Weekend activity

Whatelse other than going back and fort to Perak?

This time, we went to send home cooked food to Nadia. While she was enjoying her granny’s  ‘Nasi Bryani’, I took out my camera and started to look around for something interesting to capture.

I noticed a couple of birds looking for their food, ants.

I enjoyed watching them. I moved closer and closer.

Next, I noticed a camouflage from my camera. I moved even closer and  zoomed in my camera.

 

        WHOAH….!!!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE….!!!

 

After the excitement, we left the college at 11 am, as I was catching a flight to Sabah attending a meeting. My hubby sent me to the train station. I prefer express train that took me only 28minuste to the airport, compare to taxi, which takes 50 minutes or so.

Came night, I was already in Kota Kinabalu.

From Kuala Lumpur early morning , reached Perak , ended in Kota Kinabalu at night. From car to train, then to aeroplane. The camouflage was still lingering in my mind.

Adapting To College Environment

No more tears. My Nadia, is now enjoying her new life in college. Lesser complaints, instead, more complements I am hearing. Time flies.

She is now noticing the visit of the picturesque sunset to her room. She shared me the beautiful view thru her mobile phone.

Her acquaintance is getting better. On every weekend, when she comes  home, new names were mentioned during our conversation. Great. Good for her. I always remind both my children that success is a result of good combination between education and socialization. And racism is never been in our vocabulary.

 

Her used to be the most disliked subject, Biology, is now her favourite. Co-curriculum activities are now turning to a moment that she is looking forward. Her papa and mama are happy for her.

She surprised me today, via her text message. I received photographs of her playing Doctor in the lab, poking her classmate’s finger for blood experiment. That was a very brave of you. Don't you come back and do on me..!!

    

THATS THE WAY TO GO..! my girl

Our New Discovery- Place To Dine

It was late evening of Friday when we arrived from Perak, to fetch Nadia from her boarding school. We were hungry, that we could not decide where and what to eat. Everyone had their own idea. Steamboat, Indonesian food, steak and many more suggestions.

As we turned to Sungai Buloh exit, we were still  indecisive. Then I remembered my sister-inlaw mentioned SUBAK Restaurant, by the jungle of Kampung Penchala area. After a short search, we found it by the hill. As if we were going into the jungle, the unique dining place is hut-looking good as being described. My kind of place. Western, local and a ‘lil bit of Thai were served.

        

We were not dressed for the place, but we enjoyed the food anyway.

2010 FIFA World Cup and Me

The season is back.
If you ask me, whether I like it, I actually don't, but I watched and updated myself on the scores, as much as possible.
But why do I spend the 90 minutes game in front of the television ?

Love is the word. I love the men in the house. During the week days, I could not spend much time with them especially when I had to travel. Now that the game is an In-Thing, I wouldn't want to separate myself into another room and miss the moment with them. So, there I was, in the same room, watching the same channel and we would shout 'GOAL..!!!' together. Then later, at the dinner table, we would have something in common to talk about. I kept on forgetting who played against who, and the scores, but I chipped in the discussion anyway.

World Cup brings us together.

Never Too Old To Learn

     

I enrolled myself into a course ‘How To Speak Professionally’ by Alistair King, held at one of the prestigious hotel in town. I went with another 2 colleagues of mine.

2 days off from my daily work, it was a relief to divert my focus to other matters like this. The course was constantly  detoxing, with full of laughter. Alistair’s humble jokes which related to his own experiences living in this country for many years, got to us straight to the point.

Many things said, were things that we already know, but kept on forgetting to implement to our daily practise.

Majority Malaysia speak good English. However, they either speak Basolect, like “Why you one kind one..? or Mesolect, e.g “You follow me to the airport”, when it should be “I will drive you to the airport”. The course is all about talking Acrolect English, in order for the speech understood, internationally.

Of course, Basolect and Mesolect are still needed by Malaysian. Culturally we need these 2 level of English to communicate, in order to be understood by another Malaysian that speaks the same level of English

It was a fun 2 days session that I didn't fall sleepy at all.

The beauty of Lake Toba and Samosir Island

Our simple break fast didn't create any complaints at all. We were all focused on one thing in mind. ‘Pulau Samosir’ . Samosir Island located in the middle of Lake Toba, built up by volcano eruption, according to our Tour Guide, Lisan.
At 9am, we boarded the bus. The bus went through a rough narrow road, passing by old looking houses along the way. We noticed most of the hut-looking houses were equipped with satellite dish, locally called ‘Parabola’. Lisan said, hundred of channel from all over the world are available to the owner to view. He also said, sometimes, the Parabola costs much more than the cost used to build their house. Interesting.
     
We were excited when the bus was approaching the jetty. Wonderful scenery.

Boarding the boat was another exciting adventure. I love it, I love it, I love it. I thought of Nadia, my daughter who could not join the trip due. I miss you girl. I captured these pictures for you  to see. Look at your Brother. He was talking to you on the phone.
   
The boat ride to the island took about 1hr 45min. The first village we visited is named ‘Kampung Tomok’, the place where the Kings of Tomok are buried. Lisan introduced to us the local dance as a welcoming gesture by the villagers to their visitors. We showed our supportive moves.
   
The local tour guide explained that kings of Tomok were not buried, instead their body were stored inside a coffin made of large stone, taken from up high of the mountain. The stone we were looking at consists of the bones belong to the kings of Tomok.

After listenning to the legend, we moved back to our boat. Along the way, we did a little shopping.
Back to the boat, we had fun looking at those kids, asking us to throw money to the lake, which they will jump in and rush for the money. First come first served.

We continued our boat ride to the other side of the island, where another village, called Ambarita, where, according to the guide, the prisoners long ago were executed by chopping off their head and distributed their flesh, bones and internal parts to the villagers.
At first, the king will call for a so-called justice-meeting. That was when the decision made, whether or not the prisoner would be executed and ended as delicacies soup for the whole village (yum..yum..), or safe to go. Our guide took a few minutes describing to how an execution of a prisoner was done.
 
We had a chance sitting on the meeting area. We also ventured inside one of the house, where the stove to boil the delicious soup is located.
 
Next, nothing much to shop, we were heading back to the boat.

On the boat , back to Parapat, we were entertained by a trio of Ukulele musician and singers of age from 13-16 yrs old boys. They were so talented.
My eyes  couldn't get enough of the sceneries. The bumpy bus ride bck to Medan didnt deter my affection on the perfect view. In the bus, along the way..snap,snap, snap, until my camera ran out of batteries.

2 hours of bus ride, we reached Sipiso-piso mountain, where located the highest water fall, 1.5km drop to the base. I found a shop selling batteries. Phew…
Mama, Papa and Adri. Posing for nadia.

Ther rest of the journey was very-very bumpy. At last we reach the hotel at 11:30pm. Exhausted. We all deserved a cosy bed and good morning breakfast as a 5-star hotel like J.W.Marriot. Thats where we treated all the staff on that final nights at Medan.
      

Upon checking out, we stopped by Tamrin Plaza to shop and lunch, before heading to the airport.
   




Home sweet home….. exhausted, but we enjoyed the trip.
 
As we reach our house area, we were shocked to see fallen trees along the roadside and sign boards where crashed. Apparently, we just missed a storm.
Malaysia probably missed us and ran ‘Amok’ on the trees.