Pasaria

Sabtu dihabiskan bersama anak-anak  di sekolah Azim kerana ada Pasaria. Tujuannya untuk mengumpul dana sekolah. Memang berhasil. Sasaran kutipan RM150,000. Rasanya lebih dari sasaran. Sebelah pagi ada sedikit masalah cuaca, hujan berterusan 3 jam , nasib baik nda lebat.  

Pasaria nya besar-besaran dan SEMUA barangan ada dijual. Bukan saja standard  macam makanan/minuman, baju, aksesori tapi termasuk juga sayur-sayuran, buah-buahan segar, telur, beras, kopi, gula. Aik?  Ini sudah pasar tani.

Gerai makanan pun bukan saja makanan siap, tapi termasuk yang dimasak secara live, macam ayam panggang, goreng  pisang, mi goreng, burger, fries, dan segala-gala tak ubah bazaar ramadhan. Semua laku dan habis sebelum tengahari.

Ada Abu Bakar Ella di datangkan untuk  memeriahkan suasana dan menghibur pengunjung.

Selain jualan gerai, sekolah buat beberapa aktiviti/acara sampingan untuk menambah kutipan.

1)    Ada 2 ular sawa besar didatangkan khas (entah dari mana) untuk tujuan bergambar di atas pentas. Sekali gambar RM 15 ( Ira & Helmi lama menghabiskan masa di sini menengok ular sampai penat aku menunggu tapi disuruh bergambar nda juga mau)

2)   Ada tayangan gambar di Bilik ICT , filem2 seperti  Step Up 3, Big Mama,dll bermula jam 9 pagi. Bayaran masuk RM5.

3)   Ada talent show di dewan sekolah-nyanyian dan tarian. Bayaran masuk RM5. Tapi persembahannya main2 saja, halfhearted (mengikut Ira la, aku nda masuk) dan tiadalah talent langsung yang ikut serta tu (aku boleh dengar dari luar). Orang ni kalau dibayar nyanyi la bagus-bagus.

4)   Ada sudut untuk sewa main games Dota, kira2 6 buah PC gitu.

Sebenarnya aku tertinggal kamera masa mula2 datang, jadi gambar di atas diambil sebelah petang. Tiada mau di fokus lagi , ular sudah balik. (aku rasa kamu pun nda sanggup tengok 2 ekor ular yang sangat besar itu)

Sesiapa yang beli kupon tapi datang sebelah petang (dia mula 7pagi hingga 5 petang), agak rugi sebab semua makanan dan barangan yang bagus2 habis dijual, tinggal yang nda laku macam stationery dan aksesori  yang kesian. Aku nda paham juga guru dorang ni. Nda pandai menapis barang2 mau dijual. Ada ka jual pensil dan pen. Siapa bah mau beli pensil di Pasaria? Nda perlu-perlu. Bikin sayang kupon.  Pensil biasa lagi tu. Jual lagi mahal. Pensil RM1 dua, pen RM3 satu. Budak menengah mana pakai pensil kan. Semua pakai pen, kecuali untuk melukis. Kalau terror melukis tu, mana la pakai pensil biasa2 juga. Kalau bilang beli untuk adik, budak sekolah rendah masih dapat pensil percuma dari kerajaan, seorang sekotak. Di rumah nda berpakai pun, sebab dorang lebih suka pensil mekanikal.

Macamanapun, keseluruhannya memang ok. Banyak barangan dan aktiviti, banyak boleh dibeli dan dilihat.

buttonwood massage

Lately I'm prone to back aches, especially around my neck and shoulder. Why. Is this age? I'm always gettting that 'selahau bantal' pain, sometimes at the frequency of once a week. I need to go for body massage. One good place I know for this is the bone theraphy place at Jalan Lintas. I know it says bone but they do broader stuff than that, including fixing knotted veins and such. But the thing that hold me back there is that the theraphy is uncomfortable. Well, no pain no gain they say. If you want your body fixed, prepare to endure pain. The treatment combines hot compress, machine treatment and a little hand massage on the problem area. The hot compress I don't look forward to. Feels stuffy when my neck sweat and the vapour suffocate me, and that's the process that takes the longest. The actual massage is very, very short, like 5 minutes, just around the problem area.

So I wish for alternative. I would like a longer whole body massage that relaxes as well as fix the problem, like not all pain.
Right on cue, my beautician called to remind me I haven't claimed my voucher for a free body massage.

Which I got at a lucky draw sometime last year. So I immediately made appointment.

And I was ready for some detoxification action on Tuesday. It sounded exciting.

But I was in for a surprise. Because the whole treatment was using a machine. I wasn't in for a good old fashion massage after all. I had no idea that this was what you call buttonwood. I thought buttonwood somehow involves a wood device for kneading the back in a pleasurely way. I recall her saying using some machine but not.. I didn't ...oh..let me explain the whole process. If you could click the photo bigger, you would see the many buttons marked suction, vacuum, release, suck circular, etc..Well I was exactly done that way. My back was sucked,  then vacuumed, then sucked in circular motion, released, repeat 20 times, all over my back. I was a carpet being cleaned! Torture. Oh what was I thinking. Absolute torture. The suction cup squeezed me so hard that I yelped out for the therapist to stop. I thought my bone was going to crush. Seriously, but she was calm , 'no,no,no...memang begitu ..itu mula2 saja..'
True, the cup released just before it broke the bone. After a while, I kind of got the rythm and expected the coming pain. Everytime it squeezed, I took a deep breath and counted the seconds when it released . The lady pointed out how my shoulder was full of 'winds' because it turned red in no time compared to the other parts.

The shoulder felt better but now my back look horrible. They are so red, like I'm scalded. Ghastly. My daughter took pictures but I'm never showing you. I'll spare you the gruesome image. I think the mark stays for weeks. Next time, I'm going to Jalan Lintas.

LIKE

I would like to 'click' LIKE to these ole-ole I got recently from a family friend who just returned from a vacation in Vietnam.

Fabric. Lovely pre-embroidered plain colour chiffon. Nice beadwork too. I love it.

Funny how just weeks ago I was leafing through some magazines trying to get ideas for baju raya. I already decided I would wear plain colour. This is what I was looking at.

I would like something like this. Plain color and nice simple beadings. Ok, the fabric I got has more intricate work of sequins and beads on it than the above but they're just  in one spot, not all over the fabric. I think the fashion is going to work fine. I can't wait for the finished dress. I've got 2 kain now, another from dear mom-inlaw, which is a colorful floral print. I'm making them into baju kurung asli. So that's baju raya issue pretty much settled , at least for myself, gotta think of hubby's and the childrens' now. I guess we're all wearing green this year.

Another souvenier from Vietnam. A hat. Tourist hat or gardening hat, I don't know. It's tiny.

This thing is collapsible.

Do you know what I thought it was at first? Umbrella. A toy umbrella or maybe a food cover, you know tudung saji. Until my sister-in law pointed out, it's a bell hat. Bell/straw hat. Ok.

I appreciate the gifts. They're making me happy.

mountain view

We took to the mountain during the tsunami scare.

Well, what happened was, there had been planning that weekend for office BBQ and family day at some beach resort but due to tsunami alert, venue was immediately changed within 24 hr.

With no confirmed reservation and a lot of food, we head out to higher ground to find lodgings. Fortunately, without much searching, we found a newly built resort with enough rooms and amazing view too. Unfortunately, it rain all day. ALL DAY long.

What do you when it rains on vacation? Exactly, we had food to feed a village so we practically ate our way through the weekend. That's the kind of thing you do on weekends, anyway, don't you? Bingeing.

As boredom set I turned to the TV and to my joy, chanced upon a StarMovie channel showing Everyone's Fine. Have you watched that? Beautiful story. Robert DeNiro is really, really awesome. I'm still picturing the scenes in my head. It's the kind of story that if I have the CD, I'm gonna watch it over and over again. Finally something good to pass the time, other than eating non-stop. (well, no, actually I still ate while watching).

Anyway, it was good and I didn't get so bored anymore.

The sun shone the next morning and the surrounding looked even more amazing.

Photo-taking frenzy ensued until check out time.

Group photo before leaving.

Condolence

We are shocked and saddened by the news that a couple of Malaysians who died in an accident in Jedah several days ago, were in fact a friend's family. We could only imagine the trauma this must be for him and his family, to have endured the tragic incident at the start of their journey and  to have to deal with it and carry on with their ibadah umrah. What a sad, distraughtful place to be.

We hope they find the strength and solace in each other and the guidance and  will to get through the pain and sorrow.

Our condolence and prayers for the family and may the souls rest in peace.

not good

a boring one yesterday. raining all day causing cancelled errands,  streamyx  down causing hopeless internet, and nothing good on TV making a complete dull day.

i baked a chocolate cake with a generous ganache. a little bit runny so I used the leftover as chocolate syrup on my toast. bliss.

when i level my cake, i don't throw away the cut portion, do you? i save it, for eating later. and  that's what i did mostly yesterday, eating the leftover after breaking it up in a bowl and spoon  heaps of the ganache all over it like a sauce and eat it like a meal. divine, divine.

i'm sure that was the cause of my headache last night. too much chocolate in my system. at 1 am i couldn't sleep. i needed migraine pill to ease it and help me drift off.

what any of it has to do with these pictures? nothing.

on another day a week ago, i spruced up the plain ole headband of my daughter's with a pink black ribbon. she likes it.

Weekend Retreat

We were over at a cousin’s wedding in the cowboy town at the weekend.

I’m embarrassed to say we got lost finding our way to our aunt’s house. No, it hasn’t been that long. But none of us has a reliable sense of direction when it comes to driving at night. We spent an hour driving at the wrong side of suddenly-seemed-vast Kota Belud ending at the same junction over and over again. It got to a point where it became spooky. The one villager we stopped to ask direction turned out to be a stranger himself and couldn’t help.? We had to retraced and start back from the hotel.

Anyway, arrive we did, fashionably late. Malam Berinai party went on till 12.00 pm. There was a late instalment of traditional dances by a group of kids that was scrapped earlier for sensitivity reason and then  reapproved later after an appeal meeting with the village elders. There was even supposed to be a karaoke session but that didn’t get the reapproval. All because a few days prior, there had been a funeral in the neighbourhood. The elders insisted, that out of respect, there ought to be no partying, dancing and singing aside from the customory ceremony. The kids had prepared, had practiced and donned their pretty new costumes so they were looking a sad, disappointed lot when told to cancel. In the end the kind old people relented and let them party.

Next morning I got up early, ( I could never sleep well at a foreign place), and when my sister and daughter (we shared a room) got up too, we took off to the beach. There was still the kenduri kahwin to attend but we planned to go around 11 am so we had a good 2 hours. There is only one attraction in this town, the Kuala Abai. Because the place is well known, the road signs and directions are good and things do seem a lot clearer when you drive in the day, so. It’s quite a distance (about 30 min) even with me stepping on it to go faster than my sister does (god..she drive so slow). You do have to be careful with cows and its droppings all over the road, all the way though.

There are several routes to reach the beach because I didn’t get the same view I remembered when my cousin last brought me there few years back. Before , we came right to the chalets and jetty. This time around, we followed a direction to a lodge, (which seem popular) and we came to ..well the lodge , overlooking a beautiful beach I didn't remember seeing then.


The paved road down to the lodge is beautiful. There is a sense of quaint, laid-back, unventured territory about the place.


You could have missed this turn and gone down a bad, horrible road filled with volcano-sized holes like we did, which you could no way reversed out (because it's one way and going downhill) except drive on to where it leads, which is to a fishermen dock littered with rubbish, still overlooking the beautiful beach. Thankfully we found a better alternative.

This is definitely a much better route

 Leads to a lodge and the scenery is amazing.

The lodge.

 Visitors come here mostly to go snorkeling at Pulau Matanani or  fishing.

It's beautiful and peace and quiet here. The water is calm and crystal clear. And I like the view from the treehouse. Because we didn't stay long the morning, ( had to go to the wedding), I came back again after the wedding with hubby and kids. We did not follow the family entourage to bride's place in Tuaran as we were sure to lose our way again.

The place look great for barbeque and family outing, don't you think?

Ok, arranging these pics is giving me a headache. I don't get the new format. It's supposed to be easier but, I've been here all morning, straightening the pictures. I need to allocate a whole day to learn these stuffs.

And now the post is suddenly centre aligned.

 I give up.

Have a good week.