20th International Borneo Safari 2010

Around this time of year I am always excited to see the modified 4 wheels in KK ready for safari action! I have never owned a pimped up 4 wheeler in my life and only been on one Borneo Safari in my life, but this dream of owning a Land Rover Defender has alwasy been on my mind. I missed this year's event cos I didn't make a phone call early enough to book a spot on my favorite Land Rover..owned by old buddy Billy Yapp Nan Thien @ Touki from Ranau.

This is what its all about..

Trip to the Snowy Mountains with fellow Sabahans

I don't know why we have not made this trip while Trixie and Kimo were here, but for sure we will go when they come back here in Australia. Connie and Tom made the invite to me on Friday. Along on the trip is Connie's nephew Rizal, niece Bibie and our family friend and Kimo's honorary Auntie, Kelly. We were at the snowline by around 11am and started playing in the snow. These are some photos I took of us playing.

A few hours at the Floriade, Canberra

Floriade is the biggest flower festival in Australia, a spectacular celebration of spring, set in Canberra's Commonwealth Park.

We planned to go to the one-month event earlier but it had been raining and cold, so finally the weather was better yesterday. As for me, I have never really seen so many tulips in my life. I wanted to see some 'black tulips' which I read about when I was a kid. Creating a black tulip was the holy grail for the flower enthusiasts back in the days in Holland. As much as I could see, however, were no black tulips at the Floriade, just really dark maroon ones.

Here are a mix of family and Floriade pictures I took.

Family picnic at Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra

Life here in Canberra is very different from the comfort zone we had in Sabah. It has changed dramatically from the weather to our lifestyle. Adjusting to a different climate, looking for jobs, re-tuning my ears from Malaysian English to Aussie English, re-tuning my accent so that locals can understand me and so forth.

The biggest challenge so far is looking for a job, whatever it is. Trixie and Kimo both go to school and I am doing my part by sending and picking them up. But still, I feel very weird not doing anything. I have applied, and still am applying, for all kinds of jobs here and there, but it seems it takes time to get reply, so now is just a waiting game.

Earlier today we had a brunch at Auntie Connie's house cos a Sabahan friend came by from Sydney so we Sabahans had a small get together. Enjoyed the curry and the roti canai.

Anyway, after last week's hospital stint, we felt we needed to chill out and go out for a picnic as a family. Trixie packed a small snack for us and off we went driving till we ended up seeing multitudes of people by Lake Burley Griffin (only found out the lake's name from the internet after we got home), so we also looked for a spot. The day was warm and we had time to take a family photo, something we always wanted to do since Kimo was born, actually these photos could be one of the best we had taken.

More picnic photos in my Facebook.