Situated at the heart of Borneo, the Kingdom of Brunei is one of the richest nations in Asia and in the world. It was all so quiet and it may be a tiny country but still, it is not one that's over crowded and traffic is not a very big issue unless it's rush hour.
Last September 2018, me and my high school best friends went to explore this quiet but golden country with only half a million citizens. It was scorching hot to be honest but the air was clean, probably because of the neighboring rainforests that supplies so much oxygen and clean air to this tiny nation.
Here are some snaps from our trip to it's capital, Bandar Seri Begawan. (Warning: You'll get to see me and my crazy friends striking some funny poses)
The Royal Regalla Museum
Beautiful canals by the Marketplace
Prayers at the Teng Yun Temple
Took this photo of my friends at Teng Yun Temple
Inside the Empire Hotel at Bandar Seri Begawan
Judy, Myrcel, Dianne, Angelica, Lara, Stevenson, Marvin, and Faith
Lockdown has been semi-lifted here in the Philippines but yes, not because it's safe already but to prioritize the economy and the businesses. Sadly, this is not what most people take of it and they started to gather round outside even if it's clearly unsafe yet and the numbers are not getting any lower. So I still stay at home, for 66 days now to be exact, without leaving our gates. Thanks to my brother who gathers our supplies from the outside world. And with all this time, I surely miss a lot of people, especially my best friends.
I have been blessed to have a lot of friends that are true to me and very caring and tested through out the years. But the closest ones I have aside from my college friends are who I call my Life Long friends. because we literally are life-long friends since we have all been classmates since Kindergarten until High School. We are a group of 8, 7 classmates since kinder - RJay, Judy, Stevenson, Myrcel, Lea, Faith, and Ivy - then we were joined by our best friend Dianne who moved to our school after Elementary graduation.
2002 - A photo of us seven during 6th grade
They will probably kill me when they saw that photo. We all parted ways during college because we took different degrees and went to different universities but we still kept in touch at times but not as much as when we all graduated college when we started to spend more time together again.
2010 - Dinner at Tagaytay with our best friend Ferdie
When we all started working and had our own jobs, we usually get together every other weekend. We are usually joined by our best friend Ferdie who was our class Valedictorian and the best cook in our group. We are the kind of friends who are not into drinking or clubbing, we all just want to eat and eat and eat! And through the years we also started to travel together around the country.
2015 - Camiguin, Philippines
2017 - Notice how we maintain our positions :)
Two of the group have married already and started their families but that does not stop us from making time for each other as much as we can be complete. Ivy got married last 2015 and now lives in Mindanao, the largest island on the south of our country, with her husband and two daughter. Faith got married last 2018 and now lives in Cebu another major island in the central Philippines with her husband Marvin. Lea flew to the Middle East to work there as a nurse, and Dianne was relocated to Paris by her company.
Our 2019 Photoshoot
The one above was the last time we were altogether, January of last year. When Ivy was home from Mindanao, Lea was home from Kuwait, Faith has not yet moved to Cebu, and Dianne was still fixing her papers for Paris. My heart will always be happy whenever I think about all of us together again, they are my Home. We would have been this summer actually because Lea and Dianne were planning to get here in August if not for the virus and Faith can always fly here as long as we tell her in advance and all seven of us would have flown to Mindanao to complete our 8 at Ivy's.
It's very sad that I know, they all want to be home as well to be with their families here but they just can't. So last Monday, I thought of singing another song, this time dedicating it for all the Filipinos abroad who will trade anything just to be here and back home in our country they call home. I hope you all would like it, we all long for home.
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I would love to welcome and invite everyone to join this new Linky that I thought of starting - Timeless Thursdays. (Bear with me for any short-comings, this is my first link ever)
Timeless Thursdays is open for anyone who wishes to share old photos or old thoughts that you would like to share as beautiful memories with everyone. This can be from yesterday, a year ago, or something from your grandma's treasure chest.
This runs every Thursday at 12 am (Manila/Perth Time) until Wednesday the same time (12 am)
