Season's Trend

Earlier this month, for a kenduri at a friend’s place, I donned a batik given to me by one of my Indonesian patients. It fitted me well and the stripes were more traditional than the local ones. It looked smart but during this Raya shopping I noticed that this more traditional Batik patterns are becoming a trend.

And it was not just for mens, even the ladies this season seemed to wear these more traditional stripes with a more loosen cutting, back to the 70s fashion sense. I guess trends come in cycles.

Anita got me another pair of Batik shirt for Raya to match hers. This one also looked traditional with simple cutting. The colours also tended to be subdued, usually keeping to a single shade. For the ladies, the motif tended to be flowers.

This became really obvious when we were at #RiuhRaya recently as most of the stalls carry these themes. Anita happened to wear something similar when we was at Riuh - a loose flowery Kebaya top - not at all looking out of place. And she had a few on booking, guessing that she was ahead of the trend ...

I now realised why at the said wedding, I was invited to sit at the VIP table. I certainly dressed the part that day ....

#RiuhRaya Part II

From part 1 ...

Exiting the first hall, we entered another one just behind. This one had a few stores selling Raya cookies. One of my firned noted to me later that the cookies here were gorgeous. We did our buying already at Bangsar Village prior and since we did not plan to buy here, we just had some quick looks. Most of the stalls here use scan codes and online banking. Therefore, you didn’t have to bring along plenty of cash. We ended up buying some fish skin snacks here instead!

Now for some kueh raya ...But we ended up buying some fish skin snackFancy learning how to make ketupat?The place was still packed at this hour and we moved on to another hall. This one was similar to the first one, mainly selling clothing items. There was one selling Raya Cards but the queue was just too long. More browsing ...

Almost an hour passed. The live band was still playing, and there were children playing with bubbles. A great sight. We could have sat down and have more drinks but it was approaching 11 pm already. Rather than call the Grab at the entrance, we decided to walk down Jalan Riong to the main road and pick one from there. Less crowded and less chance of getting stuck in a jam. Sure enough, we were back home 10 minutes later.

Sitting down for a quick snackThe late shoppers ....A quick look at the program ...All in all, it was a great event. Don’t get me wrong, Riuh had always been fun but after a while, it tended to get repetitive. Having a Raya theme helped this time around and it exposed us to more vendors and judging from the number of business cards Anita picked up, it was great for the local business. Some of the stuff here were quite difficult to get anywhere else. A win-win situation ...

The children having a bubbling good time ...If you ask me, making own cards looked too tediousNice sketches ...Time to go ... Good Night!Riuh is a monthly event held at APW Bangsar at Jalan Riong. At the other times, APW also has a selection of restaurants and cafe which were worth a visit ... a definite instagram-worthy spot!

#RiuhRaya Part I

The last Riuh was held just before the election with the ex-PM Najib in attendance with his grandchild to entice the younger voters. Clearly it did not work out well for him!

Suffice to say that he did not turn up for the next one ...

And the next one took place last weekend, smack in the middle of Ramadhan with the organisers opening the doors at 4 pm and the party went on until midnight. There were breaks during berbuka, Maghrib and Tarawikh prayers, all held inside the venue.

Let's first sample the vibeThe live band called Jumero was excellentWe went there on the Saturday evening, after my quick stop at the hospital. We initially drove there but could not manage to get a parking spot. We were lucky that we were not caught in any major queue. We promptly left the car at the apartment and got into a Grab car sending us back and forth.

It was around 10 pm when we arrived and the event was in full swing. The prayers had just finished and the music had started. The first course of action was to get something to drink. Most of the food stalls and food truck were done for the day. There were not much left, although we still managed to get some killer latte from an outlet called The Flavourist.

There were plenty of stalls but most of them were done for the dayBut this one was good though ... oh the killer latte!The venue could be divided into four areas. The first one as we entered were where the food stalls were, with a stage at one end for the live music. This was right next to restaurants and cafe with some space to sit down. The next one were where the main vendor stalls and pop-up stores were located.

This area were filled with Baju Raya selections and other clothing items. We bought some Raya money pouches there and by this time Anita was already nuts! There were so many things to see. There was this stall which sold colourful kerongsang for Baju Raya, a real novelty. Some of Anita favourite brands were also there, but since she had done her shopping, she decided against buying anything else then. When Idlan and Irfan were growing up, getting traditional clothes for Raya for them was not that easy. Here, they were everywhere. The kebaya and baju melayu for kids were aplenty. Costs a bomb though ...

Entering the first hall. Mainly clothes.The "in" patternWhere we got our duit raya pouches fromFor the kiddies ...This one was Anita's favourite. Kerongsang from Werks and Wit.Continued here ...

SRVNT

This was something unique I saw at Riuh the other day. A company call SRVNT - a hip spelling for "servant" - was doing their brand of dakwah through awesome design work. They basically came up with contemporary T-shirts and posters, all depicting Islam in the way the young can connect.

In the age where social media is the way to communicate, why not use your talent for dakwah in unconventional ways. I didn't quite catch the name of the person manning the stall but I was impressed on how he went about explaining his concept and products.

Details and contactsIt may be best to see what they had to offer via Instagram. They were still a small company and were still developing their products. They had a great concept and was trying to scale up. It would be challenging but if they did it right, they would own the space. Not many hipster Moslem preachers around the last time I checked. Yes, there were a few pretenders around for sure.

I would suggest you follow their instagram or Facebook, go and visit their stall the next time they open shop to learn a bit more about what they were all about. All the best brader!

Return to Riuh

It looks like the APW at Jalan Riong had taken off as a site to chill at during weekends. And one weekend a month, a party was added to the place where pop up stories were opened as well as shows and exhibits to complement the already swanky cafés they had there.

This monthly event was called Riuh and aptly describe the party atmosphere it generates. Since it was near my place, plus it was a post-call afternoon, I decided to hang there for an hour having coffee and checking out what was going on.

The battle planUnfortunately, I was late and most of the food were gone by then ...Decided to give this one a miss this tripA few stalls caught my eyes as well as some nice food. I decided for a simple coffee this time around and just let the minute pass by. Plenty of folks were there, young families as well as the hipsters. Everybody seemed to be mingling there happily.

Back indoors where the stalls were locatedSome really great work here on displayArea for children to have funEven Doof were aroundI wasn't really in the mood to shopWhile I was there, a group of young capoeira practitioners came to do an exhibition. Quite exhilarating actually. With the weather being nice, I actually quite enjoyed the spectacle. Shame that the parking arrangement remained a pain. I decided to park half a kilometer away to avoid the congestion. Something the organizer needed to look into.

Wanna try durian in public?Saving the dates for the next instalment Back to stall area where I sat to have some coffeeSpace for kids to run aroundTaking a breather with some ice mochaI would definitely be stopping by in the future events there. Even maybe woukd.make a point to just stop there on Sunday afternoons. The coffee was certainly nice enough.