Monday 31 May 2010

Baby's Wedding

It was such a nice day for a wedding. The day was sunny and hot, with occasional wind blowing made the event bearable. It was the wedding ceremony of our cousin in KB. So congratulations to Baby & Redzuan. May your blissful wedded life be full of happiness and peace.

This is the bride who looked so lovely in blue.

The teary bride

Here she is again.

Here comes the groom in his wedding vehicle!



The anticipation of the crowd to see the bride & groom. There he was doing the 7 rounds tradition before going in to see the bride.



The groom on his way to enter the bride house and met his new wife.

The bride kissing the hand of her new husband.
Going up back to the house after meeting and showing themselves off to the guests who were waiting outside.


These gal & guy have found each other and proud that everyone was there to see their union.

Happy smiles!

The happy couple.

With us the family from Bandar with the bride's parents.

The bride's father giving a speech.

The greeting ceremony from the bride's family, this was when the guests gave the white or brown envelopes as token, mostly people give money as gifts to the couple's family.
Its turn for the bride's mom and her entourage.

My mom was part of the entourage.

This is the picture of the couple's Pelamin or wedding stage.

Me and my girl earlier on the day, we arrived at around 1015am in the morning.

Me and hubby at the tent. Hot hot hot - I mean the weather!


Saturday 29 May 2010

Launching of new BMW 5 Series Sedan

We were invited to the launching of the new BMW 5 series sedan last night at the Grand Hall, Empire Hotel and Country Club. It was an extravaganza with more than 10 BMW cars on display including the new 5 series. The new car was revealed on stage by the Area Manager of BMW Asia and also the German Ambassador to Brunei. Its grand! Hubby loved the car and I think they were nice too. And the price? Dont ask! Although hubby told me he didnt expect the price at that range because he thought they cost higher than he predicted.
We actually enjoyed ourselves looking at these beautiful machines and taking some photos. It was a good night to mingle amongst the crowds, and since food were served that a bonus too, lol.

Our photos were taken and we signed our names the moment we arrived and I felt like we were on a movie premiere or something hehe.

Some of the food which was served while waiting for the ceremony. Thats lobster in those glasses. I tried one but didnt like it so much, felt so fishy in my mouth.

The emcee of the night, Jenny of Kristral FM.


The BMW 5 series, revealed on stage after speech by the Area Manager and German Ambassador. These are the top people of BMW.


Me with the blue BMW on stage. We liked it because it looked like our BMW at home, I mean the colour tehehe.


Nice and sleek and smooth. Awesome.


This is one of the new BMW on display. Its a BMW 523i and cost around B$98,000. Not too bad actually. We thought the price was higher than that. And I liked the colour of this car too, light brown.


Hubby tried to get a feel of the car. Maybe he was thinking of buying one!



One of the stall spread along side the grand hall. This is grilled lamb. They also had nasi ayam, laksa, kebab/pita, sushi and assortments of dessert. With free flow of soft drinks. All for free! And you can eat as much as you want.

I was enjoying dessert, I am acting like a child when she sees lots of toys. So much to choose from. Very tempting and they all looked so nice enough to eat. But I didnt eat all, hehe.


This is hubby with the most expensive of the new 5 series. The 535i which cost around B$163,000! These car has lots of features including the Parking Assistant feature where the car could steer to parking space on its own, you just need to give it the command, using the ultrasonic sensors in the side indicators. The assistant takes care of the steering wheel and you just need to select the correct gear and control the accelerator and brake.
The price tag.
Here it is again.

The interior, although I think our Honda Odyssey interior looks better! Sorry..

Me amongst the crowd last night.


The scene from the showcase at the grand hall last night.


Bad experience at Airport Restaurant

Breakfast at Airport Restaurant is a ripped off! Well.. almost. After we finished breakfast they charged us with the wrong bill. The bill was from other table and not ours and we ended up paying more. I mean, WTF??? How careless a person could be, or persons! Definitely not a good idea to have too many people in the cash register. On that day, that was Thursday, there were 3 -4 people at the cash register, and they talked and chatted with each other while serving the customers. And what happened when you didnt focus on what you were doing? You charged the customer wrongly! How absurd. Those people needed to be fired, if I were the owner. Its so careless and unprofessional and shouldnt happened in an "International" restaurant like the Airport restaurant. Luckily hubby asked me to check the bill again after paying and we noticed those were not the food we ate. So we had to go back and asked them to re-check and asked for our money back. Troublesome!

The food were so so and its further marred by the carelessness of the waiter. We were not the happy patrons this time!










Thursday 27 May 2010

American Idol Season 9

I just dont feel like doing my review on American Idol this year. Its becoming a cliche I think, but who cares, I am gonna mention it anyway. All I can say is that Lee deserves to win. He is humble and down to earth. And a great voice, Crystal was good too but luck was not on her side. It was so funny to see him so nervous during the finale. Looked like he almost threw up, visibly visibly nervous. Crystal was there to calm him down at least. Never seen anyone as nervous as he was, poor guy! The show was ok, simply because there were some good old numbers, which I enjoyed. Other than that, nothing much. And its Simon Cowell last day on Idol too, so the show was a bit emotional. Wonder who replaces him. So thats it, for this year.



Monday 24 May 2010

Villa Mauri – The verdict

Last night we went to this restaurant for the very first time. Hubby’s colleague from work recommended it, its an Italian restaurant and this friend is an Italian and he told hubby the food were quiet nice. Well, he should know about Italian food so we trust his instinct but we just need to find out ourselves. We have wanted to go for a few times already but due to its distance, we kind of putting it off for a while. But then last night, we determined to try it out. It took about half an hour to reach it from our home, its called Villa Mauri.

We reached the restaurant around 7.45pm and it was packed! Luckily hubby called earlier and made reservation. The place was a bit hard to find at first especially when it was so dark, and it didn’t look like a restaurant at all from the road, except for the big sign. If you were there for the first time, make sure you explore the place first (during the day!) otherwise you might miss it.

Our table was tucked away in the further area of the restaurant, it was rather cozy but it was too noisy for our liking. The table next to us were really a bunch of noisy people! With lots of conversation and laugh, definitely kill the atmosphere. We ordered the food after looking at the menu for about 10 minutes. So many dishes to choose from so we just ordered what took our fancy. For me anyway, I ordered Sirlion Steak and hubby laughed at my choice and told me this is a ITALIAN restaurant so I should have chosen something Italian and not steak! LOL, which is true right?

He ordered pizza and our daughter went with her all time favourite – sphagetti carbonara. And as starter as usual, we ordered mushroom soup. It took around 20 minutes for the food to arrive, not too bad in our opinion since we could see how packed the place was. The food came first, 10 minutes later the drink, which I think was a bit unusual. Usually drinks came first right? I don’t know if this was something to do with Italian traditions or what, (maybe not! Haha), but the rest of the patron did get their drinks first anyway. Well.. I wanted to drink something fancy. Usually hubby and I opted for warm water only for drinks whenever we were eating out not because we wanted to cut cost but more to not taking too much sugar, but this time, I felt like indulging myself a little bit so I ordered a drink called Butterfly Kiss, which is actually a combo of pineapple nectar with strawberry and orang juice lol. Both hubby and our daughter chose their favourite – carrot juice.

Should I tell you what we think of the food? It was awesome! Very very delicious. In terms of price, I could say it was very competitive. Compared to similar dishes, in another Italian restuarant in town, its was a bit cheaper which is definitely a bonus.

The service - good but could be improved, it was very busy and the staff were overworked I think. We also got to fill in the appraisal survey of the restaurant and win a voucher for free pizza or pasta for purchase up to B$30 for our next visit. Nice! And they did apologize on our way out after dinner for the food which came late. Ok.. now you were forgiven! hahaha.

We love them. No complaint whatsoever, we could come back there in the future definitely. We finished dinner around 9.00pm and reached home around 9.30pm which was not too bad.


Below some of the pictures taken..


The menu to choose from, with our daughter looking at the pasta section.



My delicious Sirlion Steak which cost B$22 only.


Our daughter sphagetti carbonara, cost around B$12. This was delicious too.


The mushroom soup, cost B$6 with a dose of black pepper.

Hubby's pizza which cost B$14.50, size around 12 inches, which was ever so cheap, compared to Pizza Hut. And the taste? Amazing. The best pizza ever, and I was impressed. It didnt look so much but it was really nice.


See the ultra thin slice? Very crispy and nice.

Hubby happy with his pizza.

My butterfly kiss drink, cost B$4.50.


The Villa Mauri promotion for the month of May - Prawn

The sign board from the main road, look for this when you look for the place.


The unimpressive restaurant from outside.

Inside the restaurant.

The happy patrons!


We will be back!