Hishgraphics

Boy or Girl? DON'T TELL US!

This is Vin's and my new project. If you can tell the gender, please don't tell us because we want this to be a surprise, something we will find out after
(s)he arrives in the world. Here's what (s)he looks like as of today (14 weeks and 3 days), and (s)he weighs 3 ounces:

Doesn't it look like (s)he's doing the macarena??

And this one:

Flexing the biceps?? (S)he was very active when being scanned, and was just dancing and turning around and around! It was just amazing!

Perth - Part 4

It's now our third day in Perth, and it is one day before EJ and Indra's wedding. We start off the day when EJ came to pick us up in a rental van. We then drive down to Cottesloe where Hsu and David are staying.

Perth - Part 3

After our nice outing, we hung out some more with EJ until he dropped us off at Mei's place - he was off to the airport to pick up some more people. Can you guess who they might be? In the evening, Mei, Colin, Vin and I piled into the mini and drove to EJ's for dinner. BTW, when trying to fit Vin and 3 other people in the mini, always place Vin either in the front passenger seat in front of Mei, or behind the driver's seat if Mei is driving. Everyone has plenty of room with this arrangement!

Here are the pictures at EJ and Indra's place (please mouse over the pictures for captions):

Perth - Part 2

After a good night's sleep, Vin and I were ready to tackle the first full day in Perth. While poor Mei and Colin had to go to work, EJ picked us up and took us to see the sights.

Perth - Part 1

Just a short entry on our arrival in Australia. We arrived in the late afternoon in Perth, and my best friend Mei picked us up from the airport. We stuffed the luggage and ourselves into the mini (Note: Vin fits quite nicely into a mini cooper!) and headed to Mei and Colin's place. We settled in, and then met up with Eu-Jene, Indra, Colin and some of Mei's work friends for drinks and then dinner at EJ's favorite restaurant: Uncle Billy's.

Malaysia Trip - Part I

I know I've been quiet. I don't know why but somehow I sort of slipped into a bit of a hibernation period. I haven't really done very much, haven't swept the floors either (that's next on the list). I really have to get started on sharing the pictures from our awesome 4-week trip (3 weeks in Malaysia, 1 week in Australia). So here it is, the beginning of the sequence. These are the pictures that I took the first few days we got home.

I admit it - I was pretty exhausted and didn't take as many pictures as perhaps I should have, plus then the camera battery conked out and all kinds of excuses. We were only in Malaysia for 2 and a half days before we had to set off for Perth. So we stayed on the 10th floor (enjoying the view) with Hisham and the rest of the family.

The Smell of Blood, Finally Realised

Long have I read in books where the author describes of the scent of fresh blood, especially in crime novels where a gruesome murder had taken place, or a horror novel where some unfortunate soul gets his or her skin flayed for whatever reason. Long have I also thought (each time I read such thins) that I know not the scent of fresh blood. Perhaps it was because I rarely visit places where gruesome murders, or supernatural flayings, or accidents in blood banks occur.

Recently, during Aidiladha (Happy belated Aidiladha everyone) we went back to Pasir Mas where as it was normal during the celebration, many bulls and cows were slaughtered for food to be given to family, friends and the less fortunate.

So there I was at the yard of Ain's uncle's home in the neighbouring village of Lati. We were there a couple of hours late, so we missed the slaughtering of the cow. When we got there, Ain went up into the house to greet her relatives while I wandered onto the yard where many family members and volunteers were cleaving flesh from bone. Here was where all the internal organs were piled. Here was a person carrying the cow's stomach which had been cleaned thoroughly by water, ready to be made into tripe. It looked and had the texture of a small rug.

Irfan, Uncles and Anti-Gravity

Irfan went swimming this morning at the building's swimming pool.

With him went his Opah Cu and his uncles, Pak Ngah and Pak Cu.

Thanks to exotic technology that manipulates gravitons, Irfan, Pak Ngah and Pak Cu were floating about on the water using anti-gravity. Atuk Irfan was there to take pictures of the amazing event with his camera.

Here are several images of the wire-fu hijinks.

Irfan Gets a Diploma

Before that, though, there were a couple of speeches and performances by 5- and 6-year-olds.

Irfan's class performed a little dance. The music went along the lines of "going to the zoo". Some kids were the zoo animals. Some were trees. Irfan was the middle 'O' of the word 'ZOO' and was in the middle of the back row probably because of his height. No surprise, cause that's where I was usually placed in old school photos as well.

Guess Who's Back In Town?

What the title says....

Meanwhile At Irfan's School (or The 500th Post)

After Aidilfitri, Irfan also had some events at school, before exam week begins.

The first being his belated birthday celebration at school, which apparently everyone has. Great for him. We were lucky to have the teacher wish up a happy birthday back in our days.

In any case, the vanilla cake with the chocolate topping (and strawberries, as astutely observed by Irfan's classmate) was delicious.

We believe the orange fruit is apricot.

ACS Kids at Aidilfitri

At Aidilfitri Irfan met and played with a whole bunch of kids of his generation whose parent(s) were former students of ACS Sitiawan. Here are some pics of Irfan and friends. Too bad we didn't get photos of children of Lan, Dila and Gnana.

Here's Chris C's (the other Chris C) daughter Aleyxia whom Irfan invited to play with the hamsters brought back from Kuala Lumpur by Irfan's Opah Ngah. The small dark on is called Ciki and the big orange one is called Oren. Irfan loved to go upstairs and feed the little guys seeds and carrots, loudly and spiritedly commently on everything they do.

Our Seventh Year

It's been seven years since Ain and I were married, more than eleven years since we met. Through all that time, there's been a lot of ups and a lot of downs. And I'm glad I went through it all with Ain giving me strength at my side and I'm looking forward to more years like that.

Eid Mubarak From Sitiawan

Click on the thumbnail on the left for a photo of everyone present for Aidilfitri this morning. Although it wasn't perfectly done, the different families are colour coded for ease of identification. Although you can't see them, Sila and Vin were also present by way of Skype video call and were privy to the regular Raya ruckus.

Ain't information technology grand?

Their actual presence are missed by us all and we're looking forward to them able to make it for Hari Raya in the coming years.

Pacific Northwest: Part XII (Blue Skies on the Final Day)

Finally, the last day of our trip dawned with blue skies. The irony, right? Our final day and then the sun comes out.

Whatever, we weren't complaining.

Pacific Northwest: Part XI (Vancouver - Night)

After walking around Vancouver, we were pretty tired, so we met up with Lilian for a spot of dinner. Come see what we had!

Pacific Northwest: Part X (Vancouver)

My goodness, I can't believe I've been sitting on these pictures for so long. This was back in July, when we had a mini-get together with Vincent and Lilian. The journey so far, we had spent time in Washington State, and driven Lilian back up to Vancouver. Checked into our hotel and didn't do too much that first night, due to the rain and the altogether blah weather.

The next morning, it rained and rained some more. So we took our time getting out. We were going to go to a museum (for an indoor activity) but realized it was pretty far from where we were and would take an hour and a half by public transport to get there, so that deterred us. We were just lazing about the hotel, and ended up having lunch at the food court of the mall next door. Unbelievably, every store there was Asian. When Vin and I walked through there in the morning, I spotted 3 Caucasians in the mall in total, one of whom was Vin, one was a security guard, and one other tourist. I'll be back with pictures of this very Asian mall in Vancouver later.

Finally we got off our bums and decided to go and walk around Vancouver:

Irfan: Five Years After the Day

Tonight was Irfan's 5th birthday, as can be noted via the photo of his cake below. See? It's in the shape of the number five.

Five. Five candles, ah ah ah. But yeah, Ain noted that it looks like the letter 'S'.

Pacific Northwest: Part IX (Journey to Vancouver)

I know, it's been a long time and I haven't finished posting our Pacific Northwest story. Here's the next installation. Just a quick recap to remind everyone where we were: we had said goodbye to Vincent and been handed off to Lilian, who we would drive back up to Vancouver.

Here's Lil, as we drive by Boeing on our way north:

The Old Daycare Gang

When Irfan spent two years in daycare with his Opah Cik just across the highway in Pandan Jaya, I always meant to take a picture of him and his fellow daycare buddies but never got around to do it. However recently, we went to Opah Cik's place to deliver some of the eatables we brought back with us from Pasir Mas and I thought, How nice that phones now come with cameras attached.

So I got them together and snapped the following photo.

Here's Irfan flanked by Ika (left) and Afzan (right), both are about a year younger than him.

Yes, Irfan's is really very tall for his age.