What I've been up to …

Day 3 was departure day. We checked out and headed straight to the airport.

Day 2 was “walking around Downtown Haikou” Day. Too lazy to blog here. If you think that you want to know more about Haikou, please feel free to read DH’s blog here.

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We’ve visited this place a few times. I blogged about it the first successful  time and then another time.

Laast Saturday (24th July 2010), after the visit to Mae’s school (to collect his mid-year results), we decided to stop by at Leman Dawi Cendol again.

We saw some RTM people shooting some kids’ program, with a young girl interviewing Mr Leman Dawi himself:

We just went on to enjoy our cendols.

Being a jovial person, Mr Leman Dawi continued to greet his patrons once the shooting was over. He even came to talk to us:

While filling up the brown sugar container, he kept on telling us about the country, the area of a particular state, etc, etc.. What caught my attention was how Johor got the name. In almost ONE breathe, he said that the word Johor came from the Arabic word Johar, which means jewel!

Mr Leman even came closer to Aina to show her his books and notes that he always keeps in the pockets of his apron. He even showed some facts from his little notbook:

while Nafis looked on:

Sometimes Mr Leman can be too loud, but his command of the Malay language is really good, especially when he recites the pantun and sajak,

After having at least additional helpings on top of the 5 bowls we ordered (1 bowl for each of us), we finally said goodbye to Mr Leman and continued our journey down south to Muar. There were other new arrivals who were more than happy to see us emptying the table .

Mae will still be  in that school until the end of this year, so I guess I’ll get to have one or 2 more cendol visits here in the future.

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Last Sunday (18th July) I agreed to join Aisyah and the gang for a morning walk. I had not taken such walks for ages..

We started at 8.15am, feeling fresh:

We walked from Silverpark to the “loop road” and took a right turn to start a clock-wise walk.

We stopped at a few places, including the entrance to Bishop’s Trail and a bend we call “Eucalyptus Corner”:

There is a eucalyptus tree, whose leaves would give out the refreshing smell (similar to the minyak angin smell) from it’s eucalyptus oil in them.

We proceeded to Glenn House (where they shot the Petronas F1 commercial) which I think still belongs to KTMB :

We wanted to have nasi lemak for brekkie at the nearby stall, but unfortunately it was closed .

I always like the view of the golf course:

We continued our walk until we came to the clock tower, where a photo session is always recommended, especially for firt-timers:

while regulars like me just looked on:

The mat salleh lady behind me was waiting patiently for her turn to pose at the clock tower. No first visit to Fraser’s Hills is complete without a pose at this land mark!

Eventually we headed to the mosque. We were lucky that the newly refurbished cafe near the mosque was open for business!

Nice embience, really:

After the nice breakfast (no pic, photograper was busy indulging himself, hahaha!!), we decided to try the Hemmant Trail, after which we proceeded to Silverpark.

After a nice shower, DH and I took the 12 noon “down flow” to  come home while Aisyah and the gang continued to stay until they checked out later in the afternoon.

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We had not been to Fraser’s Hills for about 3 weeks. This was partly because we couldn’t find a suitable weekend, and also, yes, due to World Cup fever. There were in few times when we were free, but DH didn’t want to go there because he wanted to watch WC matches on HD!

So, last Saturday (17th July 2010), despite me feeling knackered (and missing my Needlecrafts meet in Ipoh)  we went there for an overnight stay.Furthermore DH also had to meet up with someone there.

Nik carries a blog about the meet here.

My friend, A had told me much earlier that she was coming up too, because her niece had booked an apartment in Silverpark. When she told me about it, I didn’t promise her anything, because (as I told her), I was supposed to go to Ipoh, and will only detour to Fraser’s Hills on our way back, if we were up to it.

Leaving home just before 11am, we managed to catch the (1.00pm-1.40pm) uphill flow and by 2pm we were busy cleaning the apartment.

Here’s a shot of my Lady in Red near the Selangor Dam. No, I didn’t drive the car that weekend. Only posed for the photo shot .

We were relieved to find there was no more leaking in the lounge, but we found out that there was sipping water at the corner of our bedroom:

On close inspection, we found saw some broken roof tiles for the lower unit, and suspected the same thing for our roof.

DH immediately contacted En Yatim from the resort, who soon came to repair the roof below:

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Managed to contact Aisyah in the late afternoon. She came over with her gang. Here’s a shot at our balcony:

We went outside, and DH managed a few more shots.

Of them, “trying” my car:

Us chatting:

We even spotted a bird on a branch of the Australian bottle-brush:

(I’ve trying unsuccessfully to upload this one pic!)

I didn’t offer dinner to them because I simply had nothing in the apartment. They told me they brought ingredietnts for steamboat,  and invited us instead ot their unit. DH wanted to check the new food court area, so we declined and ended having our dinner at the new place (with many familiar faces/operators).

Later that night, when I went to the resort lobby to get access ti their Wifi (hence Internet), I came across Aisyah and the gang again. This time we decided to rent the karaoke room for 1 hour (RM for 1 hour). We were told that (at 9pm)  it was already closed, but after persuatuon from us, the girls at the counter and the guys who were in charge of the karaoke room agreed  .

I sms-ed DH to tell him that I was in the karaoke room, but when he came, I had already finished the rendition of “Doa Buat Kekasih” with Aisyah, hahaha! So, he only managed this photo:

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About 2 weeks ago, Nuni bought me this book, “Falling Leaves” by Adeline Yen Mah:

(pic from Adeline Yen Mah’s site)

Last sunday night I finished reading it. It’a a great book. It was another an -unput-downable book, just like the Wild Swan, by Jung Chang. I think I am always facinated by Chinese female writers, especially when it is a  biography and involves hardship in their lives.

Now a friend is reading it and a few others are in the wait-list!

It somehow made me want to write about me too, hahaha!!!

Thank you, Nuni for the book!

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The day after the reunion dinner, I decided to give the resort, or rather the nearby hot spring a visit:

First it was the dipping pool:

As I entered the pool, the water got warmer and warmer. The warmest part was the place where the hot spring water came into the pool:

It was nice to just sit stand in the water:

It was still early, and there were not many visitors:

When we were about to leave, Ninie came. I saw the open shower water, so I decided to give it a try, as Ninie looked on:

Looking back as we were leaving:

I then joined some of my former students dipping the feet in the 42-50C water:

I couldn’t keep my feet still in the water – it was too hot to my comfort!

I then went to a place where they boiled eggs:

The guide there told me the granite around the (almost boiling) water was hot and good for walking/standing on it, so I gave it a try :

It sure was relaxing to my legs!

Soon it was time to get back to our room and get ready to check out.

The view of the resort as we walked back from the hot spring:

We packed our stuff, and checked out before noon.

And here’s the front view:

When we got home, I immediately tried to book the place for the current school holidays but it was already fully booked! I’ll surely come back to this place one day:

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At 5am this morning, I was awaken by a phone call from my brother in Kota Bharu. He called to inform me that Bapak Maskam passed away this morning at 2.30am. Bapak had some internal complication just the day before and when they hospital team operated on him yesterday they found that parts of his intestine had burst and there was already a lot of infection in him.

Who’s Bapak Maskam? To know more about him, please read here and  here. I did visit him the last time I went back to Kelantan. I also talked to him a few times in the last 2 months when he was treated for a dislocated shoulder (due to a fall).

No, I am not going back to Kota Bharu. The funeral will be done before 12 noon today. Oh, I just realised that Bapak died on a Friday – alhamdulillah.

Alfatihah to Bapak – the man who made me a Muslim! You’ll be greatly missed, Bapak!

Bapak was 79.

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I came across the phrase RT (retail Therapy) from some of my “Mak Cik Blogger” (blogging aunties) friends, esp Kay.

Two office mates and I booked our Jakarta tickets some time ago, and last Saturday (15th May 2010) was the departure day.

We were really aiming to shop till we drop and nobody brought a camera! Why would we need a camera, we were not playing tourists, hahaha!! We however had our phones (though mine doesn’t have roaming facility) that have built-in cameras. Hence all the pix here were taken using my phone camera.

Day 1

Armed with a few millions rupiah (yeah, we were millionaires that day!), we arrived at LCCT at 6am (having checked in online the day before). It was a fast move to the departure lounge because we were not carrying any check-in luggae (hence skipped the baggage drop).

Our plane left at 7am, and arrived at Soekarno Hatta Airport 2 hours later, at 8am local time. By 9am we were already at Tanah Abang!!

Oh, by the way, I met Tini of Snazzy and Such on the plane. She was accompanying her friend for some shopping too!  Our path crossed again at the food court in  Tanah Abang!

First stop was at the textile shops for bargain on cotton fabrics. I managed to take these pix:

It looked so much similar to the shop that I blogged (about wanting to visit).

The shop not so cheap, but we found others that offer better prices. One of them was this one:

My friend looking at some of the cotton:

while I looked at those outside the shop:

After this second shop, I totally forgot to take any other pic, and just engrossed myself in the RT .

We had our lunch of nasi padang  at the food court in the (Tanah Abang) shopping complex. It was simple but delicious. I also had one of the best cendols I’ve tasted so far too.

After lunch, when our initially almost empty hand-carried bags were full, and we had just too many plastic bags to carry, we took a cab to our abode for our stay there, the Traveller’s Hotel.

We took a rest until it was time to have dinner. We asked the reception for some suggestions of places to go. The guy suggested “Mall of Indonesia”. We didn’t hear it right, and when we tried to tell the cab driver, he (the driver) asked us back “Grand Indonesia?”. Clueless, we said yes. Little did we know we were heading to downtown Jakarta, and it was Saturday night! We ended up spending quite some time in the traffic jam before we eventually reached the place.

Grand Indonesia is too grand for our purses, so we only had dinner, bought some foodstuff and headed back to our hotel. The dinner was pricey but nice and tasty. I took some pix but somehow I could not find them in my phone, I wonder why…

Day 2

Well rested the night before, we excitedly had our breakfast early, because the destination for that morning was Pasar Pagi (Morning Market) at Mangga 2. As the name suggests, we thought the place would open early, but when we asked the concierge to get us a cab to the place, he smiled at us and told us that the place started business at 10am!

Argh…. Disappointed, we went back to our room and watched tv instead (we caught an episode of Upin & Ipin!).

At  9am we however agreed to take a gamble and headed for the market. We agreed that if we arrived early, we’d just wait at the entrance to the shopping complex. We had a pleasant surprise – there were quite a number of shops open and bustling with transactions!! One of the first things we did was to get ourselves a check-in bag each! We needed these bags to put in the goods that we’d bought and were going to buy . I also managed to buy a Simpati prepaid call card and called Yudi (an Indonesian friend who was my coursemate during my training in Tokyo in 2004)  and Norita (a Malaysian friend who lives in Jakarta).

To cut the story short, we ended our visit with an early lunch at the food court. The food that we chose that day were not as nice as the nasi padang that we had the day before.

After lunch, we took a cab back to our hotel, to drop the bags and the stuff that we bought at Mangga 2 (Pasar Pagi).  We then went back to Tanah Abang. Yes, Tanah Abang. We were there until the shops were about to close (they close at about 4pm-5pm).

We then had no choice but to go back to our hotel to rest .

Since we missed going to “Mall of Indonesia” (or locally known as MOI) the night before, we were determined to go there that night. I told Norita about it, and we agreed to meet up there. So that night, we went to MOI and met up Norita and hubby, Endi.

Here’s a pic of Norita and Endi choosing the dishes (we gave up trying to understand the menu):

My 2 “partners-in-crime” whiling away:

Norita treated us to a Sunda meal. It was delicious and I remember to snap a few more pix .

The way they served the sambal belacan was really attractive:

Similarly with another sambal:

More dishes:

And I love the sayur asam:

The main ingredients were buah malinjau and its shoots.

I know the seeds are used to make a type of crackers (keropok) that i love, as shown in this pic. That night it was the first time I saw the seeds in the soup:

Ah, enough about the food. In short, the dinner was wonderful!!

Before we parted, we thanked Norita and hubby for the wonderful dinner. Luckily we remembered to have a photo of me with them taken:

Hope to see Norita soon in KL, when she comes down to KL for some official tasks.

Day 3

We were leaving for home that afternoon. I had no more rupiah in my purse (I even owed S a few hundreds rupiahs!). Initially we were planning to just rest in our hotel room before we leave for the airport.  The temptation was high, and we found ourselves at Mangga 2 (ITC) again that morning, looking for more bargains! I resisted buying anything until I came across some chiffon head scarves that I couldn’t resist. So, I borrowed more rupiah from S and bought them.

We came back to our hotel in time for a brief rest, before we checked out and headed to the airport. Our flight was on time.

While in the plane I saw Air Asia’s new advert on the tray:

I thought the kitten looked so cute, don’t you?

We landed at KLIA at 5.50pm, and by 7pm I was home, cooking dinner for my family!

Now, that was a short and sweet RT outing!

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As if last night’s outing was not enough, today I came home to this:

These are the belated Mother’s Day’s gifts from the kids (though I know it was Nuni who bought all these! ).

This Famous Amos tin can is cute, and the contents delicious too:

On opening the box, I found this:

It’s just what I need now, because the thermostat of the current iron that we are using is not functioning (after I dropped it on the floor once, but it was a hard drop!). This mother’s day gift will surely come handy, because I do most (if not all) of the ironing in the house!

Thank you, kids! Or should I say, thank you Nuni?

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First, last night DH took me to Ramli Sarip’s “Tafsiran Alam” concert at Dewan Filharmonik Petronas.

The last time I was there was when I went to watch Dato Khatijah Ibrahim’s concert last year with Aisyah (DH bought the tix for him and me but when the time came, he had to go to USA for some business meets).

Anyway, back to last night, it was a good show by our Papa Rock. I enjoyed the sing along parts too especially for the songs “Ku Di Halaman Rindu”, “Kamalia” and “Doa Buat Kekasih”. If for Dato Khatijah’s concert, Ramli was a guest, this time Ramli decided to have Misha Omar instead. I used to like Misha’s singing, but last night she didn’t really impress me. Her too tight for comfort dress made her look uncomfortable, and it looked like she tried too much to sing well that it looked stressful to me.

But Ramli Sarip really rocked! There were times that I was worried that he might have a heart attack, but he did very well. Man Kidal was one of the guitarists, and the repertoire of the musicians were entertaining too. Despite having the concert in such formal hall, they still maintained a rock ambience.

There was  a moment when DH pointed to the cameraman (while Misha was singing solo). DH wanted to tell me that the lens he (the cameraman) was using was very sensitive (and expensive too) that there was no need to use flash. I looked at the cameraman on duty, and saw half of his face (from nose upwards). I told DH that the cameraman looked like Bazuki, my high school junior.

True enough, at the end of the show, I met up with Bazuki, as well as another schoolmate, Hilmy. We had a great time admiring Bazuki’s hugh lenses.

Here’s a pic of DH with Bazuki and Hilmy’s eldest son, affectionately known to us as Along (his name is Hakym ):

And here’s a pic with Hilmy:

And here’s a pic of old schoolmates :

And I just had to have this pic taken :

It was a wonderful outing, despite being a week night…

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