selamat hari raya aidil fitri

Eezie cafe
wishing all my family and muslim friends a selamat hari raya aidilfitri - eid mubarak all. the mrs and i will be in den haag this year to celebrate 1 syawal 1426, taking the day off, starting at the embassy and who know where after that...am sure there will be some open houses kindly organised by the diplomatic community here...considering whether to do one ourselves actually....got some pushback, need to work on that one! will need to check whether the baju melayu is washed or not.
cant wait for the takbir, that is the best part of raya, next to my mums ketupat and kuah kacang, and my dads ketupat daun palas. theres a cool website that hosts some raya songs that you can play online...all the raya faves i know of are on it - try it http://www.myfavouritesongs.com/laguraya.html
tomorrow is when the clocks move back by one hour, so dapatlah rasa buka puasa awal sikit...at 5.15 or so...sahur will be earlier as well, finish at 5.30 as well...gonna miss this routine when ramadhan is over, its been a good month spritually (better be!)...enjoy it all, di mana anda berada.

what autumn?

Eezie cafe
the wind from siberia is passing through this week...its the wind that creeps through all the layers of clothes and gets to you...at least it has been dry, the trees must be confused right now..cant i shed my leaves in peace? we had an outing to a garden centre last weekend (yes, garden, not shopping) to look for stuff to plant the tulips in, and get the bulbs as well of course...the things is the bunga is only 1/20th of the cost of the whole thing...you gotta get the pots, the earth, the tools, wow...i guess it matters not by the time they spring out in 6 months time...hope they better well do!
we had some visitors from home last week, workshops, etc..great to catch up and also the wife got her guava and 'powder' that goes with it...courtesy of our friend...sad to hear about the fallout between her bro and another good friend of ours...over some deals that had gone sour or something...this will matter little in 20 yrs time i suppose...the friendship matters more...

kenyang bodoh

Eezie cafe
finished one week of puasa oredi...must say it has gone real quick...trying hard not to suffer from the kenyang bodoh syndrome after buka...when you just nod off in front of the tv and realise that you have to go to bed and missed terawih...the mrs and i try to terawih as much as possible, at home....good time to brush up on those ayat muqaddams....my longest one is surah al-a'laa (the highest), i quite like that one....and of course the usual tiga qul's that gets frequently repeated everywhere! we do 8 only lah...plus 3.
tonite we had soto, thanks to the guvnor....buka with keledek goreng and dates of course.....still got keledek since we bought a rather big piece (that happens when you buy food during puasa!)..we also have our weekly majlis berbuka hosted by the embassy..good time to mengeratkan silaturrahim...and feast on the range of food..thats when you feel more like at home, with lots of choice of kueh muehs and the different dishes being prepared by all the wives...you also get better surahs for terawih since we have a better imam than me! one of our colleague's wife lurves to give us food (cant complain now can we!), and in rather large quantities for the two of us, so we have been taking our time finishing them off...the last one took us three sittings to finish the lompat tikam dessert...which reminds me that i actually learn more about malaysian food whilst out of the country...(things like lompat tikam, laksam, nasi kerabu etc, actually kelantanese food, since there is this kelantanese lady who is an excellent cook)...
lets hope i dont get too kenyang bodoh too often for the rest of this holy month..

selamat berpuasa

Eezie cafe
wishing all selamat berpuasa in this holy month of ramadhan..i always look forward to this time of the year...lets me bod take a breather from the daily pummeling of food down my throat. its also when we have our daily schedule shift earlier, coz i dont bother going back to bed after sahur...so this year, will log in, or just head straight out to office. i will also have 20 work hours extra from the lunch hour spent not on eating...so even more choice as to what i can get done with time...who says we dont have enough time! will try the bike to work when it gets cooler...the temp is falling steadily to around 12 during the day now..so sikit lagi lah..
had a lunch/dinner thing (lunner?) at a friends place...nasi lemak with sambal sotong and ayam rendang...the mrs made banana cake, my fave...kenyang bodoh for a while...gonna have some major dumpster in the morning..also booked the restaurant for a farewell do next week at an indian at javastraat...its gonna be a buffet, perfect coz i dont wanna be waiting for the food to come, especially when we are fasting! we can bring our music along...and they do have kuch kuch hota hei in stock too just in case...!
yesterday was dim sum at the escalator restaurant in the hague...our friends wife over ordered coz she ordered with her stomach...so we had two of everything! it is like a deja vu of the royal china in st johns wood with carl/harmeet couple years back! we all live to tell the tale...
selamat berpuasa again...