Wednesday 29 October 2014

Fijian, African or Brazilian longan? It's Fijian Longan or Pometia pinnata!

My dad loves gardening and he grows plants which he knows not the name of or that they are not accurate. Nevertheless, I was much excited by the latest find in the garden, thanks to his green fingers!

I now realise this Fiji or African longan is not the Spanish lime or Guinep or Mamoncillo fruit as I previously thoughtOther names include Island Lychee, Tava (Samoa) and Kasai (Malaysia).

One side of the tree (Fijian Longan) was covered with these tiny pink flowers.

Tiny bees were busy polinating these tiny flowers
Pometia Pinnata (Fiji Longan) fruits and leaves (taken from my previous post)


We have a whole colander full of them!

Thursday 23 October 2014

Concluding thoughts after first semester

Our education system does not have mechanisms to shape us into fast, independent and creative thinkers and thus, learners.

Monday 13 October 2014

Where to get soft pastel and fixative in Brunei?

JK brought me to WW Mart at Citi Square and the first thing that got me excited was the sight of soft pastel boxsets! I have tried looking for them at Manggis Mall but the Hua Ho there had only oil pastels. Here, not only they have soft pastel blocks but the pencils as well as fixative! And a whole lot of other drawing/painting materials.

We spent a good time there as I relished over the many different items I like. They have really nice decorative boxes, decorative paper for your scrapbook making.

Only thing that disturbed me was seeing a whole aisle of fake Lego. I felt as though my memories of playing with Lego and the essence behind Lego was defiled by the very items on that aisle. There can only be Lego looking like "lego" and nothing else. Sigh.

Soft chalk pastels, pencils and blending tools
Fixative
Fake Lego

Sunday 12 October 2014

Baby fruits

I love having a bit of a wander in the garden whenever I come back from work. The feel of the grass on my toes and the sight of fruits hanging like nature's chandeliers liberate me.

Today, I found some baby fruits just slowly transforming from what were once fruit flowers.

I was so close to taking a macro picture of a brightly greenish chrome-coloured insect perched on a grass leaf. As I steadied my stance for a closer shot, it darted out of sight.
Reddish spots on the edges of the pomelo leaves - is this a kind of crop disease?
A baby pomelo fruit forming from a fertilised flower
A baby soursop
The soursop develops inside the sepal of the fertised soursop flower 
It is just amazing that the macro shot taken from my phone's camera allows me to see the hairs on the grass leaf as well as on the ant!