Ambuyat

Ambuyat is Bruneian Traditional dish which is made from sago. It is commonly consumed in the afternoon with other side dishes. Sago is extracted from rumbia tree after serveral processes. Sago powdered is mixed with room temperature water which allows it to dissolved then mixed with hot water which changes its texture.

Mix sago powder with 1 cup of water by add the water step by step. Mixing well to make sure all sago powder dissolved. Then add hot water(some say don't add the boiling water). So I am guessing the hot water should be about 95-97 C (few seconds after it boils). Add the hot water in slowly and stir at the same time. After a while, stop stiring but keep adding hot water until it stops moving (from the stirring). Then you mix it up so that everything is even. There you go, you have Ambuyat ready.

You will need a special joined wooden sticks called Candas to twirl around the Ambuyat. The you dip it in special sauce and swallow it (no need to chew). The sauces may made from anchovies, pasted (Belacan) and chilly mixed together. There are many other sauces available and Ambuyat goes well with "ikan bakar", pais, local vegetables like umbut, Lamiding, Pucuk ubi, etc.

One day, my manager (he's Portuguese Australian) asked me what is Bruneian cuisine or traditional dish. Straight away I answered Ambuyat. I explained to him what it is like and how to eat it. He asked if he can find it in Australia. Obviously, he has to come to Brunei to try it.

I heard one story, this Bruneian students going overseas (Im not sure how true is this story) and bring sago powder along with him/her. Anything that is white powder is obviously suspicious. So the customs asked him/her to prove that it is Ambuyat, Brunei traditional dish. Then he/she actually shown how to make it to them. Very embarrassing. Why don't they just taste the damn thing. They can tell it taste like starch. Funny story.

There are some restaurants offer Ambuyat in their menu. One of famous restaurant is Aminah Arif located in Kiulap and Jerudong. A must try traditional dish if you visit Brunei

Source: http://www.geocities.com/bruambuyat/sago_paste.htm

Belait Tourist Destinations

Belait is the largest district out of 4 districts in Brunei. This is where most of the oil and gas is found in land and off shore. This is the only place where you can find nodding donkey in Brunei. Ok lets focus on the places that you can visit in Belait based from my personal experience.


1. Oil and Gas Discovery Centre (OGDC). If you never visit OGDC before then you should visit this place. This science centre is under BSP company. I am very impressed with OGDC because they organised many events such as camps, teaching science for kids every friday, electronic workshops and many more cool stuff. They also visit schools to promote science to our youth. Check their website for the tickets price to enter the exhibition centre. I think $5 for adult. Hei thats cheap for an entry. If you think that is expensive, i got nothing to say. Atleast it makes you appreciate every second when you inside the exhibition centre. there are puzzles, tones of information and cool stuff inside. Theres also restaurant and pond where you can feed the fish. So check this place out people!


2. Sungai Liang Recreation Park and forest reserve. If you like hiking and natural habitat, you should visit this place and stay healthy at the same time. Make sure you wear proper gear. The place is not as steep as in Bukit Shah Bandar but if you have not been here, you should visit this place. There is this tower you should look for. It is really good view around Sungai Liang especially during sunset. You will find it if you are lucky. Just ask people around.


3. Bukit Teraja and Wasai. If you want adventure, this place is for you. It takes about 30 mins drive from Sungai Liang to Labi then further up. I recommend you to go hiking at Bukit Teraja first. This place is awesome. There are many rare species and the environment is amazing. The air is so fresh. Best place to relax and release stress. Beware of leeches (Limatak in Malay for this particular species). So make sure you bring matches with you especially if the area is wet. Make sure you bring enough water because it is a long Journey (about 1-3 hours, depend on walking pace and how far you wanna go). Along the way, you will find the first location in Brunei where they try to look for oil. There are holes where past armies used during WW2. Then when you go back, it may takes another hour or less because you going down hill (so be careful). Then if you wanna have a swim, then just go to the wasai near the entrance which is before you reach Bukit Teraja. It is closer. Wasai Wang Kadir (water fall) is further inside and may takes hours to walk unless that is your main destination. It is the best after hard work from hiking Bukit Teraja then swiming in the Wasai. Make sure you bring extra cloth.


4. Kuala Balai. There are many history in Kuala Balai (click for location). They used boats to travel along Sungai Belait to Labi, Rempayoh, Sukang, etc. If you want to visit this place, staying over for a night will be ideal and bring enough food and drinks. Traditional food light Ambuyat will be the best because you feel that you travel back into the future, with kerosene lamp and wooden house.


Important note: There is no electricity and no signal here.


You also can bring insect repelent for that nasty mosquitoes. I am not sure if this place is a good place to fish. It is next to Belait river. I heard rumors there are crocodile there but not sure how true it is. But it is save as long you dont swim there (duh) and you are catious. Overall it is really good place to go in big groups.


5. Pekan Seria. This small town has some good places to eat like satay, chendol, rojak, soto, etc. Keep on exploring and ask around. Near the taxi car park, you can feed the pigeons (burung Acang). There is also market (tamu) near by the town where you can get fresh local fruits, vegies and many more.


6. Tadung Saji. This is where you can find "pasar malam" in Belait especially every night during His Highess birthday (15-31 July). This is where you can get all cheap good food (if you are not familiar with pasar malam) from the stalls.


7. Kuala Belait. The main town in Belait district. This is where you can find all the administration and offices. There are some shops and good restaurants around as well.


8. Rumah Panjang Sukang (long house). This is very difficult to access because you need to use boat to reach here. Im not really sure how to get here but once you reach Labi, just ask people around and they will show you the direction. I will update once I know exactly how to get here. Basically you visit the native tribe (Iban) and learn their culture. Good place to go.


9. Riviera Hotel. This is river front hotel in Belait. Famous Shahryza Restaurant for dining and minutes away from Kuala Belait.


That are some of the tourist destinations in Belait. I will put more destination in the future.

Home Theather

Impressed with your neighbours or relatives home theather system with the big screens and awesome sound? You want to own your very own home theather but dont know how? I can help you with that. Getting the best home theater requires a lot of research because picking the best home theather from the crap one is not easy and you want to make sure it is worth investing. How much? It depends on your budget and your room size. If you want high end stuff, obviously you will need to spend more. No point buying 61 inch tv if you have small room. You have to watch it at its optimum distance.

1. Full HD 1080p tv. Try to get full def plasma or lcd. For bigger screens, aim for plasma. Have a look LED DLP projection tv as well if you looking for 50inch or bigger. Smaller screens like 32 inch, lcd is comparable as plasma and it gets expensive with increasing size.

2. Blueray dvd player. It is very hard to get blueray dvd movies in Brunei and im not sure you are willing to spend 30-50 dollars for one movie. If you do, then get blueray dvd player. Research the best one to get and you might have to order the blueray dvd your self. I recommend ps3 because you can play game and watch movies using the same device. But if you want device just to watch movie, then you have to get blue ray player like sony or panasonic.

3. AV player. This device process the sound to your speakers. So the right setting will produce better sound. Higher power with able to handle bigger speakers. Make sure you choose the right AV player for your speakers including your sub.

4. 5 or 7 speakers. The more speakers obviously the better. 7.1 surround sound requires:

• centre speaker
• 2 front corner speakers or tower speakers
• 2 rear speakers (left and right align of the seating)
• 2 behind speakers (directly behind mid line of the sit and tv)

For 5.1 surround sound, same as above but without behind speakers.

5. Subwoofer. Sub produce the bass (low pitch sound) where you feel the vibration in some parts in a movie. Normally 1 sub big sub is enough and you place it at the front (centre).

6. Cables. Make sure you are willing to invest good quality cables for your home theather. HDMI cables connects your tv to your blueray player (visual) and av cables to your AV player from blueray player and speaker cables from AV player to your speakers (sound).

7. Tv Cabinet. Purchased good tv cabinet so that your tv is at the level of your eye.

For the exact position of the speakers and tv setting, check http://whathifi.com/HowTo/

Source: Whathifi.com

Home theater and sound system for your PS3

Sound system impact 50% of your home theather or gaming system. So make sure you get a good sound systems. I would recommend what hi fi! for sound system reviews. They even teach you how to arrange your speakers, the optimal watching distance for specific tv size and adjust your tv setting.

Full HD tv for your PS3

So if you want to get the best tv for your ps3, it all depends on the size of your room and your budget. If you want freaking huge tv with low budget and big space for your gaming area, i would recommend:

Samsung HLT6187SAX 61-Inch Slim LED Engine 1080p DLP HDTV (im not sure if you can get this in Brunei) . DLP technology is cheaper compared with plasma and LCD tv. Using LED as light source for DLP tv, it may last up to 60,000 hrs which is as long as LCD tv. This tv is the best choice i reckon for gamers. The price? I checked at Amazon.com, its around US$1800-$2000. it should be around $2500-$3000 in Brunei. Check Whathifi.com for the watching distance. It should be around 3-4m. If this model is too big for you, there are other models with 56 inch and 50 inch. Make sure you get the 1080p which is full hd which unleashed your ps3 true potential.

If you have average size room and big budget, I recommend sony bravia x series 42 or 46 inch LCD tv. Even though it going to cost you alot, but trust me its worth the investment. Plus you can use your PS3 to watch blueray dvd (you have to order it tho) at full def (1080p). These tv may cost you around $3300-$5000

If you feel its not worthed spending too much simply because there will be better tv coming out with 5000p or 6000p, then i would recommend lg scarlet, samsung and panasonic viera. Again try to look for Full HD tv (1080p) and obviously Full HD tv is more expensive than HD ready tv (760p).

Try to avoid plasma tv because if you pause the game with bright lights, there is image burns which is not good for the tv. In the long run there will be burn-in or sulphur burns if you play games too long. Plasma in my opinion is only good for watching movies and not really good for long period gaming.

LCD is more expensive as the size gets bigger. So if you have small room, just get 32 inch LCD (sony bravia x or w series or panasonic viera or samsung) with Full HD.

Make sure you do enough research. Even bring your ps3 to the shop and test it there with other brands and compare. When you feel satisfied then purchased the tv because it is alot of money involved.

This info i gathered from reading forums and websites that review tvs like cnet and whathifi.com. My personal choice is definetely LED DLP tv but its hard to get these days. Hope the information is useful.

Dont forget to buy HDMI cable for your ps3. Don't purchase the expensive one unless you are very fussy. It does not make alot of difference as the signal is already in digital (the signals can't be interfered). If you want expensive one, i recommend Monster cable.

Sources: Whathifi.com, cnet.com, amazon.com, ps3forum.com

xbox 360 3 red rings of death

Do you have problems with your xbox freezing up and showing 3 red lights?

This problem can be remedied most of the time. Please email me at bruleisure@live.com or leave a comment regarding your xbox 360 problems.

3 must have games for xbox 360 and ps3

Xbox 360

1. Fallout 3- October, 7
2. Gears of War 2- Nov 7
3. Fable 2- October

PS3

1. MGS 4- already out
2. Tekken 6- December, (to be comfirmed)
3. Fallout 3- October, 7

PS3 vs Xbox 360

So is it worth a money to buy PS3? In my opinion, if you buying PS3 just for MGS4, then it is not worth the money. You need to make the full of your ps3. Mayb start buying blueray dvd. Again you need a full HD tv to get the best out of it. Playing online using ps3 is free where as xbox 360, you need to pay. Now, many good games are not exclusive anymore to ps3, examples FF13, Star Ocean 4, Devil May Cry 4, Resident Evil 4, etc.

So my advice is to get xbox 360 first, play all the good games until you get bored, then when the price is affordable for you, then buy ps3 (if the price depreciates). Im going to buy both since I want to play tekken 6 and MGS4 on ps3, tekken 6 should be released first on ps3 (since it is not being comferm that is exclusive to ps3).

Summary:

Total Cost: PS3 cheaper than xbox 360 (if you add up the additional items like rechargable batteries,etc)
Games options: More good games on xbox 360 than PS3 (only MGS4 on ps3, most you can get them from xbox 360)
Online access: Ps3-free, xbox360-pay

Coffee

I really want to make my own espresso someday. But you will need to invest some money to buy good espresso machine, a good bur blade blender and a good coffee roaster. After you have all these, you need to find green coffee beans supplier, arabica ofcourse.

Never buy ground coffee because it does not taste as good as freshly blend coffee. Coffee is like bread. Green coffee been is the raw coffee. After you roast it (cooking), it will gradually looses its aroma due to oxidation from the air. It normally last 14 days after roasting. Make sure you grind the beans when you want to make a cup of coffee.

There are more stuff to be learn in this coffee world. In Brunei, good quality coffee is not that famous. People don't mind having cheap coffee in Indian restaurants with food as well. Maybe there are some people fancy good quality coffee. That is only my observation though.

Source: Sweet Maria

Tekken 6 Release Date

According to PS3 forum and from Tekken 6 interview, Tekken 6 should be out for PS3 in this December. Is it exclusive for PS3? They have not comferm it yet...I'll be pissed if it is not exclusive for PS3:S That is the reason why I want to buy PS3. FF13 is not exclusive and many more games that are used to be exclusive to sony now become not exclusive. What is happening?

Source: Ps3forums.com and http://www.imagebam.com/image/c8fdf99803844

Tekken 6 movelists

I found this website that shows most of the movelist but in Japanese. But just use google translate to translate japanese to english. It is not really correct but it is good enough to understand

http://www.sunlightyellow.com/tekken6/character/steve.html

World of Warcraft: the Wrath of the Lich King

Hello people. I used to play WoW for 2 years and damn, it stole away my life. I quit WoW last year because because of that as it was so addicitive. Some parts of the world even pay people to play WoW to gather gold in the game. Then they trade the gold in ebay for real money. Anyways, I am just wondering how many Bruneians still playing WOW...The new expansion pack is coming out soon. It is called The Wrath of the Lich King.

In this new expansion pack, there will be the first hero class called "Death Knight" where you can change one of your characters per realm into this hero class at level 55. It is pretty cool class to play because this class can tank or dps as well. Imagine tanking without using shield. That is so cool. Other new stuffs in this new expansion are level cap raised to 80, new profession, destroyable buildings, new quests, new dungeon, new land and more...

For more info, check the official WOW website

Source: WorldofWarcraft.com

GoW 2 game play from E3

Check this out guys. Awesome game. Can't wait till Nov, 7...

Source: E3 and Youtube

Brunei Traditional Games

Last time when I was a kid, we used to play traditional games like "kaki tiga" (the 3 slippers/feet). If you never heard of it, this is how we play it (maybe different to others). First you form 2 teams of 3 atleast. It is like cricket I guess. Instead of having wickets, we use 3 cheap slippers (we called it "slipar jepun"). This is how we played it last time.

First you arranged those slipers so that they stand like a pyramid. The objective is to knock down those slippers at a reasonable distance using a tennis ball, then arranged them back without being thrown out from the game. The protecting team will have to throw the ball to opposing team to kick them out. If the protecting team is able to know all opposing member teams, the win a point. If the opposing time manage to arrange those slippers back in order. You can design your own rules to make it more interesting but that is the concept of it.

Few days ago, we discussed about our past experience when we still kids, what games we played when we were at school. We played like marble balls (guli), "skupong" (dont know the english word for it, knocking pens of the table (haha lame but some even put leads on to make it heavier) and many more.

Today, check out the kids. ipods, handphones with cool softwares and games, psp and lots more. They have better entertainment than us 15 years ago haha. Can't really blame them.

Anyways, share your ideas about Brunei traditional games and sports, especially the uncommon ones that you may have created your selves or from others

Fishing Spots

I know we Bruneians love to fish. How luck, we don't have to measure the fish to check whether it meets the legal size or not. In other countries such as Australia, you need to bring this book which tells you the legal size for various fishes. If you caught a fish under the legal size, you will get a fine if you get caught. Of course you will need a ruler to measure as well. In my opinion, it is good in a way so that it is sustainable (enough fish for future generations).

So, where are the good spots to fish in Brunei? Come on don't be stingy. Share your favourite spot to us.

Source: Centralpark.com

Golf

Initially I thought golf was a boring sport until my friends asked me to have a go. From then I finally realised how difficult golf is. It is a frustrating sport but fun at the same time when you get good results and progress (that is how I feel about golf).

In Brunei, there are not many golf coarses and driving ranges. It is an expensive sport because the equipment it self cost a lot. But hei, just buy a cheap used one if you want to save some money or share with your friends. It is more fun playing with your friends than by yourself (obviously haha unless you don't like your frieds). I don't really have my golf set yet but a good friend of mine lend me his old golf set (he has a better, thats why). Anyways, I heard if you want to start practicing your swing, it is good to start with 7 iron (I am still using 7 iron...and getting sick of it, haha).

I found a video from video jug. The best clips so far on "HOW TO PERFORM THE PERFECT SWING". Check this out

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-perform-the-perfect-golf-swing

Sources: Video Jug & The Golf Fitness Experts

Anticipated Games

Tell us what is/are your anticipated game(s) so far.

Mine are Tekken 6 (PS3), Gears of War 2(xbox 360), FF13 (ps3) and Star Ocean 4 (for xbox 360 so far).

How about yours?

Favourite Xbox 360 games

Tell us what is your favourite xbox 360 game(s).

My favourites are Gears of War and Halo 3. Just can't wait for Gears of War 2 to be released. There better be a tournament in Brunei for this game.

Check this new trailer for Gears of War 2, coming out Nov 7, 08

Sources: Gamespot and Youtube

Tekken 6 characters

What is/are your fav character(s) for Tekken 6 and tell us why?

Last time I used to play Steve Fox. Then I saw this guy plays Marshall Law, he was unbelievable. Made me change and start playing Law.

Check this out

Tekken 6

Lets start with video games in Brunei. I know Tekken is very famous here. Last year 2007, there was a tournament organised by our youth. I heard that these brothers won the tournament. May be they are among the best player in Brunei. I need reliable sources though to comferm this.

Anyways, Tekken 6 arcade has already arrived in Brunei. Must be a lot people playing there. I heard rumours Tekken 6 for PS3 could be out 3 months after Soul Calibur 4. Hope this is true.

Share your ideas about tekken gamers in Brunei people.

Topics

Some topics that will be posted are:

1. Video Games
2. Sports
3. Fun activities
4. Places to visit in Brunei

there will be more topics in the future so stay tuned!