Sailing in Brunei goes to new heights for newlyweds

In any girl’s life, her wedding day is the most important event. Most girls dream about it from a young age, discuss it with their friends and plan it whole-heartedly so that it is the most perfect day for the bride and groom. But planning a wedding is not easy.
Unless you can afford to hire a wedding planner then it’s all down to you. You have so many things to organise and think about. Who will I invite? Who will I get to cater? What will I wear? Who will take the photos and video?

Your wedding day is usually a blur, and you don’t get time to soak it all up until a week after your wedding. When you are more relaxed and have more time, that’s when you sit down and browse through your wedding photos. You look through all the photos from pre-wedding to the wedding day. You get to see your wedding brought back to life but at least now you have the time to enjoy.

Pre-wedding photographs are a very important part of the Bruneian wedding tradition. There are weddings taking place in all areas of Brunei every weekend. My Bruneian friend is never around during the weekends as he is always attending a wedding.

When we established our charter business ‘Sailing in Brunei’, we saw the potential to provide wedding parties with a unique location for their pre-wedding photographs. Photographs in a natural setting with unique and wonderful views.

What better or more unique place can you get than the deck of a wooden yacht? So we decided to make SY Petima available for pre-wedding photographs.

Not only do you get unique photographs onboard our beautiful 25-year-old wooden yacht but all photographs are taken in a natural setting with unique and wonderful views of the Brunei River. You can choose your location and backdrop.



A panoramic view of Bandar from the ‘Dream Charter’ boat sailing along Kg Ayer. – PHOTOS: AIDEEN HENRY
Local bride and groom, Mohammad Radzuan Jamil and Amal Hidayah Shahroni during their pre-wedding photo shoot.
The photographer standing on the spreaders to take photos of the bride and groom from a different perspective.



You can have your photos taken around Kampong Ayer, in the Kota Batu area with a mangrove and fish farm background or the most popular location, Serasa Beach. At Serasa Beach, you can have the beautiful backdrop of islands and beaches at Pulau Pelumpong and the fantastic sunset.

Recently, local bride and groom Mohammad Radzuan Jamil and Amal Hidayah Shahroni booked Dream Charters SY Petima for their very special pre-wedding photographs. Along with the beautiful bride and groom, came their personnel photographers Ahmad Eswadi Hj Mohd Taha and Khairul Nasrin bin Hj Awg Besar from CK Rul Enterprise.

We have taken a lot of pre-wedding photographs previous to this. But what made this photo shoot special was the length the photographer went to get extra special photos of the bride and groom. A lot of people aren’t sure of themselves on a yacht and not many photographers in Brunei have had the experience of taking photos onboard a yacht.

They are not so sure of where they can or cannot stand on and what props on the boat they can use. We encouraged the photographer to meet us beforehand so we can orientate him or her and let them know what to expect.

We try to give them some ideas, such as you can stand on the roof and the bride and groom can lie in the sails or you can use our lifebuoy and make some beautiful photos of the bride and groom looking through it.

This time I mentioned that the best photos you can get is when you climb the mast, not thinking in a million years that the photographer would be the least bit interested.

But much to my surprise, Ahmad Eswadi puts his expensive camera around his neck, strapped himself into our safety harness and we pulled him up the mast to take the most amazing photos yet of this lucky bride and groom.

Once he was up there and standing on our spreaders, he started to relax and feel more comfortable. We had both sails up and were still sailing along the Brunei River while he was up the mast. Ahmad Eswadi realised that he was taking photos from a superb and unique perspective and didn’t want to come down.

He eventually did after taking some fantastic shots and once the sun had set, the group moved inside to take some atmospheric shots of the bride and group from the interior of SY Petima.

‘Dream Charter’ and ‘Sailing in Brunei’ offer pre-wedding photographs for two hours for B$340.

This includes snacks and beverages and you can bring a maximum of five people with you. This is a fantastic opportunity for the most amazing photographs. Don’t miss it! Aideen Henry

Source:news.brunei.fm/

Knicks end 13-game Maverick win streak

DALLAS, Texas -- Avenging a 50-point loss from Janaury, the New York Knicks routed Dallas 128-94 yesterday to snap the Mavericks’ 13-game NBA win streak.

Reserve Bill Walker had a career-high 23 points, Wilson Chandler added 22 and Al Harrington added 20 for the Knicks, who had lost 15 of their previous 16 games with Dallas and nine in a row at Dallas since last winning here in 1999.

"When you’re rolling along and the Knicks are coming in, you figure you can score 150 points on ‘em in your sleep," Harrington said. "But that Knick team didn’t show up today. We caught ‘em by surprise."

The blowout was revenge by the Knicks for a 128-78 loss to Dallas in New York on Jan. 24 that was the most lopsided victory in Mavericks’ history.

"They remembered," Marion said. "They even said something to me about it before the game. They said they were going to give us a spanking."

Mission accomplished. The 84-point reversal from one game to the other was the biggest such differential swing between teams in back-to-back games in NBA history. No team on a win streak of at least 12 games had ever lost by so much.

"Revenge is sweet sometimes," Harrington said. "That’s a really good team over there. But we caught them at the right time. They were ripe for the picking."

The Knicks, among the NBA’s worst clubs at 23-43, jumped ahead early and stayed atop the Mavericks throughout the second half, drpping the Southwest division leaders to 45-22 and behind Denver to third in the Western Conference.

"It was a poor performance all around when you get throughly thrashed like that," Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said.

Knicks rookie Toney Douglas added 21 points and a game-high eight assists while the Knicks had 15 points and 14 rebounds from David Lee.

"We felt they would take us lightly," Douglas said. "A lot of teams look at the schedule and say, ‘Oh, that’s the Knicks. That’s a win.’ But we have got to come out and compete every night."

German star Dirk Nowitzki scored 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to lead the Mavericks while Jason Kidd added 15 points and Shawn Marion had 14 in a losing cause.

The Mavericks, whose last lead was at 20-19 in the first quarter, connected on only 34-of-80 shots from the field and lost for the first time since Feb. 16.

"You especially don’t want it to come to an end like this, but at the same time it was a great run," Marion said. "Now it’s time to start another one. We have just got to learn from it."
Rockets rip woeful Nets
Argentina’s Luis Scola scored a career-high 44 points to power the Houston Rockets past New Jersey 116-108 yesterday, keeping the Nets on pace to have the worst season in NBA history.

A fourth consecutive loss dropped New Jersey to 7-59, leaving the Nets 16 games in which to win three to avoid matching the all-time futility mark in NBA history, the 9-73 campaign of the Philadelphia 76ers in 1972-1973.

The Nets led 55-54 at half-time and kept the game close into the fourth quarter, but could not shut down the Rockets, who at 33-31 are 10th in the Western Conference, five games behind Portland and the last play-off spot.

Scola grabbed 12 rebounds and shot 20-for-25 from the field for the highest-scoring night for any Houston player this season. Kevin Martin added 20 points and Aaron Brooks had 18 points and seven assists for Houston.

Courtney Lee led the Nets with 24 points while Brook Lopez added 24 points and 10 rebounds for New Jersey, which lost the final four games of their five-game road trip. -- AFP

Source:bworldonline.com/

Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks to begin Monday

New Zealand will open trade talks in the Australian city of Melbourne for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with the United States, Brunei, Chile and Singapore.

The trade talks could pave the way for a trade deal between New Zealand and the United States, the New Zealand Press Association reported on Sunday.

The TPP would build on the previously negotiated P4 trade agreement between New Zealand, Brunei, Chile, and Singapore with the first round of talks to expand the agreement with the inclusion of the U.S., Australia, Peru and Vietnam

The first round of negotiations to expand the TPP was to take place a year ago, but the U.S. postponed the first set of talks at the last minute, in the wake of the Obama inauguration.

Now, the United States is ready to start five days of talks in Melbourne next week.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has described the TPP as its "most important trade negotiation, working toward a free-trade agreement with the United States".

The New Zealand government has already appointed former prime minister and World Trade Organization (WTO) boss Mike Moore as ambassador to Washington, with instructions that a U.S. free trade deal is a priority.

Source:english.people.com.cn/

Brunei-Muara District Office donates to fire victims

Donations were presented to eight fire victims yesterday at the Brunei-Muara District Office in Berakas.
The donations came from the Brunei-Muara District Office Charity Fund and were presented by Dato Paduka Awang Hj Mohd Yussop bin Bakar, the Brunei-Muara District Officer.

Donations were presented to Hj Kula Majair, Ma'arof Chee and Hjh Fadzillah Ma'arof from Kampong Bakut Siraja Muda B, whose houses were affected by fire on December 25 last year.

Another recipient of the donation was Bungsu Hj Abu Bakar from Kampong Skim Tanah Kurnia Rakyat Jati Lambak Kiri, whose house was affected by fire on February 26.

Hj Noor Azlan Hj Sulaiman, Mohd Arif Matusop, Ismail Hj Muhammad, Noor Insan Hj Sulaiman and Noorazman Hj Sulaiman from Kampong Lambak B, whose house was destroyed by fire on March 11, were also presented with donations.

As an added incentive by the Brunei-Muara District Office, a wheelchair was donated to Kassim Timbang from Rimba who is suffering from paralysis. Adanan Taha @ Awang Mohamad, Village Head of Kawasan 1, Rancangan Perumahan Negara Rimba, accepted the wheelchair on behalf of Kassim.

The Brunei-Muara District Office also donated food provisions for the fire victims for the duration of a month.

Source:brunei-online.com/