Alhamdulillah, I went to perform Umrah today. The mosque was too beautiful. The clock had ticked. It was magnificent. But, to be honest, I like Mekkah the way it used to be. All the old buildings. Traditional and modest.
All I could see now was extravagance and luxury. It’s too much. Too commercial. And that’s not what Islam is about. That’s not what Mekkah is about.
Towards the 5th day of Eid, heavy meals were not served anymore. Instead, desserts and some Eid cookies were served. So after doing house-hopping, we were left with an empty stomach. My siblings wanted to eat at Chili’s, so we ended up going there. I wasn’t a big fan of Western foods and one of my purposes of going to Jeddah was to eat Middle Eastern foods! But, oh well, I had to follow the majority vote.
Being with a family is luxury. That’s all I can say 🙂
Today was my family’s turn for an open house! There were plenty of foods! 40+ guests came to our house. It was a busy day for all of us :).
The last guest went back at around 11.30pm. And we had to do cleaning up until around 1am! Phew! What a day!
Alhamdulillah, I arrived in Jeddah at around 4am. The flight from Amman, Jordan, took around 2 hours and it was quite tiring. There were only 2 passengers (including me)! Hahaha. The whole plane was for us. The other passenger was a Saudi girl, who studied in London for many years. She seemed really nice and didn’t dressed up like most Saudis: simple and almost no make-up (whilst Saudis put too much make-up on daily basis). She had been studying in the UK since 4 years ago. Her family must had been so open-minded and modern, I thought.
When I reached the passport control, there weren’t any queues. So I didn’t have to wait for so long; I only had to wait for my luggage. I was so happy that by the time I reached a luggage carousel, it was 4.30am. But unfortunately, I had to wait for 30 minutes for my luggage to arrive. It seemed like our bags were abandoned, as there were only 2 bags in total. I got out of the airport just after the call for Fajr prayer.
I reached home, took a quick shower, and went to the mosque straight away. I saw many Indonesians (as it’s located near our consulate) and Saudis with their super duper thick make-up. Everyone was so shining. So happy. So delighted. And I felt so blessed to be around with my family for this year’s Eid.
In the afternoon, my family and I went to the residence of the consul general. His house is always used for many Indonesian events. During Eid, the house is opened to the public where many foods will be served. It was my first time to go there during Eid so I was pretty excited. There were plenty of delicious Indonesian foods! I was stuffed with foods and regretted that I ate too much, because we were planning to visit other people’s houses too! 😀
Well, thankfully my stomach managed to eat more foods. The next three or four days of Eid will be spent with visiting people’s houses, eating, eating, and eating. I will gain more weight for sure. But I don’t care (it’s not like I ever cared about my weight anyway!). I just wanted to enjoy it.
Hope you all have a great Eid celebration!
I have spent the last 6 years straight of Eid ul-Fitr without my family. And I don’t want to spend yet another Eid “alone” anymore! So today, insya Allah I’ll be flying to Saudi Arabia to join my mom, dad, sis, and bro for the Eid celebration!
I’ll arrive in Jeddah early Friday morning and I really hope I could perform Eid prayer over there! Or, worst case scenario I’ll be praying at the airport hahaha. Then hopefully I’ll meet some of my friends and former teachers at the residence of the consul-general of Indonesia. My family and I will also be visiting friends’ houses, so it’s going to be exciting! I can’t wait to eat the foods hahaha.
In the Netherlands, some people will celebrate the Eid on Friday. And some, including the Turkish people celebrate it today :).
So I want to wish you all, Eid Mubarak. I hope we have improved our faith and may Allah SWT accept our fasts and prayers, Ameen. Kullu 3am wa antum be7air! 🙂 Have a great celebration!
Today was my last day in Eindhoven before leaving for Jeddah. And it was my last ifthar at the Turkish mosque as the Turkish people were going to celebrate Eid the next day. So since some of my friends would go back to Indonesia and I wouldn’t be seeing them again until they would return next month, I proposed to have a small gathering at Usine, a cozy cafe in the centrum (city center), right after the ifthar.
I was quite happy that it turned out many of my friends who came to the mosque joined the gathering at the cafe! And out of nowhere, Jessie gave me a birthday card and a gift!!! I WAS SO SURPRISED! OMG! An early birthday surprise! I never expected anything! And I didn’t suspect anything was going to happen that day! I mean, come on, I was just expecting a simple gathering, everyone enjoying themselves catching up with others… But it turned out that there were some hidden agenda behind it! Hahahaha! Jessie covered it up so well and got everyone write something on the card itself! Good joooob!
And what did I get?? A Versace perfume with the body lotion!!! I smelled this perfume when I was at a perfume shop with Jessie and I immediately really loved it! And she bought this for meeee… oh how sweet of herrrr. I was so touched, moved, and overwhelmed today! Thank you everyone, especially Jessie and Agni who planned the whole thing! 🙂
So yeah, since everyone knew that my birthday was coming up soon, they expected me to pay for the drinks. LOL. Sorry guys, I wished I knew I’d have been prepared! Hahaha.
In addition to the surprise, I had a great time that evening! Had a good laugh and catch up. Thank you again for coming! I really appreciate it. See you next month! 🙂
I was sent an invitation to attend the UQ Centenary Reception in London both via post and email. The event will be held to celebrate the 100 years of UQ. Too bad I can’t attend the event. The idea of applying a UK visa is already too complicated for me. And I won’t be in Europe during that time.
It’s just crazy how much money UQ has spent for these centenary events since the beginning of this year! The reception itself has been held in 12 cities in 9 different countries! It was even held in Jakarta, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Bangkok all together. Sadly, I missed all of them and I’ll miss another event again.
Things I miss about UQ:
Happy 100 birthday, UQ!
I’ve been getting many postcards lately. Some of them were sent by my friends. Some were sent by the PostCrossing.com members. I’ve been a member of this cool project for few weeks now, exchanging postcards with people around the globe. Hope to receive more postcards from Latin America, Africa, and small islands in the Pacific Ocean!
Yummy foods at the Turkish mosque today, alhamdulillah 🙂
And I met a really friendly Turkish girl! I always feel happy to meet fellow Muslims, coz I don’t have that many Muslim girl friends here. I’m not picky when it comes to making friends, but it’d be convenient for me to know them, especially when I have to go to the mosque or Islamic events — I won’t be the only girl around.
