Ardennes Trip

Last year Faris went on a 4-days school outing to the Ardennes in Belgium. Zim also went on a similar trip but in 2006. The main purpose is to teach the children to be more independent and perform team work activities.

Enjoy the song - A Dutch song which reached no. 1 in 2006 by Guus Meeuwis.
The name of the song is "Geef Mij Je Angst" which means "give me your fear".

Days at the Museum

Some photos taken during out trips to visit the many great museums in London and Paris. One can see many of the world's greatest historical collections, well laid out and arranged for all of us to learn and see.

Father and Son Bonding

Today while walking to catch a bus to watch a movie in town, Ish said he likes to think this outing as a 2-hour father-son bonding moment! Actually it is true and is something that we greatly cherish while living in Holland, that we do spend quality time together with our kids. May not be the case in Brunei when parents are forever busy with all sort of commitments whereas children don’t really know what common things to do worth going together with parents apart from going to family functions.

We watched Kite Runner – an excellent and brilliantly made movie. It has quite a moving storyline, will guarantee to shed a few tears along the way, giving a unique depiction of living in Afghanistan before and after the Russian war. The ending was quite poigant with the main actor starting to rediscover his faith. What were also amazing are a few verses of Koran beautifully read at some of the scenes. Most of the actors and actresses seemed to be Afghanis themselves.

Summer of 2007 - Part 2

Here's the second part. This is the return leg from Venice via Austria and Germany. In all we went through 7 countries.

Summer of 2007 - Part 1

Here's the first of two videos of our 10-days driving in the Summer of 2007 heading South to Belgium, France, Switzerland and Italy before turning back to Holland via Austria and Germany.

Thin Air in Mount Aconcagua

One of my staff is off for 3 weeks climbing Mount Aconcagua in Argentina. It is the highest mountain outside Asia, standing at 6,962m or 22,841 ft. He set off last week from Amsterdam via Madrid to Santiago in Chile before taking another flight to Mendoza in Argentina. From Mendoza its about 100km to the foot of the mountain.

The biggest problem with such an extremely high climb is attitude sickness for lack of oxygen. The air gets thinner and apparently the key thing for climbers is to get acclimatised quickly. The climber's motto is "climb high, sleep low", referring to climbing higher to acclimatise but returning to lower elevation to sleep. Climbers normally climb 300 metres in a day but come back down at 200 metres and sleep. Thus it can take up to 10 days to reach the summit from base camp.

Is GCSE A-Level Getting Easier?

Now is the time for A-level results to come out. Every year top grades have improved again on average. No doubt the standards in schools are rising and we are getting better at getting the best from our young people. It’s not uncommon to hear someone you are familiar with getting 3 or 4 straight A’s. There is a big but….. that the teaching is getting more "exam passing" focused more than anything, which is bettering the grades achieved by students. They are being trained, molded in extra tuition classes, specifically for the exams and the types of question normally set rather than gaining a general pool of knowledge that used to be tested years back.

Most top universities now require additional University entrance test as they cannot rely wholy on A-level results. Its their ways of better differentiating between candidates. Next year in UK an A* grade will be introduce at A level. See how that will turn out to be.

To Dare Is To Do!

That’s the motto of Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club, yours truly have been a loyal supporter for 29 years.

Last night we watch an exciting Carling Cup Semi-final on Sky - Spurs thrashed arch rival Arsenal "aka" The Gunners 5-1. It was a very remarkable win as it has been 9 years since Spurs beat them. And beat them well this time. The fans at the stadium were absolutely delirious and the atmosphere was buzzing and now we can look forward to a final. Wembley here we come…………..

Here’s a photo outside the stadium when we went to visit the ground last year.

The Making of an F1 Star

The kids are now crazy about go-karting. They have been racing almost every weekend now and breaking their own records. Ish always come first and now doing below 52 seconds per lap. That's just 10 seconds behind the fastest set on the track by an adult with a 270cc engine, much more powerful than the 160cc used by kids. And 7 seconds behind his dad!

Ish is now handling the overtaking and cornering better, making a big difference in the timing compare to Zim who seems to be sliding all the time especially on tight corners. The kids now want to try out other tracks. There are nearly 50 karting tracks in whole of Holland. Pick your choice! Here's the video from today's race.

Halal Food Fair in Rotterdam

The estimate of the value of global Halal market range from US$500 billion to US$2 trillion. Staggering! The US$500 billion is based on an estimate per capita Muslim spending on such products of US$300 per year, the world Muslim population is about 1.6 billion people. Muslims are expected to account for 30% of the world's population by 2025. Currently the Halal food market accounts for only 12% of global trade in agro-food products, hence there are still major growth opportunities in this area.

Now many countries, including non-Muslim, such as Canada and Australia, are hot on heels on these. Europe was the first to venture back in the 70s, such as Denmark and the Netherlands, servicing the Middle-East and the Far-East needs. But the growth in the Muslim population, increasing concern on Halalness raised a new spectre of opportunities. Everyone has to be quick to set an early entry. This food fair is one of those small steps made by a distributor from Malaysia. It’s an open playing field. Siapa lambat nda dapat!

Windy Rotterdam

A nice walking area along River Rhine. Today we went to Rotterdam to see a Halal food fair organized by a Malaysian distributor. This is the view next to the food fair.

The port of Rotterdam is the largest in Europe. It’s not easy to appreciate the size of this ‘gate to Europe’ as the port facilities are stretched over a distance of 40 km. The whole port area itself is about 105 km2 or a fifth the size of Singapore. The other important statistic is the number of cranes – over 300 in all servicing the thousands of ships coming in and out every year.

An Exclusive Tour of Amsterdam & The Hague

Here's some photos from last week....Holland is an interesting place to visit. There are lots of small museums each worth spending a short hour or so.

20 years of finding oil…..

It is said – If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years, grow trees. If you want 100 years, grow people. A friend of mine just quit his job from this big company with a pecten sign. When we were both introduced to the oil scene back then, people said there's only 20 years of oil left. So there we were with many people quietly involved in the search. Alhamdulillah, all the rezeki are from God Almighty, the next generation of Bruneian will benefit from it. It is the time to pass on the baton. We have grown the people. Our younger explorers are there to take over.

The explorers’ playing field will get bigger soon. Iraq is opening up this year. Lots of companies will jump in, needing all the already scarce expertise worldwide. According to American Association of Petroleum Geologist – the best paid geologist is when you have 20-24 years experience. The average international salary for that group is now US$141K. But that’s nothing compare to young Lewis Hamilton whose new contract reportedly worth around £10m per year, or £200,000 per week. This guy does not need to find oil. He burns it big time.

This one is for Jordan

Egypt Holiday Photos

Here's some photos from our trip to Egypt last year. A bit late ..but we only found out just recently how to make a video clip!!! so sad......

Hijrah 1429 and Fiz's Birthday.

Two big things happened yesterday. First was the new Hijrah year. Its definitely not forgotten here. Everybody in the office were reminding and greeting each other.

The second was Fiz turning 15 (Yes FIFTEEN). No special celebration. Just a big card - well actully a very big card (see photo).

Our Earth and OJ287

Something for all of us to ponder deep in our mind. That's Earth. That's home. That's us. Looks massive. But the earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. On BBC news today, astronomers have weighed the biggest known black hole or super Sun in the Universe. The object, called OJ287, is 18 billion times more massive than our own Sun. That’s 6000 TRILLION times (6,000,000,000,000,000) more massive than our Earth.

And there are black holes and suns in every galaxies. Astronomers say that there are probably more than one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. So our Earth, on one of it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, is actually just like a dust, suspended in this massive Universe. Masha'Allah!

Winterberg Family Photos

Everyone having fun......

Girls on Film........

December Holiday Photos

Happy New Year 2008

Hi all. Since this blog was started in early 2007, we have managed to put 199 posts in all. The blog very much captures our activities and many trips during the year.

Last night was crazy night in Holland. Its end of the year firework night where you literally burn money to make a loud bang. All the neighbours have their own stocks and would be ashamed if you don't join in as well and show your own fireworks. Its estimated the Dutch spent about 50 million Euros on the night alone on firework, its like war, very noisy and smoky. The whole country turns alive at the turn of the clock.

Happy New Year to all. Hope you all have good health, all the success and received plenty of blessings from God AlMighty. Amen.
Here's a video from home.

Another one is a youtube of Amsterdam same night - much similar to what we experience at home - like war.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjzB6HVgYmw
This one is from the Hague last year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wHtD1YAxTg