18th anniversary late night snack

Anniversary at the Dispensary

It has been 18 Gregorian years since Ain and I were wed. This year we decided to celebrate by visiting the doctor’s office because when I was at work today, she threw her back. Thankfully it was just a minor sprain and not a slipped disc. Even so, it did cause her much discomfort and pain. After the doctor’s visit, […]

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Cake cutting time

Irfan is Sixteen

Once again, the arbitrary day based on an arbitrary timing system returns after a long cycle known as a year. Because we appear to honour the system, it was time just like last year to celebrate Irfan’s birthday. He turned 16 today. Atok and Opah visited from Perak to celebrate their grandson’s birthday with him. Irfan’s birthday cake was an […]

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Last Day

Long Weekend in Perak

We headed to Sitiawan on Saturday after my Research Method class. It was a long weekend. Really long weekend. Monday and Tuesday were holidays for various reasons. After lunch it would be 3 pm before we finally departed from town. We stopped at the highway rest stop to refresh ourselves. We had arrived early in the night in Sitiawan. I […]

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The waterfall in the back

Weekend Before Classes Begin

It was the long weekend, which started on a Friday. We thought of filling up the weekend with some activities before my semester with a new batch of students begin next week. First, we headed toward Taman Sakura on the way to Kuala Perlis. (Click on all the images to expand them.)   At first, a stream. Then WHEEEE! pic.twitter.com/ap0WdDcHD7 […]

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A Bookstore Then The Next Day Home

Later that night… The night before we had to return home, Cik Su took us to the new BookXcess book store nearby, at a mall which looked pretty impressive but appear to be incomplete. The only other outlet we visited before was at Amcorp Mall. The books there were cheaper than standard retail value because these were old stock copies […]

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Ilham Bestari

The Place Where He Grew Up

The day after Aidiladha we thought we would head into the city to check out the borough of Pandan Indah where Irfan grew up. It would literally be a balik kampung for him even though the kampung was Kuala Lumpur. Born less than 10 klicks away as the crow flies in Kuala Lumpur Hospital, he knew no other home other […]

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Aidiladha with Nia

The days before Aidiladha we spent home with Nia or out for meals . There were a lot of laughs and falling asleep and wanting to play with a goose.

Soon, Tok Bah and Tok Ma arrived at the airport. We travelled there, not far from Nia’s house, to pick them up.

Later we headed out to Aiman’s house to celebrate hari raya there, though on raya eve, Aiman and Irfan returned to Nia’s house with Ciksu to sleep there. The next morning, Aiman, Irfan and I went for Aidiladha prayers at a nearby mosque.

Ben came a-visiting, but I forgot to take photos. Here are some of the photos Ain and I remembered to take.

The Botanical Garden Expedition

We had to balik kampung this Aidiladha holidays. The kampung we returned to was neither Ain’s nor mine. It was Irfan’s.

On Saturday, after my Research Method class and my colleague Anis’ sister’s wedding, we drove from Perlis all the way to Nia’s house. Nia was happy that we came. We also met Aiman, Zara and family there.

The plan was that the next day, Sunday, we would all rendezvous at the Botanical Gardens at Shah Alam. Ain and I have not been there since before we were married. This was the children’s first time visiting it.

There were flowers. There was a rope bridge. There was archery. There was even a troupe of monkeys.

Irfan and his cousins entered the bunny farm where Nia became superlatively elated. According to Irfan, she even fearlessly fed a large goat by hand. There were no photos of the goat, but we do have other photos.

I posted on Twitter videos of Irfan shooting arrows at orcs a bullseye:

We were having lots of fun and it was only the second day in the Klang Valley.

The AC unit was recently installed thank Allah

Overnight at the Office

One Friday morning we woke up discovered we had a water outage. We did not know how long the roof tanks would sustain us because driving through the town of Mata Ayer (ironic name in this case) nearby we noticed that the repair work being done, digging into the street there appeared to be major. I thought that this would […]

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Some Salam Lebaran From Sitiawan

For Eid, we were at Sitiawan taking photos with Atok and Opah. We also visited Marina Island near Lumut to see what the artificial island was like these days. Sometimes friends visited us. Sometimes we visited friends. We also took a trip to Ipoh to visit Wan Cu’s family.

Check out the photos in the following gallery:

Before long it was time to head home.

Pre-Aidilfitri in Pasir Mas

After our journey through Thailand to get to Pasir Mas, we finally arrived just in time for buka puasa at the dinner table with the family there. Nia and family were already there to greet us.

Here are some photos of the fun times over the days before we drove to Sitiawan for Aidilfitri!

Perak beckons.

Nia’s waiting for us at Pasir Mas

A Northern Route Back to Kelantan

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED. Yesterday, we travelled out of the country as a family for the first time. Granted it was only over the border into Thailand, but it was something that all this while was out of our ability to do for fiscal reasons. It was almost time for Aidilfitri and we drove from Padang Besar to Rantau Panjang via Thailand […]

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Time to go home for Maghrib

A New Place to Eat

We are always looking out for an affordable restaurant with delicious food. Luckily, there are still many places that surprise us in a good way in Perlis. South of Kangar towards the highway, while looking for a nasi mandi restaurant, we came across this good Thai restaurant for iftar. We parked by the fields which had been prepped for sowing. […]

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The old market

A Ramadhan Weekend in Sitiawan

The previous week, just after one of my classes I was informed by Atok Irfan that Opah was hospitalised for a because of dengue fever. We headed back to Sitiawan to check up on her in the weekend. After breaking fast in the car along the highway while passing by the Gurun rest stop, we decided to have our dinner […]

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Ania and Ayah Ngah

A Solo Return to KL

I got a call from Shide with whom I had several work adventures with years ago who needed me to return to Kuala Lumpur for some minor business. He graciously footed the travel bill for me, so after we decided on a flight ticket. So yay! I get to ride on one of these new-fangled flying machines again. The ride […]

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Us

Breakfast at Gua Cenderawasih

Sundays can be a great time for picnics. There is no lack of picnic spots here in Perlis if you knew where to look, and we have looked at many over the last three years or so. We decided to visit Cenderawasih Cave Park. It was close to Kangar so it was not out of the beaten path. Cenderawasih translates […]

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