Small Party at Jalan Batu

Birthday cakes for


Nadhirah


Md Ilham


--Mak Minah
Post From My iPhone

Futsal

3.7X says "Siapa cakap main futsal ni tak penat, memang cakap bohong... Penat jugak seh!!! Even though I played for 15 minutes, badan dah cannot take it. Bila malam baring atas katil, bini kat sebelah mengerang contraction, aku pun mengerang jugak kepala lutut sakit.... hehehe..

Anyway, fun jugak main bola dalam gelangang sankar tu. Rembat aje sana sini, bola tak boleh pergi jauh. My team "Red Devil" satu pun tak datang, so aku terpaksa import players dari Jalan Kayu. Dapat score satu dengan tendangan tonjol pun jadi lah.

Rooney dengan Steven Gerard berpelukan...

Zetty dengan bola, tapi tak tahu nak buat apa dengan bola...

Tapi yang game paling best ialah match Bollywood dengan Hollywood. Bila start aje Yan dah tampar bola... apadah... dia ingat ni volleyball ke? hahaha... Oja kali ni dia tak brutal sangat, actually aku tunggu jugak dia nak terkam orang... hehehe... aku paling suka bila tengok Oja main sport, seronok sangat dia berlari, dia penat pun dia masih ketawa. Ada yang ada skill jugak macam Atiqa, Nor Shah (tunang Udi) dengan Odah. Dia orang ada juga cari position dan bila tendang ada aim sikit. Odah dengan kaki berbalut dan jalan bertempang pun boleh berlari laju dan tendang bola... powerlah that girl!!! Semangat perjuangan bersama keluarga, itu yang mulia. Kaki sakit takpe... janji dapat bersukan bersama orang yang tersayang. Odah I salute you!

Tengok tu Nor Shah dah position depan gol, tunggu orang passing.
Baguslah Nor Shah, looking forward to seeing you join our family games and telematches in the future..

Score tak penting, yang penting semua happy.

-- Post From My iPhone

Birthday Girl

Nadhirah , 20th March, 7 years old


Celebrate at Dorsett Hotel, JB
-- Post From My iPhone

Walking Down Memory Lane....

3.7X says "Innalillahi wa innalillahi rajiun. Semoga ALLAH mencucuri rahmat ke atas roh Allahyarhamah Hajah Muslimah... makcik ku, dan jugak kepada makcik-pakcik ku yang lain yang sudah pergi. Betul-betul cakap, I'm still not sure what connects me to some of my relatives. But it's not my fault. I'm the last of the first generation of HMS family. So I didn't grow up with my parent's siblings. I didn't get to see them get together during their Hari Raya or Weddings or family gatherings. This got me thinking about what's life in the past? starting from my parents...

Dari cerita dari arwah mak, their marriage was arranged by Pakcik (mak's brother) when she was 14 yrs old. Then they lived through the Japanese occupations (or was it before they married) dan dia kena pakai macam lelaki untuk elak dari jepun time perang. And I heard some stories, that they lived at Pulau Skijang (or something like that). Bapak cerita in his younger days, he use to cycle from Singapore to Batu Pahat, and the journey would take him a whole day. I like to hear stories of that era, because other than the story above, I know nothing else.

But I like to know even deeper, like the first moment bapak jumpa dengan mak. What did he feel? Where did they meet? Was it love at first sight? Did they courted ? How did they buy a house, did they built it themselves? And how did my parents siblings get together? Did they have family sports day or gatherings ?

So how did they raised a big family? Were these children chaotic in the house? With no PCs or TVs, what did they do for fun? Running and jumping around, wrestling? I'm sure Kak Long being the eldest gets the biggest headache, handling all her younger brothers and sisters.
Imagine, wak dir, wak ram, wak atid, playing wrestling, while kak long and kak ngah were helping mak with the cooking, while bapak is working, and the whole house riuh-rendah with all the other younger sisters, maybe kak cik was playing masak-masak. I remember someone told me, if not wrong, that there was actually another brother, before or after kak long, who pass away (I'm not sure).

And I would like to go even deeper than that. Mak always tell me stories about her Bugis ancestors... She use to make me memorise from Othman bin ... all the way to Penghulu Bachok, Penghulu Saper, Laksmana Bintan. What kind of people are they like? With ranks like that, are they really powerful people, do they have weapons and have they killed anyone? And what about the Jawa people from bapak's side, his grand dad's name is Maon Sari. I'm not sure if that's a malay name, but it sounds really ancient.

You see, I only have questions upon questions, and not actual stories to tell. And I can only imagine what life was like for them, in their early days, and what life had been. There's no way to see all of it like in a movie, even if Hollywood produced them, it would not even be accurate.

So I encourage all my abangs and kakaks, if you see the younger generations, like anak-anak saudara, or cucu-cicit saudara... ceritakan kepada mereka, bagaimana hidup berkeluarga zaman Atuk/Nenek dulu, dan pengalaman membesar bersama-sama. I'm sure they love to hear it, and will in turn tell them to their own children and grand-children.

My favourite picture in my family pictures collection.

The best family story-tellers are Kak Long and Abang Atid, and recently I learn from Abang Atid, that they, Abg Kadir, Abg Ram and him actually wanted to named me Iskandar, which is a mix and match of their own names collectively. (hmmm... I don't get it too... hehehe)

Batam Trip 09

3.7X says "Our weekend getaway journey started at 7:30am in the morning, had to drop off the kids at Tampines first and pick up the 'golden' couple. Anyway we arrived at Harbourfront carpark at 8:30am, amidst the heavy rain. Met the rest of the 'golden' couples at harbourfront, Yan/Herman and Noor/Rashid, minus Eti/Is (-kalau aku Is, aku buat bodoh sua dengan kerja...).

So we board the ferry, WaveMaster, at 9:20am, punyalah ramai orang nak pergi Batam. Journey takes us about half-an-hour, luckily nobody uweek-uweek. Lepas chop passport, I waited for the rest in-front of the custom building. Di sinilah, aku berjumpa seorang jejaka yang sungguh menawan sekali. Jejaka itu memenggang kertas bernama "Nur Diana". Setelah kami semua sudah berkumpul, jejaka tampan itu membawa kami ke van. Dan didalam van itulah dia meng-introduce-kan dirinya... "Haiii... Nama saya Louise, sayalah tour guide awak".... Fooooh... suara dan badan sungguh power sekali... Aaauuwww!!!.

Louise memperkenalkan kami dengan tempat-tempat di Batam, dan membawa kita ke Jembatan, yang menyambungkan Batam dengan pulau-pulau kecil yang lain. "Di sini kalau nak beli pulau, memang murah... cuma $500 sing dollar aje"... Kita semua "Wahh! betul ke, murah-nya" kata kami semua sungguh kagum. "Hah itu dia pulaunya"... dia menunjuk ke sebuah pulau kecil bawah jembatan yang tak sebesar gelangang badminton. Kurang asam kita semua kena tipu tertipah!!! Pandai buat lawak 'mat' Indon ni ye!!!

Di atas jembatan, wak wak ramai menjual udang dan ketam goreng. Tengok macam rasa kesian pun ada, pasal mereka datang berlari ke kami, dan semua menghulurkan juadah mereka untuk kami beli. Kerana tak sampai hati, kami membeli ketam dan udang goreng dari mereka, murah jugak $30,000 rupiah (macam $3-$4 sg dolar aje). Kami bergambar, dan disinilah jugak Yati yang sedang mengandung 7 bulan, bergambar dengan jejaka tempatan batam. "Pinjam sekejap ye..." Louise berkata, sambil memeluk Yati dari belakang.... (see earlier post picture).

Dari situ, kami dibawa untuk tengok baju di kedai Polo, makan tengah-hari nasi padang dan minum Avocado juice, membeli belah pulak di shopping Mall (tak ingat pulak nama), selama 2 jam. Kalau soal time tu tak payah cakap, aku confuse, lambat sejam Batam dari SG, or vice-versa, kalau bab soal duit pulak, lagi aku confuse, berpuluh-puluh ribu rupiah bila convert jadi berapa sen aje, apasalah taruk banyak sangat '0' kat duit, nak step kaya ke?

Selepas itu semua, kami pun dibawa ke hotel kami, iHotel di

Nagoya Hill. (aku rasa ni hotel Apple punya, iHotel... iPhone, iPod, iMac... get it?). Class betul hotel ini.

Bilik besar, toilet besar, wangi jugak, bersih, ada whirlpool, swimming pool, SPA... boleh kasi 5 star jugaklah. Sambil berenang sorang-sorang, baru teringat, kalau ada budak-budak ni, mesti seronok dia orang bermain-main kat pool. Takpe next time, boleh bawak mereka kat sini.

Selepas relax kat hotel, time petang kami dibawa ke kedai keropok/jeruk, kedai souvenior/Polo, dan seterusnya makan petang di Queens seafood restaurant.

Kerana ketiadaan budak-budak, kami terpaksa menjadi budak-budak. Berkayuh kereta air, di Queen seafood restaurant punya fish lake.

Makanan seafood - Ketam, Gong-gong, Udang, Ikan, Lobster bertimbun-timbun. Dan sambil kami berjuadah, kami sempat jugak menyambut hari lahir Herman, dengan menyanyikan Allah selamatkan kamu.

So basically that's what we did at Batam (dah realise dah tulis terpanjang sangat, tangan pun naik penat typing). To cut long story short, kita semua had a good time, without our children in tow, we all act like we honeymooners, padahal semua dah tua, kalau cakap baru kahwin takde orang percaya.

So in a nutshell, Herman jailbreak his iPhone sampai pukul 4pagi kat hotel, Yan, Bibik, Herman and Me pergi massage kat hotel SPA malam-malam buta nak dekat midnight. Rashid dan Noor banyak beli botol madu dan Yati nasib baik tak terberanak. And of course... our ever charming tour guide, who is very witty and funny, Louise (or is it Luis?), who doesn't like Inul (not surprise), with his 'tight-raisin-revealing' shirt who made our trip memorable. Fun and Laughter from Singapore to Batam and all the way back. Viva Batam!!!

Batam hottest couple

Awww.... such a charming couple... how did this happened?... well whatever happened in Batam, stays in Batam... A picture says a thousand words, I leave you guys with your imaginations....

-- Post From My iPhone

Pertunangan Ajan - 1st March 2009

Hantaran dari pihak lelaki.

Pukul 10 pagi kita dah sampai rumah odah, untuk ambik Ajan dan Aiz. Kita pergi rumah Mak Mee untuk mengambil lauk pauk kat Chai Chee Drive. Boleh muat pulak tu semua tong-tong nasi dan periuk lauk pauk kat kereta Chery, sampai tumpah-tumpah kuah kat dalam kereta. Pulak tu, rumah Mak Mee tu takde lift, foooh dari tingkat 4 naik turun tangga, macam nak meletup buah pinggang hang angkat tong-tong nasi dan lauk-pauk. Tapi worthit, pasal makanan semua sedap-sedap.
Wak Atid pulak pukul 11 pagi dia dah suruh orang semua cepat-cepat makan. Ingatkan dah nak naik bas, actually pukul 2:30pm bas akan sampai. "Ah lekas-lekas, cepat-cepat"... excited betul bapak pengantin tu. Ketua tadika - Herman pulak sibuk discipline kanak-kanak kat rumah dia. Berserak satu bilik. So pukul 2pm, selepas speech dari Wak Dir, dan Wak Atid (dia pun ada speech jugak tau), kita semua berangkat dengan hantaran naik bas air-con ke Holland Drive. Jauh jugak perjalanan... seronok naik bas ramai-ramai sekeluarga. Khalfan pun ada jugak, tengok tu gambar, seronok dia angkat hantaran sekali (ehem.. ehem... next in line). "Khalfan, when is your turn?" aku tanya... terbeliak biji mata dia... hahaha kelakar mat arab ni.
Sampai di rumah tunang Ajan, bermula pantun-memantun. Ajan berpantunlah, siap dengan script sekali... tak pernah aku dengar orang nak tunang berpantun sekali, bersemangat betul.

Selesai berbincang pihak lelaki kat hall, upacara memasang cincin kat pengantin pompuan pulak. Kali ni Nek Cina Mak Minah, yang menyarung cincin kat tunang ajan. Gembira tengok wajah nek cina tu, terharu agaknya dia dapat menyarungkan cincin kat tunang cucu dia.
Bergambar dengan keluarga Mak Minah, this is Singapore, a multi-cultural family.
Begitulah, majlis pertunangan Ajan dan (aku lupalah nama tunang dia). Kami mendoakan hingga selamat ke jinjang pelamin, dan seterusnya kekal ke anak-cucu. Semoga me-ramaikan zuriat dan me-ramaikan lagi ahli keluarga HMS. Amin.

-- Post From My iPhone