A Pixless Get Together

Last week (Datin) Silah came down to KL and i took the opportunity to have breakfast with her. We drove to Mont Kiara to meet up with another friend, Lina.

Unfortunately, none of u remembered to snap any pix, even though our mobile phones all have built-in camera!!

Never mind, next time...

Meeting Nik Elin

I first met Nik Elin during our Haj trip in early 2003. DH calls her "The Minna Activist". He was referring to Nik Elin's charitable gesture/behaviour while we were there :-)
By the time we were to come back to Malaysia, Nik Elin and me (and DH too) became good friends :-)

We even had her and her kids and mum as our guests at our Fraser's Hill hideout once!

Last week I got to meet her again at her new office in Subang Jaya.
We had a good time catching up with current news/issues.

I got to know (she told me earlier, but I must have forgotten) her blog, and when I got back home it took me quite ometime to read it..

In the spirit and Mood of Aidil Fitri - Part II

The kids had some fireworks on the night of Raya 1, and Nitzus enjoyed taking the pix!

Raya Day 3
After sending Nuni to the airport (she was flying back to Penang - on Firefly), we went to viit DH's auntie(Cik Nah) in Bachok. It took us only 30 mins to get there, but when we wanted to come back to the airport area (to my school Raya Re-union) we were slapped with terrible traffic jam :-(
Despite leaving Cik Nah's house at 2.30pm, we arrived at the function near 4pm.

Some of the pix courtesy of Dashuki:


And here I caught him in action:

A candid shot captures the mood that day:

-in progress-

In the spirit and Mood of Aidil Fitri

The house that we braved the road to come home to! (pix by BIL)

It's been over 2 weeks since I last blogged :-(

It's not that I was too busy that I couldn't spare the time. I could list a few reasons before I start to write on a few events/occasion:

1. Initially, yes, I was busy with the Raya do. The travel really exhausted us.
2. Exhaustion - yes! Even though we came back from our home town on the 4th Syawal, it took us a couple of days to really regain the energy.
3. Work. Yes, though it's not really a full time job, it certainly keeps me occupied.
4. The lousy Internet connection, Yulks to Streamy-x! Many times I had to abandon my intention to blog, just because the connection was so unstable or just damn SLOW!!
   
5. No reason - just didn't feel like blogging. I know.. this is bad..

Anyway, I will try to blog what I remember:

The day before Raya
We left S Alam about midnight (early morning of Friday, and Raya was Saturday), heading towards Kota Bharu. On normal days, the journey (non-stop) would just take us in under 7 hours, but that night, so many people wanted to head to the same direction, hence we found ourselves stuck on the Karak Highway - 2 hours just from Gombak Toll to Karak Toll (for those who are clueless, it would normally take about 30 mins to drive between these two tolls.

We decided to head towards Kuantan (exiting at Jabor), which is a further route, but obviously it was a wise decision because the traffic was moving smoothly. Well... It was smooth, until we reached Bukit Diman in Terengganu where we got stuck for about 40 minutes, because there was a Pasar Tani ALONG THE MAIN ROAD!! Well, we were passing their little town, and the local people were busy doing their "the days before Raya" shopping!! All in all, with several pitstops (for sahur, subuh prayers, a nap, or just to go to the loo), it took us 11 hours to reach home!!!
(What I couldn't undertand i that they have so many open space lands in the area, why must the morning market be ON the road???)

Bukit Diman Crowd (pix by Nuni)

Day 1 of Aidil Fitri
We suddenly realised that we had not been back for Aidil Fitri for 3 yrs already! Let's look back:
2006 - we celebrated it in our home in S Alam, and we ended up taking care of my bro-in-law's newborn baby.
2005 - We were in Dublin to celeberate Raya with Nuni, who was about to come home the following year.
2004 - We celeberated in S Alam because that was during Ayi's SPM time.

So, on this 2007 Raya Day 1, we decided to visit my brother in Tanah Merah (after the Raya prayers). After that we went to visit my adopted father (oo.... long story, I will blog later!) in Pasir Putih. His wife died a couple of years ago, and he had since remarried. After asking his daughter for the direction to his new home, we went searching for it - it's somewhere in Wakaf Raja, very close to Terengganu border!

Day 2 Raya
I decided to follow Pa-in-law(PIL), DH, bro-in-law (yes, the one who had the baby last Raya) to the cemetery. I am normally not a cemetery goer, so this was my first visit to the cemetery ON A RAYA DAY! We had a brief round of history class from PIL - some of the stories were really entertaining. He pointed to the exact durian tree he used to climb with his brothers when they were boys. He said nobody else wa brave enough to do so!! He also told us about the man he saw hanging from the tree, and seconds later it just disappeared!
There's a river (Ketereh River) nearby, and it was quite scenic!

PIL(hidden) showing me the tombs of his parents and uncles. A part of the durian tree can be seen on the extreme right's top corner.(Pix by BIL)

PIL, while sitting under the shade of the durian tree, pointed to the brunch where saw the "hanging man"!

Silly us only took along 2 copies of the Yassin booklets, so we had to take turn :-(

This one belongs to PIL's elder bro, who was quite famous ;-)

After that we went to visit PIL's siblings' homes nearby...
Overall verdict- very satisfying outing :-)

Selamat Hari Raya & Happy Birthday Ayi!!

Eid Mubarak
Family Pix taken during last Aidil Fitri

This Saturday (13th October) is Ayi's birthday. On the same day, we Muslims will celebrate our Hari Raya Aidil Fitri (Eid Mubarak) - celebration at the end of the fasting month of Ramadhan.

Unfortunately, this is also the first time Ayi is celebrating Aidil Fitri (and his birthday) away from home - in Toronto.

This is just a short blog before we start our journey to our hometown Kota Bharu, Kelantan. On normal days, it'll only take us about 6.5 hours to reach our destination, but with with festive long holidays, almost everybody is heading somewhere... And there are so many Kelantanese who are heading home for this big day, that since last night, the road heading towards Kelantan have been heavily congested.

To all my friends who celebrate Aidil Fitri (including Yudi in Jakarta, Rara in Semarang, Touhid in Sydney and Ehab in Cairo), I wish all of you a joyous and meaningful Eid Mubarak.