Honeymoon Trip

Last week from the 19th - 25th October 2010 Darling and I had our honeymoon trip to Sydney and Melbourne ..only the two of us to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary ( the date was way back in Jan actually ) .

It was a great trip to both cities ... I love Sydney the most and if I were to live there Circular Quay and Darling Harbour would be my favourite sites to " lepak-lepak " ...hahaha.

So, let the pictures do the talking ...

Thank you Darling for making this honeymoon trip the most wonderful time for both of us ... Alhamdulillah .

A Comeback !!

Alhamdulillah yesterday the 16th of October 2010 , I made a comeback to the stage where I used to belong ... almost 5 years I kept myself offstage just to spend more time with my loving family . I avoided and declined any offer that requested me to be on stage whether to be the emcee of the occasion or as the moderator to any forum / seminar or I myself conducted the motivation talk/course .. I'd had enough of those busy world of mine .... but ... just a few weeks back my friend requested me to be the moderator of a forum on The Concept of the Muslim Family and I was willingly to be part of the program , without hesitation I accepted the offer ... Allah has opened my heart to make a comeback to this world of "dakwah" , Thank You Allah .

The program was attended by 150 participants and most were career women and the panel was YB Senator Mumtaz Md Nawi who is also a lawyer who owns a law firm . Alhamdulillah YB Mumtaz was such a sporting speaker and well-verse in her field of Malaysian family law that made my task easier since when both the moderator and the panelist could get along well, the forum was carried smoothly .

I really hope this comeback would bring a lot of benefits not only to myself ( one way to contribute towards the dakwah ) but also to all muslims out there , InsyaAllah .

Maher Zain Showcase

Yesterday I drove to KL to visit my Mom in the morning ( she is now staying with my eldest sister in KL ) and at 3pm we went to KLIA to fetch my Darling who arrived from UAE and will be here for 3 weeks . Then we had our lunch/teatime at Dengkil area and straight went to MBSA auditorium at maghrib time and after performing our Maghrib and Isyak prayers (jamak& qasar ) we got into the auditorium and patiently waited for the showcase to start ...

It's Maher Zain Showcase . Our seats were the 4th row from the stage and .... I and I was so excited to watch and really enjoyed the show . I've been following MZ's songs for quite sometime and meeting with him 'live' was a boon to me .

Alhamdulillah . His face was so sweet and his smile ... oohhhh ... I'm in love with him ..hahahah .

I love all his songs with lots of good messages in all the songs.

Hope to see him again when he comes back in future ...

The Best Catch of The Day

It's been a while that my jogging gang ' entertained ' ourselves by visiting the fisherman's jetty near Kuala Kemaman to buy very fresh fish and other seafood .

So, this morning we called the " taukeh kapal " to ask of the arrival of the boat . We were expecting for fish and crabs . It was about 9.10am that we reached the jetty ( about 5 minutes from Monica Bay ) and many fishermen were busy loading and unloading the catch of the day(s) . I really love to be at the jetty as I could see and touch the fresh fish that was a plenty .... felt like buying the whole box of fish . As for this morning they only had "ikan kembung" , squids and a type of prawn ( I really forgot the name , it looked like lobster ) . I bought the fish and the giant squid ( 1 squid = 1.1 kg , so imagine how big it was ) . However , no crabs today . ... we'lll come again soon , InsyaAllah .

As people say working as fishermen really hold their fate to The Al Mighty since once they go out to sea, they'll never know how much fish could they get and what type of fish could they catch and it also depends on the weather out there .

a giant squid .. 1.1 kg

I pray that those fishermen will always be blessed with the best catch every single day that they out to sea , InsyaAllah .

1st Ramadhan Trip ... ffuuuhhhh ..

Backdated story :D

Back in Ramadhan we had our holiday trip to Ho Chi Minh City , Vietnam ,. It was the first and only trip in Ramadhan , never experienced it before and hopefully no more holiday trip in Ramadhan .. I'll tell you why later on ....

My Darling had bought 9 tickets for all of us in the family including Zaid and his family ( 3 of them ) not knowing that my DIL would then be pregnant with her second baby ( lamaaaaa dah beli tiket ) .. so 3 of them couldn't make it to HCMC since my DIL delivered her baby early August and our HCMC trip was on the 19-22 August . However in the end my SIL ( Darling's eldest sister bought a ticket and followed us ) made 7 of us altogether .

HCMC is always a very busy city with millions of motorbikes on the road and this time around ( this is my 2nd trip in 5 years ) taxis are also everywhere and most all of them are Toyota Innova .. thousands of Innova on the busy street of the city .

As usual we had our tourguide ready to bring us to a few places of interest all and around HCMC :

1st day .. The Old Post Office Building , The Independent Square , The War Museum , The oldest Buddhist temple, The Judge , The China Town .

2nd day ... HCMC Mosque and met the Imam and then shopping day at Benh Thanh Market and malls around the city .. happy , happy , happy but..... I'll tell you later the ' but ' story ...

3rd and final day ... Cu Chi Tunnel , 65km from the city centre and we experienced the real historical war zone including shooting with real bullets .

That's the end of the trip..a very short trip in Ramadhan ...

I don't know about others , but for me this trip was the most tiring trip ever .. maybe because I am a diabetic person and need more energy and need a lot of water during day time especially when I am fasting . On the 1st day I I was quite exhausted but Mimi looked so tired .. so for the visit to the temple ( we joined a few other tourists , so visiting a temple was in the package ) , I stayed with Mimi in the van and I told mimi it's ok for her to break her fast if she couldn't hold any more and she nodded . There was a shop selling mineral water beside the van and I told Mimi I'd buy her a bottle of mineral water and as I was about to leave the van, rain started pouring very very heavy and I just couldn't get out of the van ... seeing the rain and the wind blew brought some sort of relief to me and Mimi .... then I said to Mimi , Allah doesn't want you and me ( I was exhausted too ) to break our fast since we are very strong and good muslims ) and Mimi nodded again ....guess what ... all of us only broke our fast when maghrib azan was called( the muslim restaurant where we dined let us know it was time to eat ) .. so we were safe and sound on the 1st day .

On the second day here we spent our time shopping at the hot and humid market .. oh boy !! It really was a torture to me .. I just couldn't stand the heat and sweat and I was almost passed out and I just sat outside the market where I could breathe some fresh ( smokey ) air and was really felt like dying there .. I told my darling I wanted to go back to the hotel and rested but the rest of the family members were still actively and busyly shopping and shopping ... I told darling that i wanted to break my fast , make it the musafir reason for me to break it and Darling didn't say anything because he knew my condition was getting worse , I couldn't even epeak well .. I needed water, water and water .. When the kids came around after f inished shopping I was much better then ( still fasting ) and when Darling said let's go to the Mall to buy a few telekungs I was strong again knowing that the Mall was a/c and I could already see the telekungs in my shopping bags ..hahaha . There we went shopping again but I was too thirsty and after comng back from the mall, I rested in my room and imagined that I'd have 5 different types of water for maghrib later on ( iced tea, iced milo, watermelon juice , cincau syrup and mineral water ) you tengoklah my puasa nafsu ..... hohoho ... I stayed in my room with Mimi while the rest continued shopping and guess what .. I only orderd iced tea and watermelon juice that evening and and I was so happy I didn't have to puasa ganti for the most tiring trip ever ...and Mimi completed her 30 days fasting this year ..Alhamdulillah .

That was our 1st Ramadhan holiday trip and it was a wonderful experience to be in another country in the fasting month ... but ... it was not the last trip in Ramadhan ... early Sept we had another holiday trip to Bandung ... just a few days before Sya

wal..and the experience of 'balik kampung ' with thousands of Indonesians brought a sweet journey .. I'll blog about it later ...

As a travel lover, I always look forward to any trip ... no matter where and when ... might it be the best or the worst trip ..

I LOVE TRAVELLING !!

cyber turns real in friendship !!

Yesterday I got a chance to meet up with my blog friends at Mulan's place in Kerteh and among them were Kakliza the great chef and Fa the superb story-teller . Oh Boy !! I was so excited and delighted to meet and chat and laugh and eat with them .

Today I want to blog about how I got to know these 3 wonderful persons in my life .

1/ Fa -- 1993 , so it's been almost 17 years our friendship has bloomed . I got to know her right here in kemaman where her husband and I used to teach at a private religious school (Pusat Pengajian Taman Islam , Kemaman ) and we stayed very close to each other . If I could say this : Fa and her hubby are now like my sister and brother , that's how close we are .

Mulan & I

2/ Mulan -- 2006 , 4 years I've known her , the same age as my blog cos I knew Mulan thru her blog when I was in Jordan and she in Vietnam . She' an active lady , always energetic in carrying out her duty as a Home Manager . She used to stay in Ho Chi MInh City for 10 years (followed her hubby who was attached there ) and came back to Kerteh in 2007 , the same year I came back from Jordan ( I stayed in Jordan for 2 years ) . She's nice and I'm comfortable and bless to have her as my dearly sister .

Food, food, food...

3/ Kakliza -- 2007 , 3+ years now , knew her thru her infamous fotopages where I did my cooking recipe hunting from Jordan , almost everyday I surf into ker fotopage to look for recipes and at 1 time I counted the total of the recipe found in her fotopages was over 500 recipes... can you imagine how good and skillful kakliza is in cooking . I've tried many of her recipes and those food turned out very splendid indeed . I never knew and met her before in Kerteh but when I came back here in Kemaman , we were like old friends , she is so friendly and so warm whenever we meet .

Chef Kakliza & I with her latest cooking book ( can be purchased from Popular Bookstore ) .

So, yesterday was a wonderful day where Mulan cooked the best sumptous food including a 'vietnam kuih' ( sorry I forget the name ) . Thank you Mulan for inviting and for the delicous food that I had at your place .

I also got my Kakliza's signature on her latest cooking book " 1 Hari 1 Resipi, 365 recipes " and it would be ( would be ) my 2011 resolution ..cook 1 menu/day as stated in the book ..so , 1/1/11 " will be Daging Singgang" ( who wants Daging Singgang don't forget to drop by my blog to taste it ) ...hahahaha .

I never expected that blogsphere could bring a true friendship and I'm so blessed to have my blog pals to be honest and true in blogging ( there are those who are liars and cheaters ) .

Yours truly with Kakliza, Mulan and Fa ( she's a shy lady, so no full pic in cyberspace, so she covered her face and I covered mine ) ..

Fa, Mulan and Kakliza -- I'm so very grateful to have all three of you as my cyber and a real life friends and hope this friendship remains forever InsyaAllah .

PURPLE here & there ...

2010..purple , purple, purple !!

1983 -1988 --- GREY !!

1990 - 2007 -- BLUE !!

2008 - present -- PURPLE !!

' Grey Ghost' that was me back in the States with shirts, shoes, bags, sweaters , pants all in grey , light and dark grey ... no photos , lazy to dig old albums .

' Blue Hippo ' that was me back then in the early 90s with curtains , bed sheet , carpet all in blue . light and dark blue ....also lazy to flip thru old photos .

' Purple Maniac ' this is me today with shirts, pants, watches, bangles, handbags , my home wall, sofa , curtain . blankets and many other purple stuff are with me including this blog skin ... I just can't resist any purple except ........

I was so furious when I saw this man wearing purple uniform .... that biggest criminal " Dato Binatang " who killed Datuk Susilawati and 3 others ..

( I'd rather not posted his animal face here ... so sick of him !!)

Why does he have to wear that purple uniform ??? Why ? Why ??

Monica Bay

Feeling fresh as fresh lemon this morning , Alhamdulillah .

I went to Monica Beach this morning , not for jogging but for reading .. 100 pages of a book and a magazine done .

Monica Bay is indeed a very clean and beautiful beach where I could spend hours and hours reading and sitting under the shady hut and surrounded by 'rhu' trees .. Sounds of the birds chirping really make my day as beautiful as it can be . If there's a place I feel like coming back again and again , of course this Monica Bay or Pantai Teluk Mak Nik where I would be .

If you pass thru Kemaman , don't forget to drop by Monica Bay , see with your own eyes how beautiful the beach is but no swimming here , steep slope beach though ..

See you around ..... Monica Bay !!

Toilets

I waited for Mimi outside her school gate for almost 5 minutes but she seemed not to be around . I got off my car and walked to the teacher incharged at the gate and asked about Mimi and she said Mimi was still inside . I walked into the school compound and asked her friends and they said she had gone to the toilet . I grabbed her school bag and 2 minutes later Mimi came with a little bit of water splashing on her school uniform ..she rushed to the toilet to " buang air besar " .... she said so ..

Today's post is about the school toilet ..

1/ Is it clean ?

2/ Is it smelly ?

3/ Does it have enough water to flush ?

4/ Does the cleaner wash the toilet floor everyday ?

5/ Is there any ghost in the toilet ?

6/ Is there any soap to wash your hands after using it ?

7/ How often do you go to the school toilet ?

According to Mimi . her school toilet is clean , not smelly , have soap to wash hands , have enough water to flush and ..... no ghost .. so I guess her school's toilet is an A+ toilet .. Bravo to Al Amin School , Kemaman .

Have you ever checked your kids schools' toilets ????

2 more months ...

It's 1/10/2010 .. how fast time flies , only 2 more months to pull down the 2010 curtain .

2010 is really a year with 1001 stories which are printed in my own notebook . Don't ever forget we write 1001 stories on our own but there are angels who guard and write us every single nano second of our lives and of course with uncountable good and bad whatsoever things that we do . No one could edit ao alter what have been written by the angels and all those books of deeds will be presented before our own eyes in the hereafter . No matter how scared we are to face the reality , the judgement will be carried out , no one could escape ......

Let's turn to Allah for guidance and mercy as HE is the Solely GOD who guides us to the right path and with HIS MERCY only we could enter the Paradise InsyaAllah .

Not to forget as September passed by , my blog turned 4 years old..

Happy 4th birthday my dear blog !!