Family Day

nearly completed family picture

During the Hari Raya Aidiladha recently, my family and my paternal relatives had organise a family day for our big family. This celebration took place at my grandparents' villa at Batu Pahat, Johor. My family was assigned to prepare a Family Tree Book for the guests and doorgifts as well. This was the first paternal family day in our history.

Sunday - Dec 7th

We arrived at my grandparents' house quite late which was at 2.00 pm. My uncle call my parents several times asking where were we when we haven't reach there yet. When we arrived there, there were so many people dressed in red (the t-shirts were sponsored by my uncle). We were the last one to registered for the family day.

Atih, Sufi & me

busy packing the doorgift

The event started with some speech by my dad, uncle and the event manager. Then, telematch which was conducted by Kak Nora and her sisters took place. These games were participated by the small children, while for the adults and teenagers, we were just watching. These activities were done under two canopy in front of the house. There was also a banner saying "Hari Keluarga Haji Nasipan 2008".

Welcome!

Nyaei & Yaei

grilled cockels

flowerboy

In the evening, we were supposed to have some sort of landscape competition but due to several factors, it was cancelled off. Therefore, we just rest until night came. I followed my sisters and brothers to Carrefour to buy lamb because we were going to have BBQ party tonight instead of normal dinner.

toothpaste commercial

After a quick tahlil ceremony, I helped out my brother in law to prepared sauce for the lamb fillet. After Isyak prayer, the male started to light on the charcoal in the griller and started grilling the chicken, stingray, ikan kembung, and the lamb fillet.

While the men preparing the food, my uncle asked all the great grandchildren (cicit) to gathered in the balcony. He started asking them questions about the family members. I have to admit that I still didn't know some of my relatives especially my cousins' children. The family members keep on growing without my knowledge.

I also entered a quiz which where organised by Kak Su and Kak Noli. It's a 15 question quiz about general knowledge. Some of the questions were:

What is the biggest lake in Malaysia?

What is the name of the second Prime Minister of Malaysia?

Name 3 of the 7 wonders in the world.

and so forth...

Then, I continued my job to disturb the adults who were busy with the grill. While I was busy squeezing lemon juice on top of the lamb fillet, my name was called by my uncle. I won a prize for the quiz but I didn't remember what rank I got but I'm not in the first place. My other two brothers also won the prize. Actually, all grandchildren who aged between 12-25 years old were compulsory to took part in the quiz.


My uncle also asked an open question about our family members. For example:

What's the full name of my brother's wife?

What's my grandmother's IC number?

What's the nickname for my cousin?

and many more difficult questions...

Then, we had our dinner at last. I grabbes a coupled of chicken, salads and the sauce as well as syrup drink. I enjoyed my meal very much because I really like eating western food. Yum yum~
My mom distributed a Tekaria question to my father's siblings. The question was about my grandparents' weight and also my eldest uncle's. The prize was a food hamper prepared by me. My uncle also light on some firecrackers, the big one like we could see around KLCC during new year celebration.



After announcing the winners and also cleaning up the compound (where we had our BBQ meal), I went to bed (not really bed, but just a toto). Early in the morning at 4 am, suddenly I heard many loud explosion sound of firecrackers. That indicated that we have to wake up for qiamullail.
We performed Solat Tahajud, Solat Tasbih, Solat Taubat as well as Solat Hajat.

After Subuh prayer, most of us went back to sleep until the sun rised.


Monday - Dec 8th

Today was Hari Raya Aidiladha but I woke up quite late to perform Hari Raya Aidiladha prayer at the nearby mosque. After taking a quick bath and enjoy no breakfast (because I was afraid my stomach would ache in the mosque), my father and brothers and I went to the mosque. I was still raining from last night.

After we went back to my grandparents' house, I had my breakfast which was lontong and the leftover chicken from last night BBQ. Then I went back upstairs to continue my sleep while my brother was busy playing PSP.

Then, it's time to woke up. It's time to watch the slaughtering of cow, or we calles it qurban. I don't really like watching this, but I forced myself to do so to overcome my fear. This year, two cows were reserved by my relatives. My father took 1 part of the cow while others parts for my grandparents and relatives.

First, the cow were slaughtered by using a very sharp knife. Then, it would be left to die before we could remove the skin. Then, we cut it into parts so that we could chopped it into small pieces to distribute it among our relatives. I just watched the process because I didn't want to make my hand dirty because I was assigned by my mom to take some photographs during the process.

my mom & Along

busy like butcher stall

It was still raining.

At 3.00 pm, I followed my sister and brother in law to go back to Shah Alam while my parents stayed there because they wili be heading to Johor Bahru to pick up my maternal grandmother before they head to Shah Alam.

~The end~

Tawau

I recently went to Tawau which is located in Sabah. I went there with my family by boarding Air Asia since we got cheap tickets.

Our flight to Tawau was in the early morning which is at about 7.20 am. Therefore we moved from home at 5.00 am. The LCCT, KLIA was very packed with people who were very eager to go travel or to visit their hometown since Hari Raya Aidiladha is coming soon. In fact, I never saw this hectiness of LCCT in my entire life even though I have been using LCCT for a quite lots of time.

waiting to board our morning flight

peace in the plane

We arrived at Tawau at 10.20 something. I slept all over my journey here, thus I didn't realised that the journey consumed more than 2 hours. We didn't used any travel agent service because we want to cut of our budget due to excessive travel I will have later on in this month.

Tawau isn't a good place to travel though. There are not many interesting places to visit. Many foreigners came here just to go to Sipadan Island which is rich in natural beauty like the crystal clear sea, stunting corals and multitypes of beautiful fishes.


One things I don't like about this place is that the people here loves to litter anywhere and spit the disgusting saliva anywhere the like. Tawau also isn't very beautiful because of this behaviour. There are rubbish everywhere.

The food here also has nothing special. It's just like the common restaurant which I can be found in Shah Alam indeed.


1st Day

in front of the airport

Not many activities today except tour around the town by walking. The town is quite small. Therefore we can reach many places by walking. We were staying in Monaco Hotel.


2nd Day

We went to Semporna after breakfast by taking 'kereta sapu' or sweep car.. Hehe.. If we used taxi, it would cost like RM50 per head. The journey from Tawau to Semporna took about 1 and a half hour because the distance is about 110 km.

In Semporna, which is a small town, we took boat to round around the islands nearby. We didn't go to Sipadan Island because we didn't make reservation before. The amount of tourists in Sipadan in strictly limited to about 120 person only.



We dropped by Singgamata which is somekind of floating restaurant and fisheries. The was a big natural aquarium in there with big fishes; some with a size of human, some small sharks, giant spotted groupers, and many small striped fishes.

the big natural aquarium where they keep fishes alive

crystal clear water

Then, we continued our sea tour to Kg Tumpih-tumpih which is famous because it had become one of the major set for Duyung film. Then, it started to rain lightly. My mom asked me to swim there, but I refused because I was very lazy to get changed even though I had brought my swimming attire.


After watching the Bajau Laut village along the seaside, we went back to the harbour. After lunch, we went to Kunak because my mon wanted to buy some dried fish and shrimps.



3rd Day

Early in the morning after breakfast, we went to the jetty. My mom really want to go to Indonesia border which is famous with cheap crafts. There were a lot of Indonesian at the jetty, perhaps they wanted to go back to their hometown for upcoming festival, Hari Raya Aidiladha. My parents were quite shocked to find out that the one way ferry ticket costed RM75. That was very expensive! My dad didn't realised the ticket price was that expensive when he bought it.

While waiting for our ferry, we walked around the town to buy newspaper but in vain. No newspaper had arrived and therefore we went back to the hectic jetty. Usually, papers would arrive in the evening. That was quite late because in Shah Alam, newspapers are available early in the morning.

The journey by ferry took my precious 1 and a half hour. I couldn't sleep at all because the kids in the ferry were very noisy and playing arounf in the ferry. Many passengers also making noise with their conversation.

In Nunukan (Indonesia), the atmosphere the is not as I expected. There's nothing to buy here. We just had a quick visit around the small town. The weather also quite hot today. My dad just bought 2 rubber mats near the jetty.



Nothing special here.. Really..


4th Day

It was the last day. We didn't go anywhere except to have our breakfast and lunch. We waited at the airport for about 4 hours because our flight scheduled at 8.40 pm. But then, it was delayed for half an hour to 9.10 pm.


Even thought this trip wasn't very enjoying, I still don't mind about that. It just happen that my family loves to travel.

Penny of Thoughts

After several times I went to Bukit Jalil to settle down my house rental, finally today I settled down everything including paying the deposit and other fees. As usual, I came in the evening. I stayed in Azery's room while waiting for Debbe to come. Wanji also was there since yesterday. He gave me his portion of money for the house payment. Cika also just withdrew his money from the ATM.

In Azery's small room

best friends forever

Azery reading Twilight

Azery was very excited in promoting his Twilight book. He said that he had watch the movies two times at the cinema. What a waste of money. I haven't watch this movie yet because I was trying to save up my money a little bit so that I can use them when I travel later on. Then Helmy came and told us many new gossips and stories. We laughed very loudly and I think people from the living room could hear us. Helmy and I told Azery about our funny and interesting dreams. We all burst into laugh once again, I think we laugh more than usual.

Suddenly, I saw something in Azery's wardrobe. OMG! The inside of the wardrobe was full of fungus! It's white and clustered in many places on the wardrobe's wall. I quickly told Azery's about it and he was shocked. He thought that it was just a common dust. Helmy also convinced him that they were fungus, not dusty dust. Then, Azery revealed that he suffered several itchiness on his skin.

the bad and evil fungus

Then, at nearly Maghrib (as usual), Debbe asked me to wait on the 19th floor of Tower C. Helmy, Wanji, Cika and I immediately rushed there finding that Debbe was already there. Debbe brought us into the beautiful house. Then we did several checklist and agreement signing. I also handed more than RM5000 to Debbe to settle down our payment. After discussing for a while, we left the house. The only problem was we will be needed to buy our own fridge and washing machine while for TV, I will brought it from home.

After performing the compulsory Maghrib prayer, Azery, Helmy and I went down for dinner with Ida. Before that, I bid farewell to Wanji since he came here from Penang. I fetched Ida at Vista B before we continued our journey to Endah Parade nearby. Bella was supposed to join us but she had returned from home.


Endah Parade (Not really indah, really...)**********************************************


It's quite hot in the basement where we parked the car. The elevator also was very slow and late. At first, we dropped by a shop selling bed sheets. Helmy and Azery were very interested in buying one since it was discounted at 80%. The sale was up until 4th January. Therefore, they postponed their willing in buying the sheets.

We didn't know where to eat. It's actually very difficult to determined where to eat since we all didn't mind where to eat. Then, we walked into Carrefour and found out that there were at least three restaurant exist. We finally stepped into Station Kopitiam while Ida was lonely outside buying ice creams.

Station Kopitiam & Twilight

ex-roomates

with the menu

Ida did buy ice cream, but not only for her, but for us as well. She was very kind. I know she was. Then, the boys ordered out the same things which were some kind of promotional set. It got rice, black pepper beef, fries, coleslaw, soup, fruits as well as iced lemon tea. It's just RM9.90 excluding tax. Helmy was very lucky today. He got ice cream with two lids and two spoons. It's kinda weird but funny. We also got Magic Cup! It's very magical though..

with ice creams

Thanks Ida for the delicious ice creams

4 person but 5 caps/spoons.. How come?

yum yum..

hmm, so tasty!

you should try this! hmm.. yummy!

it's thumb licking good!

We discussed on how to celebrate Najwa's birthday tomorrow. Ida didn't have any good idea to make a surprise party for her. Azery was also going to join the party but not Helmy. I also won't attend the party since it will be held at midnight.

Before we headed back, we dropped by Guardian because Azery had something to buy. He bought toothbrushes, dehumiditiser and lalala~

It's surprising that Azery and I have the same SODA t-shirt. Hehe.. But luckily I didn't wear it today..

Then, I sent them home. I send Ida first because ladies first and then the boys. We also tooked a coupled of pictures in the car before we got separated.

in the car

What a nice day. It was a relieve because all the problem regarding the house renting was settled down at last. I just need to meet Mr. Chu, the owner to get my keys later.