Doa Buat Kekasih, Again!!

I am not so much a concert goer.

Hubby & I once went to watch Air Supply in KL when our no1 & no2 kids gave us the tickets as birthday gifts.

In 2008 I attended Khatijah Ibrahim‘s concert, as blogged here.

In 2010 I watched Ramli Sarip‘s concert, and I blogged too here.

Both of them were not Dato’ or Datuk yet then!

Last night hubby and I watched their concert together!!

As expected, I enjoyed it tremendously 😍

When Dato’ Khatijah sang “Ku Sangka Siang Kiranya Malam”, My mind was tranformed back to my secondary school days!!! And of course I memorized the lyrics by heart. 😂

As a rule, we were not allowed to take photo or video during the concert, except during the finale.

When they started to sing “Doa Buat Kekasih” and invited us to stand up and sing along, everybody thought that was the finale hence so many started to record, so did hubby:

I was thinking, “Datuk Ramli didnt include Kamelia tonight “.

How wrong I was!! Kamelia was indeed the finale!!!

I had some problem uploading the right video, so I decided to put it on youtube. Here’s the link 😊

P/S: the tickets were birthday gifts from 2 of our kids. Thank you, kids, you know who you are 😍

An Alumni Dinner To Remember

Last Saturday (15th September 2018) my alumni had a dinner to commemorate 45 years of the formation of our alma-mater. Unlike last year, this year many of my friends could not make it to the event. Despite that, a few of us (from my batch) decided to attend anyway…

A week before the event we were informed that the guest artist would be my favorite artist, Rahimah Rahim!!!

The highlight of the dinner was of course the opportunity to get some photos taken with her!!

Rahimah Rahim, as sweet as ever, was so nice and accommodating.

Actually we went out of the ballroom to go to the washroom, but to our delight we saw Rahimah out there. We asked if we could take some photos with her and she agreed. Sure, we took a lot of them!!!

I told her that she was my first favourite artist, way back in 1970 (when I was only 7 yrs old). A year later when I got a portable record player. Dad bought 2 EP (vinyl records) for me to play on it, and 1 of them was her first EP. I used to play it daily, until the batteries went flat! I even hummed “Oh Marilah” song with her:

Soon there were others who came out and joined us with the “photo session”

Later when she was performing her last song she signaled us to come and sing with her. Like the Malay proverb “pucuk dicita ulam mendatang” I went up to sing with her!initially reluctant, others joined us too

I managed to meet some of the juniors for the first time, despite knowing them for quite a while . One of them was this Dr AwanisAnother one for the album

That’s all for now.

Will edit and add more pix later 😁

Friends at Fraser’s Hill

Last year we were so busy travelling – we managed 6  trips altogether. On top of that, we also had a wedding of our eldest child, Nuni and an engagement of our 3rd child. We also tried as much as we could, to visit my parents-in-law in Kelantan, now that FIL is not mobile 😦 .

One of the consequences to this life style change was very much less visits to Fraser’s Hill. Our last trip there last year was in October 2013. We wanted to go there in December, but during the only available time, DH was down with shingles 😦 .

 

So this year, again we hope to be able to spend more time at the hill. We were lucky that for the last 2 weekends we managed to do so. Not only we spent our weekends there, but we also had visitors with us 🙂 .

 

Two weeks ago, Sseme and family came to join us for a night.

 

While taking them for a tour round this tiny place, I spotted a new attraction, and had it immortalised with this pic 🙂 :

 

Here’s a pic of us having a breather at a nearby cafe

 

The next day we came down from the hill together because we were going to attend a wedding do at our friend’s place. On the way down, it was so misty, we decided to come down for some photo shoot 🙂 .

 

and a selfie:

 

We also stopped at a bridge;

 

But hey!! There’s a car coming!! So we dashed away!! (in the mean time, the cameraman, Faim, kept on clicking the shutter, hahahaha!!!)

 

Here’s a photo of us taken at the gigantic signage, on our way down:

 

Then last week Ana came with her daughter and son. Here’s a photo of both of us taken in front of “Ye Olde Smokehouse” 🙂

 

So, those were 2 wonderful, or rather “peaceful and quiet” weekends for us 🙂

Last, but not least, thanks to these friends who kept us accompanied for the duration. We hope you enjoyed the tranquility as mush as us and will come back in the future 😉

 

 

Taipei (Taiwan)

 

Note: Just before the fasting month last year, we managed a short trip to Taipei. I have been delaying my blog for this trip because I do not have the photos with me right now, and I’ve forgotten where they are kept 😦 ). I  however want to clear the backlogs of blog entries, so, here you are, hahaha!!!

 

1 July 2013

We took the Air asia flight, and arrived in Teipei in the late afternoon

 

A stroll along the busy street near Ximending:

 

That night DH came across a HALAL beef noodle outlet. He said we should try it the following night (since we salready had dinner by then)

 

2 July 2013

We walked to the Taipei, took the underground and went to the IT area

 

 

In the afternoon, we went to Yongle fabric market.

3 July 2013

Took the bus to The Palace Museum

Went to the cable car, but it was raining with lightning, so the cable car service was halted.

 

4 July 2013

took a 1-day tour to the northern part of Taiwan.

Visited the night spot

 

5 July

Went back to the fabric market very early in the morning.

checked out in the afternoon and took a cab to the airport for our flight back to Kuala Lumpur

Some Crafts Update (Should be “A Test Post”)

HAPPY BELATED NEW GREGORIAN YEAR (2014) !!!

 

I have not blogged for a while now. Many reasons – my PC went kaput, busy with travels, public holidays, family commitment, “spending too much time on Ipad”, etc…

Another main reason is the difficulty in uploading/linking to photos that I want to be included here.

 

This morning I fiddled around with my Google+ and familiarised myself with the photos kept there. Here’s a test pic of my on-going  tatting :

 

So far I hv close to 3 meters long, and I do have plans for it 🙂

 

 

I also managed to make some quilted “baby throws” including this one which I made for a friend who recently welcomed a new granddaughter

 

with a close-up of the fabric;

 

Here’s one for a friend who welcomed a grandson some time ago:

 

I am currently in the process of quilting this one;

 

 

OK, with this blog entry done, I am going to start on outdated travel blog entries 🙂

Meeting My Teacher Again :)

(I am trying to be active again in blogging 🙂 )

 

Yesterday, 20 august 2013, I got a visit from a very special teacher, Cikgu Ashaari.  Please read the the link to know how special he is to me 🙂 .

 

I have been meeting him quite regularly, but any meet with him is always special. Yesterday meet was extra special because he came with (apart from his wife) his son, Azam.

hardly 2 weeks ago DH and I visited him at his house in Kota Bharu. Here’s a photo taken then:

 

And yesterday we had this one taken 🙂 :

 

Cikgu seated with his missus.

Standing from left: Azam’s daughter, missus, Fadhil, Azam’s BIL, Azam’s daughter, Azam, Nury (my friend since ssecondary school), me and DH.

 

 

 

 

Aidil Fitri 1435H

We celebrated the end of the fasting month last week, on Thursday 8 August.

 

Compared to our same celebration last year, this time round it was a much more toned down occasion.

 

Initially we didn’t plan to celebrate much, since our no.4 kid is in USA and no.5 kid in France, both studying…

 

Two days before the big day, I (for the first time) went to SP Setia Welcome Centre, to collect some of the Raya packets (we put money inside, to be given as gifts to relatives/kids) that the developer is distributing for free:

 

We however figured out that the traffic of “Balik Kampung” (going back to our home towns) would be well spread out, so we decided to go back to our home town, Kota Bharu, which is over 400km away.

 

We left for Kota Bharu at 10.30pm on the even of the big day, and arrived at MIL/FIL’s home 7 hours later (that’s the typical time taken on a normal day. We certainly managed to avoid the jam because by the time we left for KB, the bulk of the “Balik Kampung” people had already reached their destinations.

It was a simple celebration. We managed to have a rare extended family photo taken:

 

DH and I stayed home most of the time (sleepy for sure), playing hosts to relatives and friends who came visiting. It was only on the 3rd day that we decided to visit DH’s friend. After the greetings and hugging, I managed to snap this picture of both of them:

 

Later that night, on our way to my alma-mater’s gathering, we stopped at another of DH’s friend’s house. A rare photo was also snapped that night:

 

Oops, did I forget to tell you that Sadki (in the picture above), was also my senior during my secondary school days (he was DH’s primary school buddy).

 

Here’s the gathering in the school hall (we were still waiting for more to turn up):

 

I was rather in a hurry, but here’s one of the pic of me, taken by another friend/senior (Shukri Hamidi):

 

I left the function early because I promised Azam to visit him at his parents’ house. Azam lives in UK and is home for a short holiday. His father was my teacher. I wrote about him/cikgu (teacher) here.

 

Here’s a picture of (from right) Azam, DH, Cikgu, and me.

 

We arrived at cikgu’s house at 10.15pm, and stayed there for over a hour, before we rushed home (FIL & MIL’s place).

That night we left for Kuala Lumpur at 12.30am, and arrived home 7 hours later (we certainly managed to avoid the traffic jam/rush that day 🙂 )

 

 

 

 

South Africa Trip – the blog entry is still in progress….

I recently had a chance to visit South Africa with DH.

 

The travel itinerary was something like this:

Saturday 11 May 2013:

Departed LCCT for Singapore Changi Airport early in the morning, to catch a Saudi Airlines flight to Johannesburg, stopping at Riyadh and transiting at Jeddah. By the time we arrived in Johannesburg/Joburg it was Sunday afternoon local time, 30 hours after we left home!

 

Sunday 12 May 2013

Apartheid Museum

 

Monday 13 May 2013

Joburg to Kruger National Park 

Our Safari Lodge – Africa On Foot 

Our first game – we spotted the lions and elephants 

 

 

Tuesday 14 May 2013

Afternoon Game Outing – we spotted some leopards!

Wednesday 15 May 2013

 

Thursday 16 May 2013

 

Friday 17 May 2013

 

Saturday 18 May 2013

 

Sunday 19 May 2013

Left Cape Town early in the morning to catch afternoon flight to Singapore, transiting at Jeddah. Arrived in Singapore late Monday afternoon, and took a Firefly flight back to Subang (Kuala Lumpur).

 

 

 

Some Updates…

I have been slow in my blogging lately. The strange thing is that, I am no longer working anywhere!!!

 

Let’s have some recap of the most important events that I didn’t get to blog about:

Nafis’s departure to Philadelphia

Nafis left in the first week of January 2013. This is a picture of the family dinner just before that:

 

Nuni’s Nikah and Reception

We had the nikah on 16th March 2013 (a small do). Even though we wanted 13/3/13, the imam was not available for that date 😦

 

The reception was done at Muzium Negeri on 13/4/13.

 

 

My Allah bless this wedding…

 

Nukman’s “Pre-France” Graduation, and departure to Nice, France

It was 22 April 2013. Here’s a photo of me with him wearing the gown:

 

and here’s a photo with the Dean of MFI, UniKL, who happens to be a long time friend 🙂

 

That night (yes, on the same day! Rational: Easy for families from outside Klang Valley, they only come once for the graduation and departure 🙂 ), we sent Nukman off.

 

Here’s a pic of my children, minus Nafis (who’s in Philly):

The order is from righh to left, with the vacant space reserved for Nafis (no.4), represented by the green bag 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Fushimi Inari Shrine, Kyoto

Previous post: Kyoto Imperial Palace

Date: 21 December 2012

 

After visiting the palace, we took the underground train to Gion, the Geisha area. We had a nice walk around the neighbourhood, though I don’t have any picture to show 😦

 

We then went back to Kyoto Station to have lunch, after which we took a train to this place:

 

 

There’s a famous shrine here, where you can see so many Tori gates!

The suburb is so peaceful;

 

Even the walk was very enjoyable:

 

As we entered the Fushimi Inari Shrine complex:

 

Ablution corner:

 

Very orange, indeed!

 

As we climbed the steps up the hill:

 

 

While DH captured this image down at the temple:

 

We were up the stairs, but still needed to climb further:

 

At the higher part of the hill we were greeted but tori gates arranged in a row:

 

So many of them:

 

The walk up was a long one:

 

These are gates donated by worshippers:

 

At certain points, the gates branch out!

 

Tired from previous walk, I decided to walk back:

 

and came across the prayer papers tied to the fence:

 

A counter selling prayer items and souvenirs:

 

 

Little torii gates for sale:

 

Aina found a friendly cat:

 

I have never seen so many torii gates in my life, huge ones at the entrance/exit:

 

Waiting for our train back to Kyoto:

 

I think we just managed to beat the peak time 🙂

 

Happy to be able to rest our tired feet:

 

We got back to our hotel rooms, and I continued to watch the bullet trains from my hotel window 🙂

 

The following morning we took the train to Osaka Airport to catch our flight home.