My first two days here was really full.. well, full of going out to survey places, tempat shopping and also to buy the halal food. Our flight from Brunei was about 2am early in the morning a direct flight to Brisbane.. we arrived in Brisbane at 10.50 am, it was really very tiring but the weather was very nice. Bergambar pun mbari siuk.. but I regret coz I forgot to bring along my camera cables... I've my camera ready but can't b produced to show here..hopefully if I got something to show then I'll post them up here. After we got in Brisbane, we catch a domestic plane to Melbourne, about 2 hours to get there.
An officer from the Brunei High Comm greeted us and brought us to the Marriot Hotel where we will stay there for maybe the whole of three weeks..
Very comfy here, but I've problems with my Prima line as it can't be used here.. always have registration problem. Thus, I decided to buy the Vodafone line, which only cost AU$2.00 to register and a pre-paid card for AU$29.00 in which have AU$160 credit limit.. Should be enough for the three weeks as I do not make calls unless it is urgent. For me, the internet access is the very important one as I can connect with friends via the MSN Messenger.
Last nite, all the 7 of us went out to dinner and I had the cooked tuna sushi burger.. yummy... then we went shopping some food.. I bought Maggi Mee (Curry), Indo Mie Goreng, Ayam Brand Tuna flakes in oil (M) and Smiling Fish Fried Baby Clam.. All within reach!! mcm d Brunei rasanya.. These I bought in the asian store, most of the food there came from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia. So, no problem to get those. 7-11 here is quite expensive, there's plenty of the outlets here but I would think twice to go into that store (unless I had to get omethig very urgently).. Otherwise.. Mahal!!
We haven't got our allowances yet.. and after calculation of the accomodation that the Brunei High Com provided us (without considering the Government budget!!), we found out that they had caused OVERBUDGETING!!! More than we expected!! So we had to take alternative measures to save some up so that we can also save our own budget and also getting some allowance.. The allowance that we should get is B$180 per day, but what we are experiencing now is that the accomodation for each one of us (which the High Comm arranged) charged us AU$250!! Imagine the Exchange rate is AU$1.00 to B$1.30.. Try calculating for yourself. So, it is really expensive.. Though we like staying here in this 5-star hotel but we don't think that it is a good idea to also spend our OWN money as we are given allowance. Hopefully, the High Comm can consider this problem..
Tomorrow will be my 10th year anniversary working as an EO and tomorrow is the start of my training in ACER HeadQuarters.. We have to be there at 9.00 am and so we will go to the Parliament Station (underground) to catch the train to go to our destination. Since it is our first day there we wanted to go early and also have to bring our own laptops.. A funny thing is that the electrical socket here has a different design which requires us to get a different type of 3-pin socket that can fit our computer cables. Well, nobody informed me about that.. hehehe..
Hopefully we can finish off our analysis by the 3rd week and we can write our own report regarding the analysis for the Ministry of Education to see and the whole of Brunei to accept our work here as we are going to compare our National result with Australia. Maybe this will go into the Brunei Education study.. If the study works, then we can proceed with the SPN-21 syllabus for English and Mathematics in Year 8 (for the SPE). Otherwise, the syllabus has to be amended to suit the Brunei students' talents and capabilities.
I'm glad that I'm having a good time here.. All the 7 of us seemed to have the same "brains".. Alhamdulillah..