Southbound

The reason for travel up to Penang this time is to attend my cousins' wedding. My father has a total of 12 siblings, including my uncle who passed away last year. My grandmother has more than 50 grandchildren and 20+ great grandkids now. I happen to be the eldest among the grandchildren. The wedding ceremony is for one of my father's sister's son.

After a big feast last night at the pasar malam, we woke up this morning to sample a selection of nasi lemak near Kelab Cinta Sayang here in Sungai Petani. It is roadside stalls which specialises is nasi lemak. There were tons of selection when it comes to the sambal and gravy. I tasted it before and was well impressed.

My auntie then had a visitor from Kelantan. That means that we can't leave early for the wedding. We finally arrived there at almost 2.30, well after the bersanding. We stopped over en route to buy some noodles. This stall serve the best noodle, and we actually packed it back to KL.

After meals and meeting relatives we had to rush back to KL. y grandmother was there, and she appeared to have lost weight. Apparently she caught a virus last months and was off food. Only recently she got her appetite back. She suffered multiple stroke in the past and she is not able to speak. It is a times difficult to make sense of what she is trying to say. She has what in the medical field termed as expressive dysphasia. She knows what she is trying to say but cannot muster the muscles to actually articulate it. It frustrates her at times. She is almost at tears when we can't make out what she is trying to say.

The drive back to KL took just over 4 hours plus the stop in Bukit Merah for a quick tea. We got to KL at around 8, then after dropping my parents, I rushed back to Gombak. It's the Manchester Derby tonight ......

Northbound

I am Northbound today. My cousin is getting married tomorrow. Well he is married today. His akad nikah is today, and the wedding kenduri on the wife side. Tomorrow will be on his side. I drove with my parents. My kids are just too tired to make the journey as we will be heading back tomorrow.

Malay wedding can be rather tedious. There are minimum 3 ceremonies. The akad nokah, when the groom says I do. Then the wedding ceremony on the wife side followed later, usually on a separate day on the husband side. To safe cost, we tend to have the akad nikah and brides' wedding on the same day. For me, we held a reception as well at a hotel, inviting friends and extended family. The akad nikah tends to be for the immediate family and the ceremony temded to be more intimate.

We plan to travel home tomorrow after the wedding as Monday will be the MMed exams.

What to buy for Mother's Day?

The Curve, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

It's the time of the year again when both my wife and my Mum were dropping me hints. My Mum usually expected me and my sister to take her out for dinner, with all her grandchildren around. Last year we went to a restaurant in Wangsa Maju. The food did not turn out as nice as we expected despite the ambiance and the price.

Anita dropped me a few hints yesterday, so I know I had to be on a mission. Unfortunately I will have to travel to Penang rather than spend the day with her and my kids as one of my cousin is getting married. I would be driving my parents there, so it is very likely we will have the meal there. Next week also will be the MMed exam week, so I will be back at work. It will be followed by the SIRIM Audit in UMMC from the 18th, so I can't take leave that few days either.

On a different note, was quite glad that United will be facing Barca instead of Chelsea. Really enjoyed the look on John Terry's face at the death. I was worried that it will be our turn to lose the penalty shoot-out in Rome. At least with Barcelona we will expect an open high tempo game. We will wait and see.

Update on Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 8:12PM by Haris Abdul Rahman

Yup! Figured out how to link multiple pictures from flickr ... will make flickr my main photo storage site from now on!

Another upload but from a different computer - please indulge me

Sunset Dip, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

This picture was taken on Labour Day near our apartment @ Bayu Beach Resort. Port Dickson. Check out the golden hour sun, it was simply juicy.

This was taken after a good hour spent on the beach and water. Unfortunately the the tide was low and caused the sand to be rather muddy. Weather was gorgeous though. If features my two boys Idlan and Irfan getting rather cold. You can click on the link to see the rest of my flickr post!

090504 Makan

090504 Makan, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

This is essentially a trial post from my flickr account. See if it's neat!

Update on Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 4:03PM by Haris Abdul Rahman

Success! By updating via flickr, it saves me from having to upload the pictures twice. I need to find out if it is possible to have a single blog entry with two pictures from flickr instead since the resolution and the scaling from flickr is much neater than manual uploads. The pictures appear sharper than I expected.

While I'm there, this is a picture I took on my LX-3 after our badminton games. They mainly features my juniors from MRSM Terendak. Most of them actually enter the college after my SPM, which made me feel kinda old!

This picture also neatly demonstrated the power of the Leica lenses and sensor on the LX3 despite being small-ish. It was almost SLR quality and with such fast lens (f2.0) and built-in image stabiliser, it was possible to handheld picture in such low light.