A Walk in the Park

During a work trip in Brunei, both my GM and CEO were both in the country. However, my GM left a day earlier, leaving me to entertain my CEO. His Friday was pretty much occupied with meetings with my client's MD, but I had to bring him out to dinner. By his choice, dinner was at Tamu Selera that night. Really a place for the locals where you get rickety wooden furniture covered with sticky vinyl covers. At first, it was kind of awkward. We didn't know what to say to each other. As we started tucking into the ayam penyet, he suddenly found that he could talk about his family with me. Just between us, we polished off three ayam penyet and one pecel lele, with three small bowls of fiery sambal. No wonder the grumpy lady forced me to buy a huge bottle iced lemon tea-- we really drank it till the last drop.



When we stood up, we could really feel the oily, deep-fried stuff weighing heavily in our tummies. My CEO immediately informed the driver that we would be walking back to the hotel. A manageable distance really. We took the scenic route, weaving into the bazaar that was going on in conjunction with the festivities of the Sultan's 71st birthday. Basically a night market of sorts with lots of food and shopping. There was even a stage where a religious quiz was going on. That's stressful entertainment in my opinion. From there we walked to Taman Omar Ali Saifuddin where they had allowed access into the field. Families loitered there, letting their kids run around and kick some ball. Truth be told, I had never seen so many people and cars congregate at one place in this sleepy town. Must be quite a major event for them.