New School Term is here again

Sunday 28 Dec, my wife, my daughter and me went to SRI Al Amin Gombak to purchase my daughter's text book and uniform. Yes it is the school season again. We reached the school at 9 am and were ready to go by 9.30 am as we were early and had beaten the que. As always SRI Al Amin is well organised in handling this sort of events, kudos to the school. Keep up the good work.

2nd Badminton game at Setapak High School 27 Dec 2008

As I have mentioned last week in my posting "Badminton game at Setapak High School 20 Dec 2008 (26 years after I had left it)", my extended family were back this week to play badminton at Setapak High School. However I missed another nephew, Udin who said he was coming but did not turn up.

I played four double matches and won two of them. The victory was sweeter when I trounced Zaid, my eldest son, and his partner Ibrahim, my brother's son in straight set. Zaid had beaten me last week but I did not provide him any more leniencies this time around. A game is a game :-)

We then played half court basketball. My team of Ammar, Sufian and me won a tough game against Zaid, Safuan and Ibrahim. It was another sweet victory for me against Zaid and his team.

We will be back again next week Saturday 3rd Jan at 9 am for our next tough matches.

Aqeeqah for 'Imran @ PV5, Platinum Hill Condo, Taman Melati 21 Dec 2008

I did not mention earlier that I received a new nephew last November. 'Imran from my second eldest niece, Khadijah.

We had his aqeeqah today and was well attended by relatives and Khadijah's friends. I tasted only a morsel of the lamb, just to join in the celebration as lamb is pantang for me, he he he...

May all mighty Allah bestow the wisdom and guidance to 'Imran and his children and grandchildren until the day of reckoning, amen.

Badminton game at Setapak High School 20 Dec 2008 (26 years after I had left it)

My two sons; Zaid and Anwar, my daughter Hanaan, my two nephews; Safwan and Sufian joined my wife, my sister (the School Senior Assistant), her husband and me to Setapak High School this morning to play a few games of Badminton. We played in the famous Setapak High School gymnasium (one of the few non-boarding public schools in Malaysia that has a gymnasium). Setapak High School's had a very colourful and long history (you can wiki it here Setapak High School), however the condition of the gymnasium when all of us came in this morning was deplorable. It was nothing like I could remember when I was there 26 years ago. So before we could play, we had to sweep the floor for 30 minutes, but since the dust had settled on the parque flooring for so long, there was not much we could do. Seems to me the gym had not been used for years. Watch this video yourselves.

After plenty of sweeping the floor, we skipped the warm up as we had already warmed up :-) and played for about 3 hours. We will back next week God willing, same day, same time.

All of us then had our lunch at Restoran Haslam at Jalan Pahang.

p.s. calling Setapak High School Form 5 Sc 1-1981 (see photo below). Email me if you are reading this posting. We can plan a reunion and find ways to help our former school.

guess which one is me, the right guess wins you a voucher...

Year End Team Celebration at Chinoz, The Gardens Mall at Mid Valley on 16 Dec 2008

As to mark our 2008 successful operations, my team and I at the office had our Year End Team Celebration at Chinoz. Each one of us had our pre-ordered ala carte lunch set (the restaurant could not cater for my forty team members if we had ordered on the spot). The dishes were prepared nicely and of course served ala carte style. There were two speeches; one from my boss and the other from me. My boss gave her short speech at the beginning before our lunch. She thanked all the team members for a job well done. We then had our starters and main course (my main course shown here, chicken bla bla bla, I could not remember the full name :-).

After the main course, we had each team member exchanging their gifts with one another. Before the dessert was served, it was then my turn to give my short speech. In my speech, I thanked the team members for the sacrifice that they had put into their work and to the success it had brought to the team. We then adjourned back to the office just before 2 pm.

A very big thank you to the organising committee for a job well done. All of us had a wonderful time especially during the exchanges of gifts session (video snippets of the exchanges of gifts session is shown below).

My "extended family" weekend at my PV10 Condo - Dec 13 2008

My PV10 condo unit is still vacant due to the fact that I am a very selective landlord. Several property agents had approached me to rent the condo to students, some are ridiculously silly wanted to put in 15 students into the unit! My dream tenant would be a small local family starting up in KL or expatriates family on an assignment to KL. Click at the following to view my adverts

1. Setapak Lake City Danau Kota Condo PV10
   
2. Setapak Lake City Danau Kota

Yesterday my family organised an extended family dip in the condo swimming pool and had some refreshments at the condo Mamak restaurant. We then prayed Asr and Maghrib in my condo. They were about twenty of us altogether, a big extended family indeed.

Group photo of the children (below), parents were not included.

See below for a view out of my condo bedroom window at 8.15 pm on Saturday Dec 13, 2008

Below, my wife and I at the condo balcony at 7.45 pm on Saturday Dec 13, 2008

Family holiday at Padang and Bukit Tinggi 25-28 Nov 2008

It has been a while that my family and I had taken a holiday abroad together. This year we had the opportunity to plan it very early. In May, one of my wife's colleagues had offered to organise a four-days and three-nights trip to Padang and Bukit Tinggi, Sumatera, Indonesia. It was to be some sort of family day, but with own expenses of course. My wife and I took this opportunity to plan us early for a family holiday. It was a bargain indeed. It was also an opportunity for me to renew the international passports of my family members that were about to expire in November.

I let my wife handle all the bookings and I did not get to know the programme until the end. And for the first time I let my wife and two teenage sons to pack the bags. My only contribution was to tell them to bring one medium and one small size bags and two bag packs. Somehow they were reluctant to pack knowing how picky I can be on what to bring and what to leave behind, but I hold true until the end that I would not interfere with their packing.

We had a very early start, waking up at 3 am and driving to my wife's school by 4 am. We parked our car at the school and took a chartered bus to LCCT for an 8.30 am Air Asia flight to Padang. We reached LCCT at about 5.30 am and finished our check in at 6 am. We performed our Fajr prayer thereafter and had our breakfast. By 7 am, we went through the immigration checkpoint and into the departure hall. We were called in to board at about 8 am.

We touched down at the International Minangkabau Airport, Padang after an hour flight i.e. 8.30 am local time. It took us only thirty minutes to pass through immigration and custom. Two mini buses and an MPV were already waiting for us in front of the airport. Without further delay, we headed towards Bukit Tinggi. Along the way we stopped at one of the lavish looking Minang restaurant for breakfast. My family had two plates of roti canai, two plates of nasi goreng, one plate of cucur kodok and hot drinks. The food were not as what we would taste in KL but the price is a hefty Rupiah85,000 (RM26.50), my good guess is about 15% to 25% of it went for the tour guides commission.

After breakfast we continued our journey to Lembah Anai, this is where the famous waterfall along the road to Bukit Tinggi for our first stop in the programme. We then visited the Pusat Dokumentasi Kebudayaan Minangkabau (The Minangkabau Centre of Cultural Documentation, family photo on the right), Padang Panjang a traditional Minang house with spacious garden which include a fountain and several small houses as surau and paddy stores. The interior of the house is more like a museum with a lot of documents and photographs of famous Minang warriors and freedom fighters. Then we had delicious Nasi Padang lunch at one of the Padang Panjang restaurants.

After lunch we stopped at two shops selling embroidered shirts, scarves and telekungs (long prayer scarves normally worn by Muslim women in South East Asia). The ladies in the tour group had their field days shopping. I enjoyed the atmosphere within and around the shops.

We checked into Campago Hotel, a hotel at the outskirt of Bukit Tinggi at about 4 pm and was told that we will go out again at 5.30 pm for some more shopping and dinner. The shopping is for more of the same things i.e. embroidered shirts, scarves and telekungs but somehow the ladies were never tired of spending their money. We went to the Kampung Pandai Sikek, the famous village known for it handicrafts. It was almost 9 pm that we had our dinner as the shopping took longer than expected as there were more than one shops that the ladies had spent their time.

By the time we reached the Campago Hotel, there were already more than ten makeshifts stalls at the hotel compound (see photo on the right). The stalls were selling again more of the same things i.e. embroidered shirts, scarves and telekungs. And again the ladies will still go over, bargain and spend their money.

We went out early the next morning at 8 am after breakfast at the hotel. But before that, the ladies were again at the makeshift stalls shopping. Our first program of the day was to Embun Pagi to look from about 1,000 ft level the famous Maninjau Lake (family photo on the right). We then went to the Panorama and Sianok Canyon. My family and I went into Lubang Jepang (the famous underground hideouts of the Japanese army during their occupation of Sumatera in the Second World War, family photo on the left). We again went shopping at Pasar Atas, Bukit Tinggi. We had an early dinner and went back to the hotel to pack for our journey downhill to Padang the next day. There were more shopping at the hotel as the make shift stalls were still there.

The next morning, I took time with my sons taking panoramic pictures around the hotel before our journey to Padang. Somehow we had to stop again at Pasar Atas, Bukit Tinggi as someone in the group had to shop for a last minute item. The trip downhill was via the seashore and we could see paddy fields as far as the eye can see. We passed through Pagar Ruyuang and saw the spot where the Istana Besar Pagar Ruyuang used to stand (see photo on the right), it was burned down in 2007 due to a faulty anti-lightning wiring.

We had lunch at a beautiful restaurant that is built on a fishpond (see photo on the left). As we had lunch we could watch the fishes swimming, the paddy fields, the buffaloes and the leaves of the coconut tree swaying blown by the wind. It was a breath taking experience, something I had missed from the time I was five years old while I was visiting my grandmother's paddy fields at Simpang Tiga, Gombak, Selangor.

We reached Padang at about 5 pm and checked into our rooms. We went out for dinner at 7 pm and adjourned early at 9 pm as we had to be up and early the next morning for the 8.30 am flight to KL.

My family and I enjoyed this trip as we had the first time four years ago as we were able to visit new places and minimise our shopping only to the essentials. Of course we got to know some interesting characters from the tour group that also add colour to the trip. Insyaallah we will make another trip again to the beautiful Minangkabau with its two famous mountains of Gunung Merapi and Gunung Singgalang, its twin cities of Padang and Bukit Tinggi the birthplace of my wife and my ancestors.