Merdeka Merdeka Merdeka

Hari ini Merdeka.

Kami bangun sangat awal hari ini kerana menghantar Tuk & Wan ke lapangan terbang. Mereka hendak terbang ke Mekkah untuk umrah selama 34 hari.

Sesampainya kami di lapangan terbang, seudah ramai saudara-mara yang sudah tiba. Ada Mak Ndak, Pak Ndak, Yazzir dengan tunang cute, Mak Ngah dengan Ati, Ida & K.Ina Besar, ada Pakcik Awi, Makcik Ros, Mira, Shzan, Shahmi, Sara dan semestinya ada Mak Lang, Pak Lang, Nissa, Arissa, Imran, Irfan dan Ayah (Pak Long) dengan Faiz & Firdaus, Pak Su and Maksu with Hadif.

Kami berlari-lari dan terjerit-jerit saling tak tumpah macam mo-nyet di zoo. Wan dah pening kepala tengok cucu-nya yang hyper active.

Saya dan sepupu yang lain sangat excited nak pergi main di tempat permainan yang ada kalapterbang itu. Tapi Mummy, Daddy, Mak Lang dan semua orang-orang tua yang lain menjegilkan mata mereka dengan rakusnya sambil kata "Tunggu Tuk & Wan masuk dulu la"!

Berkali-kali kami bertanya dan mereka buat derk aje. Ish!

Tidak lama lepas itu, Tu & wan mula bergerak kepintu masuk. Semua orang bersalam-salaman dan kami ditolak unuk bersalaman denga Tuk & Wan. MakSu nangis. Agaknya MakSu risau sapa nak bangun masak sahur untuk dia. Mummy cool ajer.

Fooh. Lepas tu kami berlari-larian ke Anjung apatah dimana kami menjakunkan diri melihat kapal-terbang. Lepas tu barula kami ke tempat permainan itu. Kami makan ayam kay-eff-see PakcikAwi belanja. Sungguh meriah.

Selepas sejam bermain, kami semua pulang selepas sekali lagi sesi bersalaman. Tapi kali ini orangorang tua sedang merancang untuk buat potluck buka puasa di rumah MakNdak si Seremban. Mummy happy aje.

Tak sampai rumah lagi, saya dah zzzzz atas Mummy dengan Adani juga. Kami mergaduh berebut sapa nak duduk atas Mummy. Mummy lenguh tangan.

Itula saje pengalaman merdeka saya tahun ini.

Ohh lupa. Sepanjang hari Aliya & Ayisha nyanyi lagu Eyes of The World dengan Gemilang. Isshhh .. orang nak dengar lagu Ketahuan pun tak boleh. Ising la!


Yang cute & suka kacau kakaks,

ARIZ

Forgetfulness and Ubans

Lack of cash on my Sunday trip to the pasar tani made me skipped the bawangs stall. I figured, I might as well spend whatever cash I have on things I can't get from the nearby maidin store like nangka or those voluptuous pisang berangan.

I figured too that we'd hop over and get the bawangs soon.

That soon was like 4 days later and the night before, I was rummaging through my cabinet looking for the bawangs and grumbled that my maid always put things at illogical places. Cos I was so sure we bought them. Putih, merah and besar, even kentang.

Then Andes told me that "mana ada ibu beli bawangnya?"

Aikk!

Then MrGart sheepishly remembered that he'd left the WHOLE bag of bawangs under the table at our friendly mamak place while we had dinner.

Sheeshh.

Now ubans. Disclaimer. I have a few, but I'm alright with it. MrGart, on the other hand, has more than a gazzillion. Oppss a little exxageration there! A LOT more than me. He's forever would lie on my lap, konon-konon lovingly la. But then he hands me a pair of tweezers. Cehs!

Told him that ubans will light your kubur to which he says just leave a few. Nanti terang sangat katanya. Ish! So, there I will be, plucking ubans and leaving a few bright ones left.

Men! And they say women are vain!

Membina Tak ?

Complaint Suggestion sent in this morning. I'm fed up of those very colourful flyers we receive at the front door everytime there's a function. Takut kitorang tak datang ke ?

---

Can I suggest that CompanyKedekut ceases its practise to send out colorful flyers to the staff for every single event that CompanyKedekut hosts e.g Majlis Perhimpunan Warga Kerja, Sambutan Hari Raya, Deepavali, CNY ?

We have a completely accessible and effective email system and not to mention CompanyKedekut Intranet as well as the CompanyKedekut Newstube.

So, I fail to understand why we would want to :

1. Waste money and resources to print flyers (B5 size is not teensy-weensy size) and efforts to distribute these. Emails and digital reminders suffice.

2. Waste even more money and limited resources to print these flyers in COLOR. Absolute wastage.

3. Increased unnecessary pollution to the environment. Face it. People receive the flyers, read them and toss them aside. Papers do biodegrade easier, but coloured papers bleed harmful dyes into the environment. Please consider the environment before anything else.

Please consider this. This has gone on for far too long. If CompanyKedekut is serious about cutting costs, this should not be allowed to happen.

What's wrong with being paperless and virtual? Haven't we spent enough to improve and enhance our extensive network? Why can't we utilise that? Be green.

Kenduri, Umrah & Gloucester

Last Saturday, we the clan, congregated at my Pakcik Awi's place at Bangi for a supposedly small but it turned out to be full blown affair, a doa selamat.

My uncle and his family, including 5 kids are leaving for Gloucester, UK for the next 2 years while he finishes his Masters. I was already green with envy when I heard about it. I gave plenty of food and shopping advice, what not to wear and what to wear, where to shop, when to shop, which shops are the best, where to sightsee and stuff like that. None of the membina-minda advice. Trust me la.

Anyhow, next week they'll fly away. My ailing grandmother's not too keen, naturally. She's about 85 and in a wheelchair and is overly sensitive. But the thing is, my beloved Pakcik Awi has thought long and hard about it and then opportunity came, he's just got to take it. Cross the bridge when you're at it.

Then, the kenduri was also to mendoakan my parents who will be flying to Makkah to perform their umrah for a whopping 34 days! Whoaaa ! Definitely this Raya we have to go back to MrGart's parents. Sigh!

Nobita's concerned cos her in-laws are no longer around and the thought of celebrating Raya on their own is very uhmm un-fun. And of course, naturally both of us are a tad concerned that we have got to cook for our respective families THROUGHOUT Ramadhan.

You see. Every possible weekend or holiday during puasa is always spent at my parents'. We have the best spread for buka puasa and the best company too. My mother's the greatest cook there is, ever! So, pardon me for feeling slightly self-ishness over foods.

But anyhow. I'm happy for them and I pray that their time in Makkah is blessed and it's their time. My mother has even arranged for a maid for my spoiled sister to care for her son. Cis!!

Anyhow.

They'll fly off on the 31st and they'd be tears, for sure. The kenduri was very large. I brought ..

and

and this

and this.

The boxes contained my brownies which dissapeared extremely fast. And the darkish thing, badly photographed piccie is my tiramisu.

I'm sad now.

Gelak Kerana Bercakap Lebih Awkward

Aku baru je keluar meeting yang start pukul 3:00pm tadi dengan orang-orang yang seangkatan dengan mereka-mereka yang bekerja di pam minyak, logo kaler hijau.

Anyhow.

Dipendekkan cerita, kami terlah bermeeting berkali-kali, mengenai berbagai-bagai isu berkenaan g-as and yang berkaitan dengannya. Dan setiap kali meeting, there's a dread that it's yet anotehr meeting where nothing is ever gonna get resolved.

I go by my "manage what you can control and mitigate what you can't control". Tapi hakikatnya masalah kompeni aku dan mereka adalah masalah negara. Tapi setiap kali meeting, walaupun orang yang sama, percakapan nya sama. Tone-nya sama. Orang-nya sama.

Tapi yang pasti. Dalam uncomfortable disebabkan the issues at hand are so taboo, we crack jokes and we laugh. Because sometimes to bercakaran is so much harder than to laugh about it.

So today we laughed a lot. I had tears in my eyes. I averted ancipated stares from the ketua delegasi hoping I could say something that could favor them. No, I can't sebab satu aku mmg tak setuju. Dua, Madame Veep duduk sebelah. Sekali libas, terjatuh aku weh.

So, I laughed.

I must have looked like a nutcase.

p/s what's awkward in malay?

School Holidays Are Over .. Sigh!!

Although the traffic this morning at Federal Highway was amazingly smooth. Eh, ada accident ke after Batu Tiga before Subang Jaya entry? Alhamdulillah la sebab we were heading towards being late, and then the uncharacteristically no traffic made me wonder if we'd missed a holiday or something. Musykil! Do you know something I did not?

Anyhow.

To commemorate the end of the school holidays and the beginning of yet another gruelling semester, I'd like to post the pictures of the Lil' Garties and what they did during the holidays. Though it's just one event we've been too in the one week holidays.

Well, we were at Sungai Petani and went to MrGart's relative's kenduri somewhere in a kampung near Sedaka, I believe. They have a few sheeps and some local goats and Ariz was just ecstatic to see real life goats living on stilt house and even more ecstatic to find a baby goat, domesticated I was informed. Nampak sangat anak-anakku bebudak bandar, sebab sungguh jakun tengok kambing. Datang that lil baby kambing, menjerit macam nak rak... Ish ish ish! psst mak nya pun sama jugak.

See the baby goat behind Adani?

And then once they've gotten tired of feeding the sheeps and goats with uhmm food .. (rumput ke lalang, aku pun tak tau) .. they've discovered a pair of .. oh gosh .. I cannot for the life of me, remember the name of this buai thing! Oh God! Oh God! .. *closes eyes and focuses hard* .. there's an S and then there's an M. Definitely ends with a T. Smaggot? Mock-something .. HAMMOCK!! darn ..

Let's get back to the main story, not my losing my memory bit.

Anyhow. The kids took turns (err only Aliya & Ayisha, Adani is partially trained and Ariz is simply not turn-takers-trained yet) on the hammocks and swung themselves silly.

Ariz & Ayisha sharing a hammock before it turned ugly and Ariz pushed Asha off the hammock. Yikes!

The girls on a hammock. All because Ariz was conquering the other one. Sigh!

Ayisha, being all sweet and girly. Notice the hair? Took me ages to braid her hair like that. Senget lak tu!

Aliya, very very patient with her sometimes-annoying little brother and sisters. Hair in a single braid. Lenguh tangan Mummy!

So, there. My Lil' Garties on a kampung trip.

Amateur CSS Journey ..

You know .. I never intended to start any businesses whatsoever, firmly believing that I suck at persuasion. Heck! I couldn't even get Ariz to take his meds, okay!

And the Net has always been my passion. I browse like there's no tomorrow and I read and I read and I google and I askjeeved (well before it died). Then the blogging took hold of my life.

And then it dawned on me that making a website isn't all that hard. New sites are mushrooming every second. So, I bought my first domain and my first webhosting service and there began a journey, mighty slow, may I add.

Anyhow.

The RazzleDazzleCookies is just an avenue, I thought. First and foremost, I'd like to put my webdesigning into something people will visit. Secondly, I've been a passionate baker all allong and I figured that I may as well market those.

Well, friends' and family support has been tremendous. I'm glad to have such friends and trusty bloggers who gave me the opportunities to better myself.

Well ... my point is that. I've remodelled my RazzleDazzleCookies website. YAY!!!

I wasn't very happy with the initial design. Very amateur, I thought. I've toyed with the ideas of buying those pinky, whimsical, girly templates only to find out that although they're cheaper than custom-made, most are partnered with a certian webhosting service providers and certain shopping cart providers too. Both of which, I don't have.

So there. I then thought maybe I could design CSS myself. Heck! I've got a Computation Degree and a Engineering Business Mgmt masters degree. How hard could designing a CSS be ?

Errrr .. not that easy, mind you. Especially when there are like a zillion resources out there to help me. So, easy way out. I found a great CSS/xhtml tableleass template and there.

I'm very happy with the layout. I don't like my banner so much. Well, I dind't put much effort into it anyway. It's just a stock photo I bought and some whimsical text underneath. I will refine that soon.

But I thought, it looks good. It looks professional. And it has clean lines and light.

I love it. Though there are many more areas I'd love to look better though.

Do you?

p/s Disclaimer : was up will 1am last night tweaking the design but there are certain pages which I have't completed yet. So, just tunggguuuu ...

Letting It Pass

Warning: Reading subsequent text may lead you nowhere. Proceed with caution.

Sometimes you can only do so much.

Sometimes you just want to stop somewhere and just leave it there and just flee.

Sometimes you've had enough of everything and you just feel like throwing in the towel.

Sometimes life just sucks.

But sometimes never stay for long.

I pine for tomorrow.

A Break It Has Been

It's school holidays this week.

We went to SP to MrGart's hometown on Friday night and came home by Monday night. We haven't been there in a while and hawkers' food in SP were great.

Anyhow, I was on leave from Monday and only came in today, so am feeling mightily sleepy and rather non-productive.

On Tuesday, I sent off Ayisha with Mosh's Arifah to a EZ Math Clinic at the Muzium Shah Alam. It's a one whole day sort of a camp to teach a bunch of Standard 2s and 3s on Maths techniques. Ayisha needed this badly, I think. Once that day was over, there was a session for parents. I was sitting with this makcik who brought in her granddaughter. She's teaching Agama at a Primary School somewhere near Kastam in JB.

She was telling me how hard things have become for schoolchildren these days. I couldn't help but agree with her as I feel as if it's a hige step from Std 1 to Std 2 and I fear for Ayisha. I may be worrying out of context here, but I really do wish that she'd be okay as it could boost her morale. She enjoyed it tremendously though.

Anyhow, I was very productive on Tuesday. AFter I dropped Asha off at the Muzium, I bundled the remaining 3 kids and off we went for a breakfast at the McD at NKVE. We dropped over my panel doctor as I needed referral letters fro Ariz and myself. Ariz for his out-of-control eczema, infected patches and his itchy-itchy body. Me, errr .. checkup.

Then we went to PastryPro as I needed to get my cookie bags. Done. Wanted to have lunch with mrGart but since he's still in a meeting, too bad.

Went home and dozed off on the couch. Bliss!

Yesterday it was the Std 4,5 and 6 session. Very busy morning as I needed to pick up Azmina (Naimah's daughter) and waited for my parents who were ferrying my niece, Nor. Sent them off. Them off to the friendly specialists at teh DEMC with my parents who were there for their checkups before flying off for umrah.

Expectedly, I was scolded for letting Ariz's eczema spiralled out of control. His neck's scratch has become infected and now he's on zyrtec, prednisolone, atarax and eryfed (which is an antibiotic and I'm still thinking if it's necessary). He's on aquaceous cream after shower with cetaphil, an ointment for the itchy patches and fucicort for the infected scratches.

Arghhhh!!! I'm not sure how long he can keep with taking that many meds. Yikes!

Anyhow, I got the 3 girls registered as members of the Shah Alam library. Yay!

Well, we were at teh fireworks show last night. It started late at 10 instead of the usual 9:30pm. We had a great spot and Naimah's family joined us or we joined their tikar, forgetting ours. The kids, especially Ariz had a field day on the slope of grass and ran like a mad man. The girls were having a girlish night out with themselves and we, adults get to sit and rant about life on a tikar.

Aahhhhhh.....

Bite Me

Nobita was telling us about the little booth with a pool where you dip your feet for a fish massage at Gi-ant. The girls lapped at her every word, especially when cousin Annissa and Imran were relating how brave they were that they dipped their feet too.

You see. 2-3 weeks ago, we were at Subang Parade and we stopped by the place and while MrGart had a go, all of Aliya, Asha, Adani and Ariz refused to dip any part of their body into the water, despite the fact that they could go free.

I had errr unremoved hair sticking out of my calves, so thank you very much! It was pricey too at RM34 per head.

So, when I heard that booth was offering at RM12 per head for 20 mins. Apa lagi!

The girls were excited. If Annissa could do it, we could too, I heard.

I went in first, put my feet in and the cute little fishes swarmed my feet. I was brave, mind you. But the image of little fishes with their mulut terjuih coming at me was a little too disconcerting. I dipped my feet and I lifted them up. Face contorted in a mixture of pleasure and intense "geli". Someone said that if you put your feet in and out, it'll attract the fishes more to your feet. Dang!

When my feet were dangling above the water, those fishes ogled at it in full anticipation of dinner and almost jumped to catch my foot. THAT was very scary! Not unlike the way Hans Isaac was looking at the Nescafe bottle in the ads in those tall billboards.

By this time, Aliya and Asha who were so gung-ho 30 minutes ago, went white. They hugged their legs and refused to dip nothing into no water.

I braved myself and stayed down for longer, grimacing all the way, letting out occasional hysterical laughters to the amusement of passers-by. Sungguh memalukan, actually!

But after a while, it got cosy and the hungry piranha-ish fishes turned cute again.

By this time, ALiya and Asha were debating between themselves. MrGart said he'd give it a go, again!

Finally.




Conclusion. My feet didn't feel as smooth as a baby's bottom but they looked cleaner, alright. I hope the fishes were okay and not poisoned!

Exam's Over ,, Phew !

There are 4 stressful periods in our household.

Mid March, Mid May, Mid August, Mid October. The 2nd and the 4th are SIGNIFICANTLY worse the the rest. The 4th is by far the WORST!

Aliya is in Standard 4, very tall and very calculative and prefers to not stand out.

Ayisha is in Standard 2. Tells VERY tall stories like "ada kucing masuk kelas, lepas tu Ustaz bunuh kucing tu" or "patah jari dia mummy". Very happy go lucky and less likely to worry that her grades are slipping. Also an established and reputable drama queen with a capital D.

We couldn't afford tuition for them, or rather they're all full and I don't feel good sending them Tuesday and Thursday nights from 8:00pm to 10:00pm, doing what they would still do during the day. So, we do home Mummy-becomes-the-rotan-wielding teacher.

Unfortunately, I have very very short fuse. I'm known to yell and scream until the whole street could tell what's on the tuition menu that night. Maths nights are never quiet.

But I have to credit the girls for their dedication (I removed dogged because they needed bribes and threats) and for putting up with me.

MissKLSentral (dah beranak ka?) once told me that the secret to her kids' success is to do a page a day of the exercise books, ON THEIR OWN! Yikes!

Aliya can do it on her own, but AYisha needs to be sat down and worked on.

Anyhow, the exam's over this time around. I told the girls that they're getting a week off ME, so read that book, finish that puzzle, play that game, make that friendship band, watch the idiotbox. But a week's is all you're getting.

Hope they'll mend for my next round of abuse. Hor hor hor *evil laugh*

Bunga Api Telah Kembali Semula ..

Yay!

Email from my fellow MSc alumni came this morning with great news.

The fireworks are back! From 12th AUgust to 29th August. Hear that girls !

We had such great fun last year. I think we went to about 3 out of 5 nights. And one night, we actually went there in a convoy of 6 cars, with 3 mats on the grass, by the bridge and we literally arranged whose kids on which mat.


Then we ooohh-ed and ahhh-ed and we went whoooa-ed and we went yay-ed! And then we clapped and then we gasped at the magnificence and then walked to our cars, bade good night and left for home. Safistied. For a night highly charged, well spent and mots of all, free of charge.

Daddy Goat, Mummy Goat and Baby Goat

That, my friends are the perspective from a 3 year old's point of view of SIZES.

It's not the big bus, or the small snail or even the gigantic truck.

It's always .. the daddy bus or the baby ice-cream or the mummy leaf.

And especially "Mummy, baby dick lagi la .. " whenever I ask him to go pee.

Sheesh!!

Burgundy Turned Pink and Domestic Daughters

Okay. I'm not a pink person. Never have been. Never will be. So, when Mamachak ordered these cookies, I thought I'd do burgundy. I tinted the fondant and the icing the night before and woke up the next morning expecting a deep burgundy. But found a dusky pinky instead. Grr !

Anyhow I hope she likes them and oh .. Happy 40th Anniversary to Z and R! *for lack of info by Mamachak*

A boxful of Monogram cookies.

A blown up, background trimmed (rather haphazardly) of a Tiered Cake Cookie.

While I was finishing this, I realised that even though my children have become used to having a maid around, for most of their lives, they have somewhat picked up some domestic skills.

When I was busy decorating the cookies, Aliya and Asha took it upon themselves to sweep the living room, pick up the toys, straighten up the room and generally clean the whole place up. Well, they did bicker who got to use the broom first, but heck, i got over the bickering way was back.

But I guess, it helps that Andes, my domestic helper goes on her not-every weekend outings to her relatives. So, some weekends see us on our own. Me washing dishes, cleaning up after the spilt ribena or picking up toys which magically get strewn all over the place every time i blink. Gosh!

I remember MsVogue told me that her wake up call to domesticate her kids came when her son asked the maid to fetch a bottle of chilli sauce from the fridge and Lollies once told me about Sya, while lying on the floor watching TV, called the maid who was in the kitchen to fetch her the remote control which was like few feet from her. But I guess, we mothers, once we see this happening, corrective actions spring into action. He he !

But you see, we never thought our kids could become so complacent to having hired help at home. I for one, at any one time would have a helper when I was growing up. At one point we had two, and that's only because a pair of twins like us were too much of a handful for one.

But it warmed my heart tremendously watching Aliya and Asha so diligently sweeping away the cheerios on the floor and picking up bits of honeyed wheat puff off the carpet. The future's bright after all.

Me Me

Saw this on Mosh and many of the blogs I frequently dah lama dah. But never thought to do it. But since I'm pretty bored now that I've finished my last ever bill, I thought I'd rejoice and do this. If Mosh did it, this could be fun.

Here goes.

1. 1st time naik kapal terbang (first time riding a plane)
In 1991, flying toUK, headed for Peterborough for my college with 7 other wild-eyed teenagers eager for new beginnings. Yee haaa!!


2. 1st time beranak (First delivery)
9th January 1998. A very long and exciting day (and night). Thank God for epidural.


3. 1st time gi overseas
Singapore kira ke ? If it is, then when I was 10.


4. 1st time duduk jauh drp family (First time staying away from family)
Form 4 at the infamous Seri Puteri. For exactly 9 days. Then we (me and twin, Nobita) packed our bags, bade farewell and came home. He he he. Boarding schools ain't our thing, I guess.


5. 1st time kerja (First time working)
While waiting for the SPM results, me and Nobita and a friend somehow got a job at McD. Great company, great friends, great experience. I burned my hand making the filet and from then onwards I was put for counter tasks, pandai merapu la katakan. Nobita once had a toddler peed on her counter while she was taking orders. Yikes!


6. 1st time rasa diri gemuk (First time feeling that I'm fat)
Who you're cally fat? Me? No way.


7. 1st time bercinta? (First time in love)
Like Mosh. Do falling in love with teachers count? If it does, then mines uncountable. Many times but never one to rival my trur love. *cover line balik*


8. 1st time rasa diri cantik?? (First time I think that I'm beautiful)
All the time. Never one to sell myself short!


9. 1st time masuk cinema (First time going into a cinema)
Sharks the Movie. In primary school, obviously.


10. 1st time admitted in hospital
9th January 1998, awaiting the birth of my little princess, who's now very tall and rather long too.


There! Guess no point to tag anyone since this meme is wayy past its expiry date.

Going Down Memory Lane .. the 80s

Since the petrol price hike, we try to carpool, me and MrGart. It's workable, it just needs to work on. I love the freedom to drive me to wherever my fancy takes me and he goes on site visits a lot. But, we have since tried to make it happen.

Anyways.

This morning on HotFM, the topic was "your fav tv shows".

The deejays were excited over the Thundercats, the Jam and the Holigram (spelling?), Smurfs and all.

I for one could not remember that far back. But I know that I love McGyver and at some point I watched a lot of soaps, Dynasty and Knots Landing too.

The A-Team .. ahhh .. who would miss those. And when I was sitting for my SPM, I was hooked on China Beach and I love Dana Delany (who now plays Catherine in DH). I stayed up late at night on the pretext to study just to watch those.

21 Jump Street too. OMG! And Three's Company showing late at nights. I thought the humour was kinda dark but it was hilarious nevertheless.

And I cannot talk about the 80s without mentioning Rick Astley. Heck! I used "Never gonna give you up" for my prefectorial campaign when I was running for prefect. Ewwwww !

So, tell me your favourite 80's memory.

Overdosed On Kambing

Last night MrGart's friend invited us over for a BBQ at his place in TTDI Jaya. He's grilling kambing. Yummeh!



Since the do was after Insya and we've been invited for kambing sessions 3 times and have not invited them over ours, I thought I'd make them a batch of my brownies, all 16 pieces in cupcake liners and ready to deliver.



It was actually a makan-kambing coupled with a friend's birthday party too.



And I can tell you this. It was the bst grilled kambing I've ever eaten. And the mushroom, not too much black pepper gravy was just out of this world. Fooooooooohh ! Sedap giler .. The leat was sliced thinly and it's grilled to perfection. Crispy enough and meaty enough.

I had a plateful of them and were in there with all fingers comot when MrGat came in with another plateful of them yummeh kambings, hot from the plate. Aha! Asha was eyeing mine and I gave her my plate and she just attacked those. Ariz and Adani ate pieces that I gave them while Aliya gave her "eeww" look to any strange things she'd never put into her mouth.

BTW, my brownies went like hot cakes and I overheard some ladies were munching them were obviously taken by them. Hmm. Kembang semangkuk jadinya aku. Dahla makan kambing. Ha ha ha.

A Shopper's Paradise

Clipperseep was very excited to learn that I was at Bandung when she called to wish me Happy Birthday last 2 weeks. I received an email from her to describe in detail what Bandung was like.

Let me tell you this. 3 days and 2 nights were not enough. 3 nights? Maybe.

Tangkuban Perahu

So, we arrived in Bandung and was taken to Tangkuban Perahu. This was a volcanic crater. I thought it was dead, but NOO! It was smouldering. It was bubling. I could smell the sulphur and I could see hot molten ash right in the centre. MrGart was petrified actually. Needless to say, we didn't stay too long. First I was afraid of any volcanic movement. Second, I was being harrassed by the peddlers peddling small souvenirs. Lemas and rimas!

We turned down an invite to the nearby HotSpring cos I said I came here to shop. So, off we went. I was lucky that I had Ayu's list of Factory Outlets to attack, when, how and what. We went to Rumah Mode and I was plesantly suprised. It didn't look factory at all. It looked like a very posh place. I loike!

Found a lot of work shirts and non-work shirts for me. Things were at least 75% off prices in KL. Like I get Liz Clairborne's shirt for about RM30-35 when it would've cost me at least RM100 here. And the sizes were kind to me. M fits me perfectly, even with room to spare. Elated, I was.

I didn't get a lot of pictures taken at the FO and MrGart was also busy getting his stuff. We went over to Jalan Dago, after covering Jalan SetiaBudhi and did more FO hoppings.

The first half of the next day was spent at the Pasar Baru. I simply bought about 10 sets of kain batik/kurung with no kerawang, 4 sets of my sutera batik, 10 kain pelekants, telekungs for the girls, and about 5 different adult telekungs. Tercabar mindaku. Very cheap, I think. We had ikan garupa grilled and I thought that was really really nice. MrGart had too mumch time on his hands and snapped plenty of pictures. I, on the other hand was busy who to buy what for.

Trying to hagggle for a better price. A telekung galore definitely.

View of the Dasar floor of the Pasar Baru

Rambang mata tengok sutera. Nak nak dah nak dekat puasa ni. Rembat!

Heh! Bought 3 of these LeSportSac bags for Asha, Aliya and Adani for about RM20 each. A steal, I thought.

The trouble about blogging for something so late after it has happened is that you forget. I can't remember much but I know that we didn't have time to go to the Cihampelas Plaza. Damn! Before we left for the airport, Pak Yanto, our supir took us to the nearest Kartika Sari for some cakes and stuff. I bought a few kuih lapis prunes and 2 boxes of dunno-what-its=called but it's supposed to be thir best sellers. MsRuckus told me at the office later that it was REALLY nice. I never tasted it. I'm just not adventurous.

At Kartika Sari choosing sweet treats to bring home.

All in all I was a happy woman. I got all my stuff that I wanted. My regrets were I didn't have enough time to adequately cover ALL store. I din't buy a lot of stuff for the kids. Just enough to pujuk them since we left them in the care of my mother.

Food stuff in Bandung wasn't my favourite. We had nasi padang for the 2 nights we were there. Not exactly my thing. I ordered Jus Alpokat i.e. avocado juice, blended with cream and dunno what else. Very the creamy. I remembered mama24beas has a penchant for that drink.

I think we'll go away once we run out of clothes to wear.

Friday's Here ..

Tra la la la la.

Am going to the Gardens right now.

Tara ..