Thursday, December 04, 2003

 
One more week and then I will start my 3 weeks winter holidays. I haven't planned anything in particular yet, except going to Cambridge to spend Christmas with the Wilsons. I'm looking forward to experience the Brits' most celebrated occassion. Two days ago I went on an ice skating trip with the Malaysian Soc (NMS). My first time on the ice with two blades. I had a couple of tragic falls during the two hours I was at the rink, but thanks to a number of friends, at the end of the day, I manage the get grip of myself and got a bit better at it.

I'm really missing something here. It's still the month of Syawal and I haven't told anything about my first raya abroad. Frankly speaking, it's not as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it was quite happening, except the fact that I had a maths test on that morning, right after Eid prayer. Yes, we had Eid prayer here and the number of people who attended the prayer was more than 1000. Then after I finished my test and lab that day, I made my first visit to my friends' house to eat nasi himpit, rendang tok (Perak's dish!) and serunding ayam(chicken floss). I didn't fill up my stomach there as I got an invitation to an open house by another friend that night. Everybody who went to the open house dressed up in their traditional baju melayu and baju kurung and we had a variety of our national dishes to feast (fried rice, mee jawa, rendang ayam, lemang, kuih batik, kuey teow, raya biscuits, and tonnes more!). After coming back from the open house, I immedeately made my way to Qisti's place as it was our turn to hold an open house the next day. We kicked off our preparation at about 11 p.m with a few of us cleaning chickens, chopping onions, filleting and marinating chicken for our satay. We had a break in between to have our 'prototype' meal which we were suppose to cook the next day and continued on our work. I surrendered myself to the couch at 5 a.m, Nazri an hour later while Qisti and Melvin went on all the way till 7. We resumed the preparation after Safa arrived at about 9 o'clock to help out. Our menu for the day consists of nasi minyak, fried chicken, dhalca, chicken rendang, roti jala, curry, SATAY, kuah kacang, kuih batik and nasi himpit, everything home cooked except for the instant nasi himpit. We had our first reception at 5-ish and the rest came later in batches until the last to leave about less than an hour before midnight. It was a tiring day but all in all, the 'gotong royong' to make to open house such a happening event was worth the sweat. Hence me saying that the celebration here is not as bad as lots of people think it would be, as long as you know how to make the best out of it.

I'm logging off now. Need to catch some sleep which I skipped these few days. Till next time..

p/s: A friend from Notts found this on the net -> http://www.bellerbys.com/results/index.asp
posted by bYn 1:31 AM