It’s been awhile since the last time I received a postcard. It was only one and a half month ago that I finally settled and had an address. So I can’t tell you how happy I was when I received this postcard!! This is a personalized one that my friend made. She took those pictures and printed them as a postcard. Although I lived in Eindhoven, I didn’t get to bring any of its postcards with me. So thanks so much Qonit, for sending it 🙂
It really made my day.
I’m proud to announce my new WordPress Plugin, which I named it "WP Visited Countries". I started to develop this plugin in the middle of last year, but somehow it never finished. I tried to complete it before I started my Middle East trip, but again, it was delayed. The plugin was working fine but I was not satisfied with the codes. I wanted to find a more neat way to do it. I never developed any plugins before, so it took time for me to learn how to do it the right way.
Since I have nothing to do these days, I decided to resume the project again. After less than a week of changing the codes, looking at old codes, and reading a lot of tips on the Internet, I managed to finish it! Yay!
So, there it is, my new plugin. When it was first released early in the morning, there were no bugs — as far as I knew. But then I discovered that the plugin couldn’t work in multisite feature of WordPress (i.e. having multiple blogs under one WordPress installation). So I had to add some minor changes… I haven’t tested it thoroughly this time. I hope it came out right! Any feedback? 😉
It was 8 years ago — 2004 to be exact — that for the time I designed and developed a website especially dedicated for my high school friends. At that time, static websites were still very much popular and many people still relied on free website hosting that was equipped with ads in each page.
The original website that I designed underwent major makeover two years later, although it’s still static. I had been wanting to make it dynamic, but I didn’t have time yet. The plan was always postponed that I finally gave up on paying its domain altogether.
Time passed by and I completely forgot about the existence of this website. It was only today that I encountered this website again! I couldn’t believe that the website could still be perfectly viewed with today’s web browser! 🙂 Hoorah to me! 🙂
I’m currently reminiscing about the good old days through this website. Such a lovely memory.
One day, my friend Nabilah asked me if I would like to join the aqiqah of her niece. This would be a great opportunity to meet locals and it would definitely be my first exposure to a Malay culture. So with no hesitations, I immediately said yes.
We drove to the nearby state, Selangor. Her sister’s house is located near the city of Klang. The house was in the middle of nowhere. It was in a village (or a kampung, as Malaysians say it). This was my first time going into a traditional Malay house. It was interesting. The house is two-storey. The living room and bedrooms are located in the upper part of the house. There is another living room in the bottom part of the house, with a slightly lower ceiling. At the back of the house, there’s a big kitchen and a bathroom. Just like in Iran, the toilet is located outside of the house.
When we arrived there, we were welcomed with lots of foods, as usual. It was a buffet. They put a tent outside where guests can sit and eat. Apparently, we missed out the actual aqiqah, so we were only there to eat and mingle with Nabilah’s extended families. Interestingly, Nabilah’s brother-in-law is a Malaysian of Javanese origin. Long time ago, many Javanese people came to Malaysia. Since I can’t speak Javanese, I can’t really figure out whether their Javanese language is the same as ours — but they can speak Javanese. Nabilah also said that their Malay accent is a bit different, perhaps more medok than the standard one :P.
I really enjoyed being in a kampung. It was very quiet, peaceful, and green. It was a nice escape from the noisy KL. I also forced myself to speak more Malay with Nabilah’s family. I really want to master it hahaha. It’s easier to mingle with the locals if you can speak their language — even though, yes, Malaysians generally understand Indonesian language just because they watch a lot of our sinetrons.
The next cultural experience for me would be the traditional Malay wedding. I was already invited to Nabilah’s friend’s wedding in September. I’m looking forward to it 🙂
Alhamdulillah for everything 🙂
When I was in Tehran, I was hosted by a very nice Iranian family. The experience was unforgettable and I had one of the most amazing moments with them. On two separate occasions, two of the family members came for a visit to KL. So today, I met one of them and showed her and her friend around KL.
We went to Chinese and Indian temples in Chinatown. It was my first time going to these temples so it was very interesting. I became a tour guide “on the spot”. I went to Chinatown 2 years ago when I was in KL and I barely remembered my way around. It was good to refresh my memory and at the same time explore this city!
When I was in the Chinese temple, I struck in a conversation with a Chinese-Malaysian man. He’s in his mid-50s I would say. He had lived in Australia and New Zealand before and loved to explore. He told me that he was the one who discovered a new species of Rafflesia. The plant is called Rafflesia Azlanii. I think this was the coolest thing EVER!! 🙂 When asked why he named it Azlanii, he said he had a fight with his Professor friend about it. Apparently it was named after his friend’s wife. He said that his daughter also recently found another species of Rafflesia, which was named Rafflesia Sumeii.
This is the reason why I love talking to strangers 🙂 You never know what kind of experiences they have encountered! It’s just so cool! He really made my day!
There is something about living in KL that is rather unique, different to the life I had in the Netherlands or in any other countries to be exact.
My life back in the Netherlands more leaned to social life. I miss having friends come over to my place, cook for them, play UNO with them, and stay up late with them. I miss the kind of life where anyone is reachable — I can just call one of my friends when I am bored or in difficulties and find myself having a conversation with that person in a cafe somewhere few hours later. When I don’t feel like socializing with one particular group, I can go to another group. I’m surrounded with people all the time.
But this kind of life is not possible here (yet). I have very few friends here, so my social life is currently in a very low state — though I’m not in an urgent situation to fix it because it takes time to find a lot of friends. So I decided to ignore this fact for awhile and accept it as it is. It’s hard, but I can’t do anything with it. I just need to get used to it and I can say that I’m getting there — bit by bit. The few friends that I have here are those people I cherish the most and I can say that I am grateful to have them as my friends :).
So I’ve shifted my focus. I’ve decided to focus more on how to get away my boredom. I’ve been forcing myself to be creative, to find a new way to kill my free unemployed time, and to be busy in an interesting way without involving other people. I’ve decided to explore new things or new hobbies that I can do on my own away from the Internet and computer.
Doing puzzles is just one of them. I never was a fan of puzzles. In fact, I didn’t remember having any sets of puzzles when I was a kid. I was more of a Barbie kind of girl. It was only when I was in Istanbul that I enjoyed doing them. So I decided to give it a try this time. I couldn’t find a cheap puzzle set in KL, but luckily I found one in Jakarta. It turned out that it’s quite fun to do it, even alone! It made me feel so addicted. I discovered recently that, just like Sudoku (one of my favourite games too), doing puzzles may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Awesome! The bad thing about it is that: you have to keep on buying new puzzle set whenever you finished solving it! (I’m broke to the max)
The other thing I want to do is knitting and/or stitching. I used to do it when I was in Junior High. My mom taught me how to do it and I remember I quite enjoyed it. The thing is, I don’t remember how to do it anymore and I need money to buy the materials (and a tutorial book). I think they’re quite pricey and I have NO idea where to buy them in KL. I’m still exploring 🙂
Finally, my friends and I did the long-awaited hiking in Bukit Tabur. It is the hill which is located only few minutes from KL. It’s been a long time since I hiked (and worked out hahaha) so as expected, it was tiring. But the only thing that mattered was the fact that I really really loved it. After being stuck in a noisy city for months, I could escape to the nature. It was liberating, somehow. On top of that, I had a great time my friends :). Thanks Ikmal & Nabilah 🙂
I’ve been sitting in the living room since the first day I came here and never realized that I could see the sun disappeared from the sky every single day. It was only today that I actually noticed it, when suddenly I looked out the window and saw the whole sky reddish/orange. It was beautiful.
Suddenly, I forgot that the traffic was jammed. I forgot that the noise coming from those busy roads and highways annoyed me so much. My eyes and my mind focused only on one thing. The beautiful sunset.
I know, I really have to stop complaining and start to notice the small things that don’t seem to matter, but they surprisingly put a smile in my face :). Thank you, Allah… for always reminding me. You are the One.
Insya Allah I will depart tomorrow to start my one month travel :). Hopefully I can get the visa on arrival! I don’t want my visa to be rejected anymore 🙁
Where am I going? For now, let me just show this picture as a hint:
Super excited! 🙂
Obhur may not be as beautiful as Indonesian beach, but it is the only place here in Jeddah where we can rent a cottage and enjoy the beach. Most beaches in Jeddah have been used for private residences (thanks to the greedy royal family) and resorts, so they’re not open for public (and "free") — which is a pity. You need to pay in order to enjoy the beach.
Most people don’t mind paying to stay in a resort, of course. After all, this place is one of the very few places in Saudi Arabia where we can escape from all those restrictions, not only social, but also religious restrictions! The religious police will not go in, so we have our own taste of freedom, which is great :).
Apparently, the Filipino embassy rented the WHOLE resort next to ours for Christmas celebration. We planned to stay there previously, but we were turned away as it was already booked. But we could spot from our resort their Christmas tree. This was the second time in my life I saw a Christmas tree in Saudi Arabia. This was not just any Christmas tree. It’s a big one! The biggest one I saw in Saudi Arabia!!! LOL (look how excited I am!). There were even discos, karaoke, and live music. Men and women could mingle freely. I was amazed, but at the same time very pleased :D. I didn’t feel like in Saudi Arabia.
Anyway, about my weekend? It was a super great one! I feel so blessed to have my family — all five of us — in one place. We hadn’t had a family vacation with a full member for a long time. Alhamdulillah!
Here’s a silly picture of me and my siblings:
