Yesteryear is Today

You have been longing for kampung ambience, meeting your relatives and having a feast of delectable food, but you have no kampung to go, no more grandparents to visit....where do you head to.

Sarapan

This year, Keluarga Tok Haji Abu after a long time that we have never gathered with the whole families decided to have our Hari Raya gathering. Location wise there is less option to choose especially during Raya. There are few considerations before we decide to pick  the venue.

• We can't go to our usual gathering spot at Pengkalan Balak,as it is no longer attractive to hold our Family Day there.
• Venue must be in the area where all the family members could reach within 1-2 hours.
• We need to consider also that we can beat traffic jam on our way there. Reason being we should do it and wrap the event in 2 Days and 1 Night in keeping to the true spirit of Hari Raya gathering, as the time is so precious. If you spent half a day on the road, you know what you will miss later on.
• It has to have proper amenities and facilities i.e swimming pool, dinning hall to house 60 over pax, air-conditioned room and ample parking space. On-board entertainment not really required.
• price, price, price. 

Well, the planning was not much of an issue. We have done few family gatherings before, in a larger scale and coupled with many more challenges. I could remember the preparation that we made in the first ever Family day we conducted in Ancasa Hotel in Port Dickson, i think back in 2009. The venue was initially proposed by Poksu, having learn from his side of family who has conducted  their family day. It was a simple one but full with joys. But soon after the event ended, we decided that it should be annual affair to hold the event.

I have below in my collection some of the photo and videos to capture the moments.

Tok Haji Abu giving his remarks in the 2nd Family Day

Promotional Banner to make other family feeling envious.

Abah chairing the Family meeting tabling the Tok Abu Fund

One for the Family Album. Notice about Tok Abu hand gesture

                                   

Makan Time

Mandi

      

Basically after we have organised many of such events, we have come to a conclusion that below are all the needs for all the family member which need to be met

•  The kids and adults needs swimming pool or dipping in the sea to cool down.
•  The Elders, Pakcik Makcik enjoying the BBQ and strolling along the beach.
•  The ladies...need the make-up and camera for Wefie. Man just watch and learn

So this year, after careful thoughts and intense yet friendly discussion in Whatsapp Group, we are heading to Desa Balkis in Kuala Linggi for Hari Raya gathering.

Date: 5 Syawal 1437 H (9th Jul 2016)
Venue : Desa Balkis, Kuala Linggi Melaka
Time : 12 pm (reach Office waiting to get the rooms' keys)

I will let the photos and the captions to describe how enjoyable the gathering was and its event which took place this year        

Rumah Mama where it houses our family

Mak Andak on her way to her house. Bye

Lighting at night on the tradisional houses

                                                                                         

Pak Anjang and family signing Kad Hari Raya

Poksu and Moksu collecting the memories living in kampung at the serambi (balcony)

                                    

Unboxing the rice cooker, the only utinsil which everyone forgot to bring. It should be Mak Anjang since she wanted to prepare Nasi Arab that night

The BBQ Chefs in action. 

Family photo for the night

The Elders discussing family affairs and wedding plan of Aiman, Salihin, Shukri and Liza.

Write about it before it is too late....

Again, I fail again and again to update the blog. Last entry was back in 2013, but my blog counter indicates that it has been viewed more than 1800 times. It feels like you have never be able to achieve your promise just  like your new year's resolution. Similar as a new year resolution, your objective will become generic, with expectation that it will never be achieved.

I will always have this fear that if I put up something for reading, it will never caught anybody's attention (obviously because I have only 1 subscriber), people will not relate to it and I could always imagined that people will laugh cynically to themselves due to various reason...i.e grammar, revealing your foolishness. But 1800 views (over a period of 6 years) does tell you something. Whatever crap that you read in the blog, the effect will be just be contained at least to my Facebook friends population (100+). So i need some strategy to spruce up my blog. 

To make my blogging life easier, I could do what Tun M is doing in his blog by writting it in point or bullet form. Straight to the point, no fancy wording or sentence. Now, is there any other reason for me not to start blogging. If my instinct said  yes, my thoughts can list more reasons for me  to start blogging. So I say yes, but below are the reasons why I really need to blog and topics which I may write about

1. I have more time now. My contract will be expiring soon. So in anticipation to becoming full time work-at-home brother/son, I better get prepare  to kill my time. I could also write about my preparation should my contract not be renewed.

2. If item 1 really happened, I would share my working experience in the industry, just as I did when I left Nestle. Probably someone who was very fresh or wanted to know how is working life in this company,it would probably give them some idea how to survive and many interesting thing on life to do in Miri when they bump into my blog.

3. How to control diabetes, keep healthy, my frequent trip for medical checkup.

4. I could also put up an entry on how to work with aging car. I had really bad experience with my Mazda Lantis and now with my Proton Waja. Compare between those 2, Waja experience are definitely worth it to share.

5. Euro 2016, predictions. My first entry was about Football, 2010 World Cup. As I was writing in this entry, Portugal has reached Semi Final. The other spot will be decided between Germany (my favourite team) and France. It would not be as enthusiastic as last time, since no more sensational story like Paul the Octopus generated in media last time, but probably I could put up a few entry of Newcastle, which has been relegated to Championship. Probably I can look into my first entry in Myspace, where my comment on Newcastle was written up.
Whoaa this one require specific entry as I was looking into my Myspace account, trying very hard to look for it, I just noticed that I could not find it. Probably Myspace has change the concept, but hopefully I can find it.
6. New family house in Nilai. I am planning to work on the house compound where I can grow vegies. Yes I will. I will show that I could grow plants or vegies if i have "Tangan Sejuk" - ability to grow plants by just sticking the seeds into the ground
7. AOB..
Probably to make my blog more interesting, need to put many pictures. Sometimes it just need a photo to bring again the memories as they say a picture says a thousand words.  I can download photos from my old album and put some comments and tell a little bit of story behind the pictures. Just to give you a sample that starts story in the Whatsapp Group



Now, comes the hardest part for me on how to end this entry like any other entries. See, when I write something, I put up the Title first and let the idea coming out afterwards. As you read the title, it says
'Write about it before it is too late". I was thinking to write about my cousin, Abang Yoes who came to visit us with his family. He has just lost her second child due to kidney complication. When caring for her daughter, he and his wife sacrifice a lot of thing, one of it was travelling away from his home and visiting relatives during school break and Raya especially. We were a little bit shocked yesterday when he came to our house on the first day of Hari Raya. He came almost Maghrib prayer time, had Jemaah Solat in our house. What interesting was the conversation that took place after Maghrib prayer. Like a long-lost family member who has been reunited, Abang Yoes shared what has been happening to his family for the past years and at times the conversation bring back memories living with Wak San in Kampung Bintang. I joined the conversation and just try to hear and think back about the memories that have been shared. That was the time it struck me that those stories need to be pen down so that moments and stories of such will always be remembered.