hang out with, well sort of.  Besides spending a lot of my time with my future housemate, Billy and we totally had fun and laughter together.  I'm moving out of my current dwelling during my two weeks off next week.  It's probably the last saddest moment for me for this year.  I love my housemates, I love being with them, and they are the nicest people I've ever lived with.  But unfortunately, I have to go.  Not that I have to, b

I hoped you like the pictures I posted.  Sorry for taking a while to upload them into my blog.  Unfortunately, there are more pictures, stunning pictures that I took but I couldn't upload them, because I don't want this blog to be just full of pictures. So what is up with me lately?  Besides, being pathetically lonely, I'm trying to get by the days, day by day...   I met up with a friend recently, and we had a deep conversation about the things I am going through lately.  Although the things he said are blatantly obvious, sometimes, we need to speak of them to realise them.   My friend is going through some changes of his own.  And he's happy with the changes he made to his life.  He is embracing the changes that he going through right now.  And that night, I lay awake thinking about the changes I am embarking.  He think it is more about evolving into something and changing with the new found knowledge that we gained through other eyes and other opinions.  Sometimes, it

Please read Part 1 of this post before reading this one.  After lunch, and after a while trying to look for the road sign for the Crystal Mosque, we finally found.  This place is called Taman Tamadun Islam (Islamic Edutainment Park).  Terengganu major influence comes from PAS (Islamic Party) than the popular Barisan National Party (BN).  To keep the community happy, PAS has decided to invest millions of the Malaysian Ringgit to open this park.   The Entrance Part of the display inside the park.  There are many miniature mosques on display.  Including the famous and beautiful, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque of Brunei.  A miniature Mekah was also featured.  We didn't enter as we were short of time. The islamic architecture was absolutely stunning. This is the Crystal Mosque.  The domes even the minaret tower lights up at night.  It is absolutely stunning, and it is built on water. The riverside of the park I was absolutely stunned by the Islamic influenced architecture. Entrance t

Note:  More explanation of this pictures can be found in my previous post, Click here . This is part one of the batch of pictures of the Kuala Terengganu trip on our third day.  There are a lot of pictures to be uploaded onto this blog.  This is just to give you a feel of what my trip was like.  However, not all of the pictures made it to this blog, because they are 'shaky' .  I couldn't see the blurriness from the camera until I uploaded them into my laptop.  It is a pity because many of the pictures are actually nice pictures.   This is the picture of Kertih .  An equivalent of Seria Town.  This facility is like Seria Town multiplied by ten.  It is freaking huge.  Next to the refineries and crude terminal there are also factories that are based on oil and gas downstream.  It is not just a terminal for oil and gas, it is also the industrial area.   Kertih is a town, we passed by to get to the main city for Terengganu i.e. Kuala Terengganu.   I took quite an amount of p

The time waster (PSP) it helps the time goes by, Aiedee and I waiting at the airport for the gate to open after having dinner at Jollibee And then, it was my turn to play.... This is Aiedee on our way to Kemaman, we stopped actually earlier than Kemaman, because it was nearer to Aiedee's home. This is chubby me, LOL sleeping my time in the bus... Before checking in my hotel, we stopped by at the Kemaman Mangrove Park as per my previous post At the side of the river is a fishermen's village This is my hotel, Cukai Utama Hotel It's cheap and it's clean... I opened my new laptop... to check out the wifi available at the hotel

Days have passed so quickly.  I am now, back home. It was weird, before going to KLIA LCCT (Kuala Lumpur International Airport Low Cost Carrier Terminal), we stopped by Putrajaya .  And as soon as I realised that I am about to go home.  A migraine hit me so hard. The crowd at the LCCT wasn't helping either.  I felt like I wanted to throw up.  I think, and don't mark me word for word on this, but I think this is the last time I'm going on a budget airline...  But if the situation opt me to go using a budget airline, I will use that service again, it all comes down to... obviously cost. Aiedee was kind to send me off to the terminal.  I love that guy, he's a great guy, a great friend.  Actually, I miss him now, we've bonded and became buddies for the last few weeks and now, I ironically feel alone back at home.  I felt much better having him around.  Here I am sitting by myself, eating by myself.  Sad, I know... I slept all day today, I woke up at 3pm to pee and the

It takes two hours to arrive Kuala Terengganu , the main city for Terengganu State from Kemaman .  We were expected to leave Kemaman at about 8a.m. but we both were exhausted and overslept.  Aiedee came by at 9a.m. and we made our way.   Terengganu is a very very scenic place, there are always plenty of things to see.  We passed by Kemanting , Paka , Dungun Town, and more villages before we reached Kuala Terengganu .   Kemanting and Paka is a Petronas Town, so to speak, it's an oil town.   Kemanting a big village by it self, has it's own mall, which I mention yesterday.   Paka is the equivalent of Seria Town in Brunei, the crude and gas from offshore arrives at Paka .  I have quite a number of pictures of the oil and gas terminal.  We stopped by after driving for an hour plus at a small 'warung' (foodstall) .  The break was quite a welcome for us both.  We passed by a few stretches of beaches.  And before returning, we stopped there.  The beaches are absolutel

Day Two in Kemaman ...  It has been a great day... Tomorrow's agenda, well be going to Kuala Terengganu , the main city in Terengganu , Malaysia .  I will be looking for Batik fabrics to bring back home, to sell and as gifts.  Terengganu is so famous for their top class batiks .  So what did I do today? I woke up pretty late, at 9a.m and Aiedee stopped by while I got ready.  We went for breakfast at the first established  Kopitiam (Cafe) in Kemaman , and the food was delicious.  It is one of the oldest kopitiam in Terengganu and what I love the most besides the food, (we had nasi lemak, two half boiled eggs and 2 buns each) is that the cafe still holds the classic old kopitiam , and it shows character and age of the establishment.  It's really nice. After that, we went to a salon, Aiedee needs a haircut, while I sat there updating myself about Malaysian artists reading ' Media Hiburan' ('Entertainment Media') magazine.  Not long after that, we went to the

Hello there, Here I am at Bandar Cukai, Kemaman, Terengganu .  In my hotel room, it's a cheap room just as I like it to be, I'm not a great believer on expensive hotel room.  Unless if I am at a resort where most of my time will be in the room.  I'm on my new laptop... which I didn't have time to blog about.  I actually ordered the new beautiful aluminium cast Macbook .  And I seriously, seriously LOVE IT.  SERIOUSLY!  The black Macbook was fantastic, and this new one is wonderfully brilliant.  It's still the same in some sense, but somehow its even better in this new one...  The laptop body is solid, and the keypad and trackpad improved a lot...  A whole lot...  And it wasn't anything wrong before... it's just really really good!!! I arrived yesterday with Aiedee at LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal) KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) , and it was quite a relaxing journey, the only problem which was easily resolved was that no bag pooling allowed wh

Apologies for the lack of updates.  There isn't much to update anyways, I am just counting the days to go back home and my trip to KL.   I've never been so excited to go.  But at the same time anxious of the things ahead that awaits me.  The real reason for this trip is to give myself a break, from work and from life.  And to avoid things that I wanted to avoid.  Like I said in my previous post, I am not really ready to move on.  But slowly and surely I'm moving on, under my own time.  And given the situation that I am in, even though I am already broke as it is, I am still adamant to go KL because I'm not ready to face my fears in Brunei...   Running.  Running away.  That is what I am trying to do.  Fear has two basic reaction, to run away or confront it.  I chose the first.  I know that by running away, I am only delaying myself from facing the issue, but perhaps I need to run and perhaps ready to face when the time truly comes.  I miss my friends.  I miss my family.

In five days time, at an early evening....  I will be on my way to KL ...  I am really excited and a little scared of going...  maybe I'm just anxious for the day to come. I will be depending for the whole trip on Aiedee .  Perhaps I will spare some time to meet Zarul too.   I know you'd be reading this Zarul , so spare your time or two, LOL , will get in touch with you soon.  My trip will be a KL - Terengganu (Kemaman) - KL and then back home, I will be working in the office for a few days and then I will be going offshore again.  When I'm back home later in this month, I will be busy moving out from my current dwelling...  Where am I going to stay?  I have no clue myself...  My buddy, Billy had offered me a room to stay at his place only for a while, which means in the long run, I must get my house constructed soon.  Which is another story, I'm sort of pissed off with the movement of progress at the moment...  It's too damn slow, and it's been dragging to

There's nothing much going in my life, thus that is why I didn't update much. Yesterday's highlight was just that we had a emergency response drill and that went on for about an hour, we had to stand in a square and wait for the stand down siren.  My thoughts, there are a lot of it, but nothing that cross my mind right now.  How I am feeling.  Blank.  Not empty or like there's some void, just blank.   I don't know, it is weird.  I've never felt like this before, it's just blank.  Not empty or lonely, just blank.  Emotionless.  That's about it really, nothing much else to say.  Hey, why not write about yourself eh, the going ons in your life, it would be nice to know, instead of me ranting eh.... Until then, c'est la vie....

I have been thinking about time.  And we know we only have about over a month until 2009.  And we all know what 2009 signifies?  Or have we forgotten?  It will be Visit Brunei 2009.  And I don't see much preparation going on in Brunei in place for Visit Brunei Year.  So I was thinking, to set up a group of people who volunteer on their time to bring visitors and show them personally "the Bruneian Life" .  It is one thing to follow a tour but bringing a tourist and show them what we personally know about Brunei.   And basically, each guide is an ambassador for Brunei and we show them anywhere and everywhere.  And of course, if you're doing this voluntarily, it means tourist do not need to pay the guide, perhaps they pay for the fuel.  And all bills (e.g. food bills, purchases) should be paid by the tourist themselves.  It is like having that Asean Youth ship (Nippon Maru) theme going on.  A tourist comes up to a Bruneian guide and we just bring them to places of in

I am back offshore now.  I had a great time onshore.  Every night we (Sulaiman and I) went to the city to run my errands, when I arrive on Sunday morning, we went straight to Bandar to pick up a few stuff from my place.  I wanted to run a few errands, such as finding a new laptop to buy, finding a new mobile phone, buy groceries but that didn't happened, as I was a little bummed out because most QQeStore in Kiulap and most laptop shops are closed that Sunday morning. So we decided to go to The Mall, and it was jammed packed.  We finally got a car park at the Centrepoint Mall basement car park.  The QQeStore at Gadong opened and I learnt that they didn't have the phone model that I wanted.   AV Electronics which is Apple's Authorised Reseller in Brunei, opened, I didn't realise that they had open a showroom there.  And I went and had a look with the new Macbook.  Very, very, very enticing.  But it is very expensive.  I wanted to buy it, but considering my budget,

It is ironic to say I'm going home, because I don't have a home.  I have a place where I live in.  Housemates and all that.  But it's hardly my home.  Home is still a far off dream.   Some people say, home is where the heart is.  But when my heart is broken, torn unrecognisably into small fragments...  Where is my home then?  I suppose, I'm homeless at this current point of my life.  I'm having a hard time just thinking about going home, secretly I don't want to go back onshore, but I'm bored as hell too here.  Well, bored is an overstatement.  I enjoy my time here being with Aiedee and what-not.  But it's work.  All work. Since I'm coming back onshore tomorrow to attend a two-day course, I'll also be planning to go back to my place to pick some stuff up to bring to the course and to offshore again.  After that, a quick meet with Billy, then I'm back to KB (Kuala Belait) again.  I'm also off to buy a phone.  I've actually sold off my

Hi there dear readers. It's half past three in the morning, and I can't sleep.  I've been having a really difficult time trying to get to sleep recently.  I've tried everything, and I mean everything to get to sleep, but I find myself tossing and turning thinking about a blank thing hanging on my mind.  It's silly right?  A blank thing hanging in my mind.  If you can imagine a cloud of thoughts that you see in cartoons and such, it's a blank cloud, nothing... I'm imagining nothing.  But that nothingness is bugging me and it just won't go away.  Perhaps you don't get me, but that's as closest I've could describe it to you. I've been thinking about my life lately, how much it sucks and how much it sucks.  You might think that I'm thinking negatively about my life, but believe it or not, thinking that it sucks, is as positive as it could be in my mind.  I'm bored off my mind here, I have no one to talk to.  Yeah I do, but I don't