Bargain Books

These guys were prepared! Shopping trolley in a book exhibitions.

Visited the exhibition on the last day and apparently it's the first time they organized it in Oman. No wonder they have those trolleys, majority of the books were heavily discounted. The titles may not be the latest one but there are all good quality book.

We approximately saved 50% from the original price of the books.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha

Oman celebrated Eid Al Adha on 9th Dec. Holiday started from 8th until 12th Dec.

Laundry

Somebody must have been doing some heavy laundry last Friday, the beach was all foamy....




The past few weeks, it's all red tide and bad smell by the beach. Apparently the foam is coming from some sort of micro organism from the sea.

Survey, Numbers and Future

This article from Brudirect highlight some interesting numbers:

• 75 per cent of oil and gas sector employees are locals.
• 4,379 staff out of which 3,203 are Brunei Citizens or PR.
  

A much more interesting article is about the SPE Salary survey:

• In both North/Central Asia and Southeast Asia, the average base pay reported by non citizens is about four times greater than that of citizens.
• Annual base pay for citizen is US$44k while non citizen is US$180k.

The standard explanation for the difference is because this non citizen has to pay for his commitment in his home country. This may be valid many years ago but now, I doubt it.

The SPE survey also mentioned "Yet in the US, Australia/New Zealand, Canada, and North Sea/North Atlantic, the differences between noncitizen and citizen pay are far smaller. and in the US and North Sea regions, the base pay for noncitizens is lower".

The gap between citizen/non citizen has been there for many years, probably since oil first discovered but what can we do to reduce the gap? The industry are paying the non citizen almost similar amount in all the regions.

It will be a shame if our future generation still has to face this situation and had to relocate to earn fair wages.

Time will tell, God willing changes will come.

Away Day

The department organized an away day to Al-Sawadi Beach Resort - 100 km drive from office.

Hot Skill

Mabrouk to the "hot skill" people back home; something positive but please do look at the big picture.

The young performers from Indonesia showing their dancing skills during the International market.

PDO International Market

The annual event of PDO International Market.

Special guest


Direction


Candyman


Crowds


Crowds

Flying Time

The flight from Heathrow to Muscat was smooth apart from the obvious traffic jam on the Heathrow runway; planes queuing to take off. Now, it's time to unpack the bags and processed all the holiday photos.

You'll never walk alone

Hari Raya di Anfield, Liverpool Football Club

1 and 100 goals

It was raining in Anfield but it's a good evening for Liverpool F.C. Robbie Keane opened his account by scoring his first goal while Steven Gerard scored his 100 goals for the club. Photos are taken by camera phone.






Getting ticket to the match is not easy for "Out Of Towners", the only way is by paying premium to Thomascooksport.com.

Eid Mubarak

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Eid Mubarak, Maaf Zahir & Batin.





Two portrait photos taken at Hyde Park, London. The weather was nice from Saturday until Monday, temperature around 17 deg C. Today it's overcast and possibly some light shower. The holiday continues anyway.

Ramadhan

It's been a while since the last post, now it's 3rd week of Ramadhan.

So what's new?

• The weather's still hot and dusty.
  
• School started.
  
• English Premier league started.
  
• Canon 5D Mark II released.
  
• Holiday mood started.

15th July in Brunei

These are the photos outside the Taman SOAS, Brunei during the Sultan of Brunei 62nd Birthday Celebration. All were taken with 10-22 lens, camera held above the head, at chest and knee level.

Summer holiday

Our summer holiday started today, tonight we'll be boarding an Etihad flight to Jakarta. A few days in Jakarta and Bandung then off to Brunei. This year we give Singapore a miss, it's just too expensive especially with those hotel rates. We'll be spending some time in KL instead. By August, we'll be back in Oman and hopefully the weather will be much better.

DIY Carry On Camera Bag

Normally during our holiday, I'll be taking all my photography gear for the trip home. The Lowepro backpack that I got can fit all the gear but it's quite heavy for the shoulder.

I started looking for a bag with rollers and found several good bag such as ThinkTank Airport International and Pelican 1514. The price tag including shipment will actually cut deep into the holiday budget.

I then started to look at my Lowepro backpack in details and figuring out the difference with the ordinary backpack. It's all about the padding!

So I decided to modify my carry on bag which already have 4 rollers and approved for carry on the flight.

I got some children foam mat and cut it to fit the bag to act as the first layer of padding.

Another camping foam mat was used on top to cover the metal part. Once the cover is zipped, the bag looks like an ordinary bag.



Another foam mattress was cut to fit the bag to act as another padding for the gear. I then use the backpack dividers for individual padding for each item. Another foam mattress is put on top of the gear to protect everything from the top.


Everything fit in place and the bag is filled up with the gear. Total cost = US$60 (bag) + US$20 (padding) = US$80.

That give me with some spare change - a 2nd body (new 5D) perhaps?

King of Fruit

One disadvantage of living outside one home country is the unavailability of certain item.

One such thing is the king of fruit i.e Durian. The fresh durians are available in the supermarket but its seems never ripe and will turn bad after a few days.

While shopping in a Thai supermarket in Dubai, we found this:

Apparently a Thai company have started selling frozen durian. The taste is considerably much better than the fresh durian that we have here.

One way to enjoy Durian is by making Bubur kacang & durian. Kop Khun Kha to the Thai!

Sheikh Zayed Mosque - Part 5

To end this series is by showing the image from outside the mosque.

For a complete gallery of the mosque, you can click here

Sheikh Zayed Mosque - Part 4 (Carpet)

The patterns and colour of the carpets provide a nice background for some portrait shots.

Sheikh Zayed Mosque - Part 3 (People)

The mosque is not 100% complete. These are some of the people responsible in creating this beautiful mosque.