Jerudong Park

On our way to the capital of Brunei, we stopped off at the Jerudong Park where Michael Jackson once played a concert.

This crazy water feature is a diamond setting.  Interesting artwork here.

Me and my colleague having a ball in Brunei!  This is probably the only picture where we weren’t talking about work.

The fancy entrance to the kid’s amusement park.

Gates to the concert grounds.

Such an interesting fountain.

Nice land cruiser in the parking lot.

And a nice Mitsubishi van.

We got to go see this lonely elephant that the Sultan of Brunei was given as a gift.  He really needs a buddy.  And maybe shouldn’t be chained up.

At least he’s got some shade.

 

Into Brunei

We headed into Brunei for a day to check out the tiny country and see what there is to see.  On the way there, we saw this really nice Toyota.

Random roadside temple on the Malaysia side of the border.

Substation on the Malaysia side.  You need electricity no matter where you are.

More of that substation.

In Brunei now.  Everything is clean and well taken care of.

A random huge tea set.  Because why not?

Some big Shell Oil tanks along the road.

 

The Grand Old Lady in Miri

During a weekend break from activities in Singapore, we hopped over to Miri, Malaysia.  We walked up the hill to the Grand Old Lady, the first oil well in this part of the world.  There is a nice little museum about oil and gas at the top of the hill, too.

Looking toward the interior of the island of Borneo.

The Grand Old Lady along an incredibly slick pathway.  They didn’t choose very good material to make the walkway out of considering that it rains every afternoon.

 

A depiction of how the first will was drilled.

Some murals around the oil well depicting oil and gas development in the Miri area over the last 100 years.

These days, all of the action is on off-shore oil rigs.

It is significant that one of the first single buoy moorings was deployed here.

Some statistics on the well.  It produced a lot of oil in its day.

Looking offshore at some of the boats and oil rigs in the distance.

Inside the oil and gas museum.  These are drill bits used to cut the wells.

A mockup of an oil pump.

The Grand Old Lady in all her glory up on Canada Hill high above the town of Miri, Malaysia.