F1 | Mercedes GP vs. McLaren 2010

Mercedes has confirmed the buy-in of Brawn GP, hence for F1 2010 Mercedes will have its own team, yet, Mercedes has agreed to supply engine for McLaren til 2015.

So now the questions are, will Button be paired with Hamilton in the McLaren, hence the all-British team, and Mercedes GP might be having Nico Rosberg as one of their driver.

But what will happen to Kimi?

Some questions need to be answered soon.

From the earlier image of Mercedes GP, it looks like they might retained their silver look livery, whereas McLaren might be back to their orange livery, but all of these yet to be confirmed.

F1 2010, seems to be an interesting one, with Korea as a new add-on track, and the Montreal, Canada is back on the calendar.

Who cares about Ferarri! By mid-season Alonso and Massa might have their rift, just like Hamilton & Alonso, when they were together at McLaren.


Lewis Hamilton's helmet, side by side with the McLaren-Mercedes F1 steering wheel. If you look carefully on the bottom left of the steering wheel, there is a white button for drink, yeap, they do "drink" and drive, or drink and race, rather!

GF COMIC | Talk No Use ...

Another everyday observation.


*Click image for a larger version.
** Feel free to copy and paste, for non-commercial purposes only, but please do not alter in it anyway.

In the midst of the Flu A H1N1, everybody seems to be taken some precautions, by getting some sanitisers, face mask and such, so one day during lunch, some time before the fasting month, saw this guy wearing face mask, but ironically, there is a lit cigarette on his hand!!

And despite, the Non-Smoking in public areas By-Law, still saw many patrons puffing those toxic fume, especially in those al-fresco dining, and the fumes is equally harmful to those non-smokers sitting next table!

So Please, look at the man in the mirror.

CAMBODIA | Sowree & Friends Go to School

Hi all, Sour Sdei, Happy New Year 2009!

Traditionally, education were offered by the wats (Buddhist temples). Then in 1975 when Khmer Rouge regime came into power, education systems were abolished, destroying learning materials and schools. But in 1979, the new Cambodian Government came into place, and soon after that modern education came into order.

And this is my short humble story.


My name is Sowree*, I am a year 3 student in Cambodia. My parents said that, if I study hard, when I grow up, I can become a succesful entrepeneur, and helps to improve the live of our family and also to better improve the living quality of our country.

I know most of my friends around the world started their new school term last week, and now I would like to share our daily school day in where we live.


We have a very small wooden school in our village, it only have a single clasroom, and we have to take turn to use the area for our study.


Not all children are able to study, my friend Sokha, is still not eligible to study, but he always come to school, watching and observing what the student are learning.


These are two of my friends, Samay and Channe. Samay feels sad because this is the first time he attended the class and the first time being away from his family.


This is what we are learning today, and on the board is our alphabets. That is our teacher, Ms. Rom Chang. We love our teacher because, our teacher have taught us how to read and write.


Mr. Montha is also one of our teachers. He is a very humble guy, and when we are sad, he always entertained us with his magician skills and his joke, although his jokes and magics were sometimes lame, but we just laugh with him as not to hurt his feeling. (Don't tell him that, that is our secret.)


This is when my friends were shown one of our workbooks, and they were praised of having a good high marks. I am proud of them.


Breaktime is one of our favourites. We can eat our food. The food are usually prepared at home by our parents, so we eat it and share it with our friends.

Oh, I have not actually mentioned the whereabout of my school.

This is our school. It is actually a floating school. I was informed that some of my friends in Brunei also have lots of schools built on the water, and some are connected via jetties.

Unfortunately, we do not have jetties connecting from one school to another, as each individual establishment are built on its own boat or barrage. So how do we get to school?


This is how we get to school, by human powered paddle boat. That is my friend, Prak, rowing the boat to school, carrying along his small sister, Veatta. It will get more interesting if it is a rainy day. Although at times we wanted to just swim to school but the teacher do not allow us, because it will wet our school uniforms.

Now, I will also share with you, how my other friends living on land travel to their school.


For those lucky few, they are sent to the school by their father on motorbike.

Otherwise, we just cycle to school. A good form of exercise to keep ourselves healthy, who knows we might represent the country for the Olympics!


And for those who cannot afford to get a bicycle, we just walk to school, mostly in groups, comes rain, comes shine, despite not having those fancy footwears, we just walk ahead, because we wanted to gain knowledge and change our living condition.


And even with having no footwear at all does not stop us from coming to school! For the sake of knowledge we will walk all the way to the peak of success.

So my friends, I hope we all should not waste our resources, be thankful of what the government have been providing for us. Some are lucky to be chauffered around in an airconditioned vehicle, yet some have been denying the privileges of schooling on their own accord, like escaping from school, being lazy and such.

Please my friends, do not quit school, they are many more unfortunate children who are longing to have a proper school environment, as opposed to writing from the "ink" of the dark forest roots, and writing on the dried papyrus leave.

*NOTE: All the names are fictional.

SEOUL | Thomas the Tank Engine for Real?

On my way out of the Yongsan Station to the Electromart, I happened to see the railway tracks and the train depot, which reminds me of Thomas the Tank Engine.


There you go, Thomas and his friends, and what I found interesting is that, if you try to search for Thomas in YouTube, you will be amazed at the numerous remixes there are, which includes remixes with, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and the others!


Up close of one of the railway signal. During the old days, where no electronic signals nor communication was the easily available, the Railway Master will pass some sort of a railtrack baton/switch to the train driver, which means that, only a single train can pass thru the railway track, and if another train wanted to pass/ use the railtrack, the driver will then hand over the baton/switch stick to the other driver via the Railway Master!


Also in the ol' days, in order to signal the other station, a signal was then passed thru the wire, thus the invention of the telegraf, and to switch the railtrack, a huge lever will then be operated in sequence, and if it was to be done not in sequence, then it will not work, and only now everything can be done electronically, via computer and real time tracking, thus eliminating or at least reducing human error.


Oh by the way, along the way on the street, I saw this "Thomas the Tank Engine" tricycle, for those who don't really know who Thomas was.

AN-NUR | Ramadhan | Eat or Pray First?

Ramadhan, the 9th month in the Islamic Calendar, is the month where Muslim all over the world are fasting for a certain duration of the day.

Brunei starts fasting today, whereas the neighbouring countries i.e. Indonesia, Malaysia & Singapore started yesterday.

Each Muslim community throughout the world, have their own way(with accordance of the Islamic ways) in determining the 1st of Ramadhan.

In Brunei, the sighting of the moon is use to determine the starts of Ramadhan and another sighting will also going to be held to determine the starts of Syawal.

If the "new moon" is sighted, then the 1st day of the next Islamic Month will starts the next day, otherwise, it will starts the day after.


Masjid Al-Ameerah Al-Hajah Mariam, Jerudong, one of the major mosques in Brunei, taken from the 1.3mp camfone.

During the whole of Ramadhan, definitely there will be an increase number of religious activities.

One of them is the offering of food for the breaking of fast, or also known as Sungkai.

I would like to share some insight regarding Sungkai and praying.

This statement (In Malay) is by the Perlis State's Mufti, Malaysia, please take note, (what I always wanted to stress to those sungkai's host but they seem to not understand, mun paham bisai)


Menyegerakan solat Maghrib selepas berbuka dengan tamar atau air, sekiranya makanan belum dihidangkan. Hadis yang kita nyatakan di atas menunjukkan Baginda Nabi s.a.w. dengan rutab atau tamar atau air sebelum bersolat Maghrib. Maka kita disunatkan juga mengikuti langkah tersebut, iaitu selepas berbuka dengan perkara-perkara tadi, lantas terus menunaikan solat. Ini sekiranya makanan belum dihidangkan.

Adapun sekiranya makanan telah dihidangkan di depan mata, maka dimakruhkan meninggalkan makanan untuk menunaikan solat. Ini berdasarkan apa yang dinyatakan dalam hadis-hadis baginda Nabi s.a.w. antaranya: Daripada Anas bin Malik r.a.: Bahawa Rasulullah s.a.w. bersabda:

“Apabila telah dihidangkan makan malam, maka mulakanlah ia sebelum kamu menunaikan solat Maghrib, dan jangan kamu tergopoh-gapah ketika makan malam kamu.”

(Riwayat Bukhari dan Muslim).

Dalam hadis yang lain daripada Abdullah bin Umar, Baginda s.a.w. bersabda:

“Apabila dihidangkan makan malam seseorang kamu, sedangkan solat (jamaah) telah didirikan, maka mulailah dengan makan malam. Janganlah dia tergopoh-gapah sehinggalah dia selesa.”

(Riwayat Bukhari dan Muslim).

Riwayat di atas juga menambah:

Bahawa Ibn Umar r.a. apabila dihidangkan untuknya makanan, manakala solat pula sedang didirikan, maka beliau tidak mendatangi solat melainkan hingga beliau selesai makan, sedangkan beliau mendengar bacaan imam. Ini kerana meninggalkan makanan dalam keadaan keinginan yang kuat untuk menjamahnya atau dalam perasaan lapar, boleh menghilangkan khusyuk di dalam solat, disebabkan ingatan terhadap makanan tersebut. Dengan itu para ulama menyatakan dimakruhkan solat setelah makanan terhidang di hadapan mata. Kata an-Nawawi (meninggal 676H): Di dalam hadis-hadis tersebut dimakruhkan solat apabila terhidangnya makanan yang hendak dimakan kerana ia boleh mengganggu hati dan menghilangkan kesempurnaan khusyuk.

(An-Nawawi, Syarh Sahih Muslim, 4/208, cetakan: Dar al-Khair, Beirut).

Sebenarnya bukan pada makan malam atau solat Maghrib sahaja kita disunatkan mendahulukan makanan yang dihidang sebelum solat, bahkan sunah ini meliputi semua solat dan waktu makan kerana dibimbangi menghilangkan khusyuk. Ini sekiranya makanan telah terhidang di depan mata. Al-Munawi (meninggal 1031H) pula menyebut:

“Hadis tersebut menyatakan hendaklah didahulukan makan malam sebelum solat Maghrib. Namun ia juga dipraktikkan juga pada solat-solat yang lain. Ini kerana punca arahan ini ialah bimbang hilangnya khusyuk.”

(al-Munawi, Faidh al-Qadir, 1/295, cetakan: al-Maktabah al-Tijariyyah al-Kubra, Mesir).

Malangnya ada di kalangan yang kurang faham, lalu mereka menyatakan bahawa kalau azan sudah berkumandang, hidangan dan makanan hendaklah ditinggalkan demi mengutamakan solat jemaah. Inilah kedangkalan meneliti hadis-hadis Nabi s.a.w., lalu mengandaikan agama dengan emosi sendiri.

Adapun sekiranya makanan belum terhidang atau perasaan keinginan terhadap makanan tiada, maka tidaklah dimakruhkan untuk terus solat. Ini bukanlah bererti kita disuruh mementingkan makanan melebihi solat, sebaliknya tujuan arahan Nabi s.a.w. ini ialah untuk memastikan kesempurnaan solat. Al-Imam Ibn Hajar al-`Asqalani (meninggal 852H) memetik ungkapan Ibn Jauzi (meninggal 597H):

“Ada orang menyangka bahawa mendahulukan makanan sebelum solat adalah bab mendahulukan hak hamba ke atas hak Tuhan. Sebenarnya bukan demikian, tetapi ini adalah menjaga hak Allah agar makhluk masuk ke dalam ibadahnya dengan penuh tumpuan. Sesungguhnya makanan mereka (para sahabat) adalah sedikit dan tidak memutuskan mereka daripada mengikuti solat jemaah.”

(Ibn Hajar al-`Asqalani, Fath al-Bari, 2/385, cetakan: dar al-Fikr, Beirut).

So tau tah kamu tu mengapa inda ku tepakai mun orang memanggil sungkai, then suruh nya sembahyang Mahgrib berjemaah dulu, lain kali mun kan memanggil, biar tia makan/sungkai dulu, siapa kan sembahyang, sembahyang, sapa kan makan, makan, lagi pun awal abis, dapat awal ready kan sembahyang Isya/Terawih!

Sori jika ada yang terasa, tapi kan halnya, yang banarnya wah ni.

Sekian Terima Kasih.

Wallahuaklam bisawaf.

SEOUL | Post Tower

Looking thru the window one breezy morning, overlooking the busy Seoul city, saw many interesting infrastructure of varying design and make.

You can either go straight ahead, left, right or where ever who feel like going.



This is what greeted me almost every morning, so decided to explore ahead.



Walking along the street, stopping here and there, and finally after 30 minutes or so, this is what I saw, a huge TV made for karaoke! Unfortunately I could not understand Korean alphabets, otherwise I'll be belting a song in the middle of street, and might shattered some windows.




Zooming more to the top of the building, to capture more details of the Post Tower beauty.

Thou some don't really like the aesthetics of the building, seems as if, Paul Bunyan have just axed the top part, yet it was a meant as a "space" design, and I'll let my architect friends to ramble about this more, if any.

Officially opened on the 22 November 2007, this building which has 28 floors altogether, including 7 basements, are said to revolutionize the traditional governments' "matchbox" designed building.