Parking at the Airport

I was waiting for my sister to arrive from Kuala Lumpur on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately there were also 3 other flights arriving within 15 minutes of each other. You can just picture how congested the airport parking area would be at that time. While waiting for my sister, I heard a car horn. It was a driver frustrated by a being blocked by another car waiting for a parking space to be vacated by an empire limousine.

This is typical parking ethics of Brunei Drivers. That driver wanted to park as close as possible to the arrivals hall. He blocked up the traffic for nearly 5 minutes. Just imagine how inconsiderate this guy was to the cars behind him, one of which was a taxi carrying a visitor to the country. The wife of the offending car even got out, went to check the arrivals screen, then came back to the car and took her daughter out of the car to wait within the arrivals hall. All of this happened while the car was still waiting for the parking space to be vacant. I do not think the driver minded as he was in a comfortable black lexus GS300. Eventually the driver of the limousine came back with the paid ticket and vacated the parking area.

Within the confines of the aiport, I could see a few bad parking ethics of Brunei drivers. I am so sorry to say that this is the mental state of some our drivers in the country and I have to emphasis that not all Bruneians are like this. To relieve my boredem, I decided to note down some of the poor practices that I saw on that day.

1. Park as near as possible to where you want to go. In this case it was the arrivals hall, specifically close to the ramp for the baggage trolleys. One should ignore other empty spaces. In other cases it can also be shop entrances or ATM machines.
2. Ignore obvious signs, either painted on the road or posted nearby. After the commotion, I managed to capture a photo of an MPV trying to park in the disabled spot. I think the driver saw me take a photo and decided to move away. Classic signs that are also ignore include "No Waiting", "VIP parking", "No Parking" and "Tow away warnings". The clamping sign is usually followed but I think some drivers confuse this with "Waiting area"
3. I can park anywhere as long as I am not blocking traffic. I think this is self explainatory. This was evident at the airport especially next to where the cars are parked diagonally. This creates slower traffic and can even be dangerous to other road users and pedestrians.
   
4. Always wait for cars to vacate their slots. Especially if the slot is close to the destination. No matter how long it takes for the person to put all the shopping in the car. Sometimes it is quite hard to fault these drivers, but some drivers block the whole way, even if there is enough space for another car to fit through. Some drivers even drive around parking areas slowly, following people with baggage trolleys to their cars.
   

I think I might have written quite a bit of the negative side of parking etiquette. There were also a few f=good points on parking that I saw on Sunday.

1. Enough parking space for everyone. Eventhough the area looked congested, there were still enough parking spaces for everyone, probably because people kept leaving the parking area.
2. Cheap/Affordable parking. the rate for parking at the airport is on par with the other paid parking in the country. 50cents per half hour is still quite good. Other airports would have charged more. There is also the premium area, but unfortunately on that afternoon it was blocked by the car waiting for that parking.
3. No excessive honking. I have to say, I only heard one car horn on that day. No other drivers lost their temper. I think this is a good mannerism of our drivers as compared to other countries.

In short, we should obey basic parking rules and use our common sense to park our cars. If we have no choice but to park at a distance, look at it as an oppurtunity to exercise and walk that extra distance to where we want to go.

Sigup

Sigup means rokok. Initially I thought this word was only used in Brunei but it seems like it is also used in Sabah and Sarawak.

Well, looks like tobacco is front page news again. It was in this weeks Friday Prayers Sermon. This is one of the best sermons on smoking yet. I particularly like the way verse from the Holy Quran was used to denounce the habit. Smoking is dangerous for the smoker as well as those around the smoker, also known as passive smoking. This includes families and loved ones. Smoking is also named as a wasteful habit, imagine how much money is wasted by smokers.

The sermon also pointed out that this years theme for World No Tobacco Day celebrations is "Tobacco: Deadly in any form or disguise". Form means any mothod of delivery of this deadly substance. Most common is cigarettes, death in a small package. Others include cigars, pipes, chewing tobacco and shisha.

In Brunei, shisha seems to be a trend amongst youngsters especially in certain restaurants I will try not to name. I have even seen young teenagers sharing the deadly smoke in the premises. Eventhough smoke would pass through water first, the deadly chemicals and carcinogens (cancer causing agents). The addiction will start from this point and a lifelong destructive habit will also begin.

Tobacco can also be disguised. To individuals who do not smoke this may sound absurd, how can something so obvious be disguised to trick smokers to continue smoking and would-be smokers be trapped into the habit. There are many ways to disguise the dangers of smoking. They are marketed as low tar, mild, slim and some even have flavoring such as apple, fruity. There are even fancy packaging, I have even seen some boxes in duty free shops resembling perfume boxes.

The sermon also mentioned the Tobacco Act 2005. This is a huge step in the control of tobacco in Brunei. I have seen the FAQ, will try to post it in the next few days so more people will know about it.

Lastly, help is available for smokers who are willing to stop smoking. There are Smoking Cessation Clinics in every district now.

This is just a brief view of the problem and I hope the authorities will be able to get the support from the public to reduce the problem of smoking in the country. Please give me your thoughts.

Sore throats

Well, I am recovering from my sore throat but I am still away from work. I was informed of a few meetings that I was supposed to go to but unfortunately I will not be able to make it there.

I had a comment in my first post regarding remedies for sore throat.

Sore throat?

Drink warm water, add some Manuka honey (di supasave ada) and few slices of lemon.

To relieve my boredom, I decided to do a bit of researching on sore throats. By definition, it is an infection of throat. There are many structures in the human throat, including that thing hanging down in the middle (called uvula). Bruneians tend to say sore throats as sakit leher but many use the term tonsil. I think they say tonsil because most of us associate sore throat with tonsillitis, inflammation of the tonsils. More than 90% of all sore throats are caused by virus rather than bacteria.

Treatment of sorethroats are usually symptomatic, therefore the commentor's advice on drinking warm water with honey and lemon are quite correct. This helps to soothe the throat. Salt water is also adviced but I tend to choke on it. My personal preference is hot sweet tea and lemon which reminds me of lemsip without the paracetamol inside. Lozenges are also quite good. Antibiotics are not needed in most cases.

I'm glad that my throat is improving, after a few days stuck at home is enough for me. The problem with having a sick leave is that you have to rest at home and recover.

Second time lucky

I have decided to move back to blogspot and write my blogs here. I wanted use wordpress because it used to be quite hard to register there. I do not want to add to the debate on which is better, blogspot or wordpress. I guess it comes down to your personal needs and preference.

I am quite impressed with the overall look of wordpress themes and the sidebars available for bloggers. The only problem is that I felt quite limited by how much code I can edit in wordpress. I want to put a tagboard on the blog as well. I also want to categorise my posts so that it will be easy for me to see what I have written on certain topics, but I am sure there must be a way to do this on blogspot. So I guess I will stay with blogspot/blogger.

Nothing much happening today as I stayed home most of time as I still have a bit of a cold.

My first thoughts

Howdy,

Well, this is my first post. I have to be honest, this is probably my fifth or tenth blog which I have started in the past 12 months. I don’t actually remember how many blogs I have but I do know that all of them have not been updated over the past few weeks. I guess I just don’t have the time lately.
It’s a quiet night for my actually. I have not been feeling well. I managed to get some time off work due to a sore throat. I think I will take this time to recurperate, physically as well as mentally from my busy life. Eventhough I feel tired, feverish and uncomfortable with this infection, I kinda feel that I will be a better person when I get back to work.

I have been reading a few blogs from fellow Bruneians and it seems like blogs are more organised now. Not all blogs are bad I realise. Some are quite informative and constructive. I particularly like the blogs on the daily life of the country.

So once again, welcome to another blog from a Bruneian. I do hope I can maintain this blog