Selamat Hari Raya!

I know, Raya month's over! But im still eating my kuih tart that THANKFULLY, made thru the strict Aussie customs, along with 7 other balangs of kuih raya! Woohoo! I hope you guys have had a great & safe raya and to all, MAAF ZAHIR BATIN yea?

Ive been back from my crazy hectic M'sia raya hols close to 3 weeks now! It was FUN FUN FUN! Non-stop eating & catching up with all the relos & friends and trying to squeeze in some shopping! We didnt get to meet up with EVERYONE that we wanted, that's a bit of a bummer! But to those that we did manage to see, it felt soo soo like, tak puasssss!

You're not gonna believe this but upon returning from M'sia, i went to the dentist for a check up cos my back right tooth's killing me! I thought that my gums or one of the fillings must've been infected with all the eating ive been doing. Every chewing movement hurt so bad! After checking & poking, the dentist said that there's nothing wrong with me! She even took 2 x-rays cos i did not believe her! She then said that it's jz the muscles around it that felt like a toothache and explained that i must've had extraordinary mouth/jaw movements for the past 1-2 weeks, ie. more chewing, talking, laughing..etc..SERIOUSLY??????? YES, YES, YES! And true enough, my jaw's all fine now like she said it would be!

We were in JB for the first few raya, then off to KL to visit more relos & most of our friends. Lunch & dinner times were packed with plans to meet up.

STF friends for dinner, the following nite dinner with another STF geng at Elly's place but forgot to take pix! Sebok bergossip!



With Jln Tandang colleagues at Delicious, B'sar Village..SO delish!



TM/Melbourne friends for lunch @ Menara TM...



We went to Port Dickson for the weekend to spend time with my family. We stayed at Guoman, which was excellent! We settled with PD cos it's easy & close (to JB & KL) and cheaper too than any other options! So even tho there's not much stuff to do in PD, we did have a GREAT time! The hotel itself was just sooo HUGE..Pool was WONDERFUL..

Michael with Kayna's kiddies...his groupies!



We went Go-Karting, checked out the Eagle Ranch & had a very M'sian BBQ - where we set up the fire with arang and all which was jz so alien to Michael cos all those Aussies do is jz turn on the bbq gas! :p Last few days was spent in JB, more eating & trying to tick off my to-do list, mostly stuff that i won't be doing here in OZ (cos it'd make me & my wallet cringe!) like getting a haircut at our longtime family hairdresser in Kebun Teh for jz RM8 and getting a whole body massage for RM25 at Bdr Baru Uda! Michael went home 3 days earlier for a friend's wedding, i extended my stay till the weeekend to catch my nephews' (the twins) kindy concert! On the last nite, we had a terrific girls nite out karaoke session - with my 2 cousins, my sister Wa & my niece Syakirah..SOO much fun!! I went to bed at about 3am and had to be up at 6am to get to Changi airport for my flite!!! boohoo!

All in all, it was a fantastic hols..Great company all around, good fun times..and the food..man! Im glad we get to tick off most food from our list - JB murtabak & ice kacang, kerang rebus, tauhu bakar, cakueh, sizzling hotplate, best in JB chicken chop (twice!), Bom Brazil, banana leaves, milo ais..mmmmm....we did a bit of shopping as well, but didn't get all that we wanted! We're both having trouble finding pants...tried like a gazillion of them, but walked out of the store with NOTHING! I so needed new pants, cos all the time i was in KL, i couldnt even do up the top 2 button of my jeans! eww....we were supposed to do some xmas shopping for peeps back home but we were running out of time (and $$!). I didnt know how we ended with a bunch of DVDs when we're SO sure we didnt put it in our list!

Coming back to Oz was just devastating!! The only thing that made me go back was knowing Michael's already home waiting for me...If he's still in JB with me, i would've come up with all sorts of excuses to stay! And going back to work the next day was just horrible! I almost called in sick, but it was the 1st day of my new post, remember? So cannot lah!!!!!!!! I bawled like a baby that nite! Homesick like crazy...begging Michael if we could jz move back to Malaysia!! Being with my family & friends again made me realize just how much i'll be missing in the future! Nieces & nephews' growing up & their birthdays,family gatherings, friends' birthdays, marriages, giving birth, get-togethers etc....It finally dawned on me that i would not be there...:( I don't think we'd be home for raya next year, bit hard to get long breaks cos not a holiday here..And knowing how 2 weeks is just SOO not enough, we're thinking of going back next year for Xmas, where we get longer hols...That's December NEXT year...lamanya lagi!!!! :(

So back to reality, the 1st week of work was just a blur. So so hard to get up for work, with all the raining in the morning snuggly weather! That weekend was WONDERFUL tho, my homesickness was somewhat cured by Farah's visit to OZ, with Kimber (hubby) & Faris, her cheeky 4 y.o son! It's jz SO much fun! We hanged out at Yuz's place as it's closer to the city, airport and ESPECIALLY to the Direct Factory Outlet (DFO) store at Homebush, where Farah wanted to fulfill her shopping needs at this one particular shop - Royal Doulton! She went nuts! Like a little girl discovering a bunch of new barbie dolls collection! 70% sale some more! YES, that made her more out of control! She bought HEAPS! :) We're glad that made her happy...:) Hanging out at Yuz's was fun..As always, YUMMY vegie meals served. She's got Nintendo Wii, so we played a bit of that. SO MUCH FUN!! And what a work out! It's amazing how it felt so much like the real thing, especially with bowling. Sore arms too! At nite we stayed up & played CRANIUM- absolutely fun boardgame! It's got everything, mixture of pictionary (sometimes hafta draw with eyes closed), charades (sometimes humm a song), facts & spelling (sometimes backwards)..all in one game. It also provides clay (playdoh) to sculpture whatever it is that we hafta guess! We played guys vs gals of course, and we won! woohoo!! The boys were leading all the way, it was soo competitive but we got them in the end.. so emo! hehe

At Yuz's...


Last weekend was pretty hectic too. After sampling Yuz's Nintendo Wii, we decided that this is probably the best way to go in burning those calories .So we went & got ourselves an early Xmas present! It's SO addictive man! Talking bout burning calories, see, upon coming back from all those glorious FOOD in M'sia, we're both at our heaviest! Really, really heavy..So that first week when we got back, Michael was committed to a low carb diet (which lasted for about a week..ehheh, thank god! i never knew i cd not live without rice!) We also wanted to have an exercise routine..We had BIG dreams before - tennis lessons, weekly bowling, yoga, bushwalking etc. We did all that once or twice before and that's it. So now that we've got Wii, we're jz gonna go with that! hehe..According to Michael's findings, someone on YouTube lost about 9 pounds in a week after playing 1/2 hour of Wii daily!!!! We're back to eating rice now, but trying to cut back on all those yummy fatty stuff - cakes, pastries, fish & chips! NOOOOOOOOO! No more fresh CREAM & TimTams in the fridge! aaaaaaaaaah!

Anyways, last weekend's not all about Wii lah..hehehe..We had dinner with a Malay-OZ couple (Azi & Angus), introduced by my friend Lala, via email..been emailing Azi for a bit and decided to meet up. It was pretty good! It's great getting to converse in Malay with her in front of our dudes, gas bagging about them! hehehe ..Azi's been here for 5 years now. She sounded very Aussie when she's talking to Michael but still very much Malay when she's gossiping with me! Simple girl, nice couple.

Sunday we had Michael's family over for lunch and of course, for some Wii action!! Served some kuih raya and they all loved them! Especially London Almond & Tart & Suji. I took 1 balang of Suji & 1 balang tart to work and my colleagues almost finished em in 1 day! Guess they liked it cos it's similar taste to shortbread a bit. Luckily ive got another extra balang at home..heheh..

More pix in my Facebook guys. I kinda enjoy it there cos heaps of stuff to do in there! But limited access at work lah cos my boss' jz next to me! I actually started it jz so we could play Scrabulous at work but then you found all these friends that you haven't heard of in years!!!!!!!!

Back to my kuih tart now...:)))