Hari Raya Holiday - Day 01

KLCC Night Walk 6, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

Yes! The holidays already started, but unfortunately without a bang. As those who followed my tweets had learned, Idlan had high temperature last night and had to be taken care of. He seems to have been better during the day and started playing his Wii again. That's a good sign.

Lat's artwork in perspectiveI had plenty lined up to do. To start off, I sent the car for service as we are planning to use it for our trip to Penang after Raya. Then I took Irfan to his Pingu School while Anita had her manicure and pedicure. Bak home, we ran a few errands, going to the bank to transfer our maids' money back home. We then headed out to buy some groceries before it started raining heavily. I have yet to do my own shopping, so I decided to do it after iftar. I set of alone to KLCC.

I had the opportunity to observe Lat's artwork close-up that evening, and it was mesmerising. Simply breath-taking, true to form. Lat s a famous cartoonist and I grown up with his comic as staple. He takes a very dry view of current affairs and hit home with his drawing. He takes no prisoners, and regularly lampoon famous public figures and normal boring daily routines alike. I find his drawing funny and touching, but the best of all was his series on kampung life. If you grow up in kampung, you can't help but smile every time you read it. And this is no exception.

The life-size mock-up of a kampung houseThe Ghazal trope on showIn the main foyer in Suria KLCC, are life-size work of his 'Kampung Boy' series, with all its stereotypical characters, complete with a full-size kampung house. When I arrived there, there were also traditional ghazal troupe playing, and tourists were taking the opportunity snapping away. Let's start with the positives, the artwork was classy, and very well presented. The troupe played very well, excellent sound system and acoustics at the foyer. The vantage points and access was great. I spent almost 20 minutes looking at all that was on offer. Next to them are stalls selling gifts and cookies, all themed similar to the artwork. Very neat indeed.

What is ashamed was there was no guidance for the tourist. It's fair for us who are familiar with firstly Lat's work, but more importantly the selling of the kampung concept to the visiting tourists. There were no tourist guides explaining the goings on, what the exhibits are, not even pamphlets for them to read. I can't help but to realise that there is an opportunity missed here. Worst still, the only access to staff for information were in the form of security personnel, and they were all non-Malaysian! Alamak! Imagine if a tourist ask what was the guitar-like instrument the troupe was playing, I would offered to run around naked at the foyer if the Nepalis 'Pak Guard' can say 'gambus'. If you hear in the news that a naked streaker was cought in KLCC, you have yourself an exclusive on who it was and why.

After doing my shopping, I headed for some food. Unfortunately, most of the food were sold out at the stalls since there was a rush earlier for iftar. Even O'Brien ran out of white bread for sandwiches, and they only sell sandwiches. Had some nasi ayam, then off for some coffee at Starbucks before a quick stroll. There were still plenty of people at Suria at 9.30 last night, by the time I headed home. It was a pleasant walk in the end. At home, the boys were helping their Mummy and Grandma baking some cookies for the Eid. The smell was nice. Idlan's fever was also down by then. Alhamdulillah.

You can see the Twin Towers through the roof

KLickers in Melaka

From the sound of it, the KLickers had a great time in Melaka yesterday. It was a roadtrip over there organised by the 'management'. Unfortunately I was on call yesterday and wold be a pain to leave Lembah Kelang in case anything happens at the hospital Looking through the photograph, I wished that I was there.

Courtesy of ArupImage courtesy of Magnus Caleb, featuring Michael if I can see clearlyJaav, courtesy of Magbus CalebJaav's take on the Eye of Malaysia - is that what it is still called now?

Construction completed

Construction completed, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

What a football it was last night, and I finally got to bed just after 2, having to wake up after a couple fo hours for Sahur. United played Spurs and as I was settling down for some noodle and titbits, Spurs scored after 50 seconds. Oh dear!

But United actually passed their way back into the match superbly and were crafting chances. After a few misses, finally Giggsy stroked in the equaliser from a freekick. Before halftime, we were were leading with Anderson hitting the onion bag. The match took a turn when good old Scholesy ... did a Scholesy and was sent off. We held on though, and it was clear that Spurs will not win if they did not score within 5 minutes of the sending off allowing United to regroup. Rooney scored another later in the match with United the deserved victor. It was a good night all around.

Woke up this morning pretty early with one thing in my mind. I wanted to upgrade my photoblog and get it up and running. I purchased a new theme last night which I thought was appropriate for it, and I must say I was pretty pleased. Setting and lining the site up took some doing however but I think it ws well worth the time. Please visit it at harisphotoblog.com and see what you think. No, I have not yet had the time to go out shooting for a themed slideshow yet. Maybe I will do that in the coming holidays.

And talking about holidays, we will be heading to Sungai Petani for the second day of Hari Raya. We have already booked a couple of rooms at Kelab Cinta Sayang, and will probably be staying there for three nights. Should be a good break. Will be bringing the Wii of course. Will definitely be visiting the family in Penang as well.

Lat at KLCC

Lat at KLCC, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman. Taken on my Nokia E71 mobile.

It has been a long week for me personally, with Anita's birthday, on calls, work and all. Unfortunately, I still have to do the rounds tomorrow morning. I thought, I'd better get it over and done with and look forward for my Hari Raya break. I will be off work from next Wednesday. We will be traveling to Penang on the second day of Raya and will be staying there for three nights.

Since the children has been asleep during the day, we decided to eat out tonight. We went to KLCC to do some shopping as well. The central foyer this year was very well decorated I thought. There is a model of Malay kampung with caricatures from the Malaysian famous cartoonist, Dato' Lat. Malaysia is not really liberal in the sense that, nobody really dare to make fun of the politicians without the fear of getting a knock on the door from the powers that be

Lat however is somebody unique. He lampoons Dr Mahathir on a regular basis and gets away with it. Why? Because you can tell the innocence and the truth of his thoughts in his drawings. They are often funny, but at the same time hits home. When I was growing up, my Dad has collection of his comic in our living room and I often browse through hem I guess I learned much about Malaysian politics through his work, something that the current crop of young leaders could do with as well. If you have the time, be sure to give a Suria KLCC a visit. It will be worth your time should you be able to tolerate the crowd. By the way, I didn't see that many people wearing masks there tonight either.

Happy Birthday Anita

Anita's Birthday 1, originally uploaded by Haris Abdul Rahman.

090909 marks Anita's birthday and being a good hubby, I organised a few things for her. However, since it was a normal working day, we only celebrated in the afternoon. Being Ramadhan we decided to have our iftar outside after she enjoyed her prezzies and flowers.

Shot of the Colonial-themed interiorI let Anita picked which restaurant she wanted to go to. She picked a new restaurant at Great Eastern Mall, a branch of Penang Village. The actual restaurant was as mentioned, newly opened. All the furnitures and trimmings were nice. The concept appeared to be English Colonial, which is understandable as Penang was one of the former English Straits settlement. And unfortunately, that was where the niceties end. It was meant to be a buffet, but the spread was rather pathetic for one. A price tag of RM45++? You got to be joking me. Put it this way, the food selection were spread along two tables, and that was it. Yeah, that would be OK for a private party, but to charge patron for that amount of money .... I thought it was ..... inadequate - being diplomatic here.

Anita enjoying her foodAnd how about the food? One thing that will always win buffet over for me is diversity. People coming to take on a buffet expects that there will be selections. Here, there was some sweets - mainly jelly or Malay kueh, a small selection for appetiser and salad - like 4 plates to choose from, the main course, being either white rice or 'tom yum' fried rice with about 7 dishes. If you don't fancy rice, there was either spaghetti or 'kuey teow'. The food were best described with the typical Manglish expression of 'so-so la' - reminding me of Idlan's music school where he had to sing out the notes - fa-so-la. To sum things out, I went for a take away right after the RM250 dinner ...... My mum-in-law in her typically acidic one-liner quipped - "better to eat at home".

Since we arrived there early and fed the boys there, they became restless by the time we finished our meals. Irfan especially was going hyper and I had to take him out for a walk in between my courses. It was not an altogether bad evening. Anita was happy with her gifts and well-wishes from her friends. When I updated my facebook status about 'my wife celebrating her brthday', one of my old collegemate replied that she wishes my wife a happy birthday and said sorry that she did not no her personally. When I told her who Anita is, she then realised that they used to share the same dorm while in college - Anita is my childhood sweetheart and we went to the same school before.

We came home relatively early with some take away of course. That was then I had my dinner. Will I recommend Penang Village to anyone? No for a buffet. It was simply a lame excuse for one. Maybe the ala cart menu is better. I suspect that that was how they usually do their business. The interior settings however was nice. There were big wndows with good view of the outside. I bet it would be nice during lunch.