Lutong Cafe

I've long heard that Lutong Cafe serves the best porridge in Miri and people travel all the way here just to have the porridge. Well actually this coffeeshop (just across from Kelab Rekreasi Petroliam) is just 10 minutes drive from home! But they finish fast and we were never up early for it. So I've only tried their fried rice and fried noodles for lunch. But last Friday we woke up early to go Brunei so we decided to have breakfast at Lutong Cafe. Augustine ordered kolo mee (possibly the cheapest place to eat kolo mee for RM2!).

I ordered one bowl of porridge to share with Augustine's mom. Long after finishing our drinks also the porridge hasn't arrived. I think we waited more than half an hour! Sigh, the reason is coz the porridge is not cooked using normal gas stove but using charcoal fire. Using charcoal they can't control the fire and heat I guess. Everyone else who ordered this porridge was waiting very patiently as well. The porridge costs RM3 and u can choose to add an egg, like how u add an egg to your claypot yee mee when it's ready! Yummy! Using charcoal fire really makes a difference to the taste! We're not sure what type of rice they use to cook the porridge though. A lot of people told us about the "highland rice" here which makes very good porridge, we plan to buy some soon ;-)

Below is a picture I took of the porridge ;-)

Carmen

Kelab Rekreasi Petroliam

Augustine joined Kelab Rekreasi Petroliam (formerly known as Kelab Shell Lutong) recently and I was pretty impressed with the sports facilities they have here, although it's highly unlikely I will be using them all. Sofar I've only gone to the gym, it's called "Why Gym", not sure why! And the badminton courts (air-conditioned!). And we sometimes read newspapers in the lounge. The pool looks good and I can't wait to try it next (waiting for Augustine to get a new pair of goggles). They've also got a playground for the kids, restaurant, karaoke lounge and snooker etc, meeting rooms and fields and courts for beach volleyball, netball, basketball, football, futsal, tennis, squash, hockey, etc. They also organise aerobics, dancing, cooking, yoga, karate, chess for kids etc. And there are events held here from time to time as well, for example we came here for Augustine's company Raya open house last Sunday for makan-makan ;-)

Carmen

Word Challenge

Update
Augustine's latest scores : 14656 LOL

I am not one who likes computer games but Augustine is and he was a little addicted to this game in Facebook since a couple of weeks back. He convinced me to also play the game recently and for almost 2 weeks, we were at it almost every night! He was almost always ahead of me but last night, with his assistance (I have to admit it), I achieved 16447 points, way ahead of his last achievement of 14317 points LOL. Well, we decided that we wont be playing anymore from today, instead we'll be blogging here a lot more. We'll see ;-)

For those who are interested, the game is all about creating words from the letters provided as fast as you can in 2 minutes, and you'll get extra seconds everytime you find a word with four letters or more. And when you manage to unscramble the full word (sometimes there are more than one), you get a chance for a bonus round to unscramble your Facebook friends’ names for extra points. Now you can see why it gets pretty fun especially if you play it together with friends right hehe. At the end, you'll get a funny rating like whether you are a drill sergeant, salesman, saleswomen, circus ringmaster, teacher, rock star, student, etc depending on your scores, right now I am a scientist LOL.

Try it for yourself! Enjoy! ;-)

Carmen

Faith. Hope. Love

Hmmm what shall I write...since Augustine was talking about adapting in his first post, I 'd like to share a message we heard in church last Sunday.

Senior Pastor preached about faith, hope and love, one verse he referred to was Hebrews 11:8 "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going."

I was very encouraged by this verse as I have been thinking on and off about the relocation all the way here from our comfort zones back home in PJ/KL. In fact, the night before, we were again talking about this, if this was indeed the best for both of us and so on.

And Pastor in his message said we can liken Abraham's experience to ours where when something seemed to be our only avenue of blessings - our job and family back home in this case, and God then asks us to give it up for something we are not sure of.

Do we have faith in Him? Faith is all about obeying God anyhow, being sure of what we hope for, certain of what we do not see. Which is why we need to continue to build our faith and learn to lean on Him and seek Him constantly for wisdom and guidance in all that we do. God certainly is more eager to bless us than we are to receive His blessings!

I thank God for His assurance and I look forward to continue my journey here with Augustine.

Next I wanna write about our day in Brunei ;-)

Carmen

118th Day in Miri (more to come!!!)

It has been 118 days since I first settled down in Miri. One small city that is rich in oil and gas in the land of Borneo...first journey to my new career and livelihood.

Almost everything is new. New and delicious food, new place to stay, new culture to adapt, new career expectations, new neighbourhood, new landmarks.....endless newness!!

After adapting to almost new life in the city now, me and Carmen decided to create a blog to share our experiences with others. All comments are welcomed!!

Augustine