Life, Food & Passion

Since Haji Zunaidi/Rohaya & Syed Rafee/Ros decided to postpone their trip to Dubai the weekend, we decided to meet up at Rohaya's place and have sort of a gathering during lunch time. Furthermore all our kids spend the night at their place except for Haikal. So at 10am plus, Farida pick Ros & myself up and we went to Lulu to buy some things to cook for lunch. As usual, during the weekend Lulu was packed with people shopping. It took us nearly 1.5 hours to have our fish cleaned. Finally we left Lulu and went to pick Zaileha up.

We arrived Rohaya's place in Al Ansaab nearly 12.30 maka kelam-kabutlah we all masak. Surprisingly we managed to have everything ready at 1.30pm. We waited till most of the gang was around before we started having lunch. Our head chef for the day was Kak Farida who made her famous Assam Pedas upon our request. She also made sambal goreng udang. Rohaya prepared the fried mix vege, Zaileha cooked the fried chicken and yours truly made daging kicap. We had some much fun preparing and cooking together... macam kenduri kahwin lah.

After lunch, most of us just lepak and started to prepare for our next gathering which was going to take place on Friday evening at Haji & Rohaya's place.

we are enjoying the food, finger licking good.

In the evening, all the kids (Rohaya & Ros) came swimming at our place. Since the weather was getting much colder and dark, the kids swam till 6pm. After swimming, we had a simple dinner of fried rice, chicken popcorn, meat balls & chicken donuts.

Ros/Syed & Shukor/Farida came over to pick up the kids later in the evening. Our Zaileha also drop by to pick up her daughter. We managed to have a mini karaoke session till about 10pm.

The kids had so much fun the whole day playing "Rock Band", volleyball at Rohaya's place and later swimming here. I guess we adults are not the only one looking forward to the weekend. they too love forward to meeting up with their gangs.

On Wednesday (19/11)night, we had a special Tahlil & Yassin session at Raja & Ros's place at Mawalel which started at about 7.30pm. As usual, all the mothers brought their pot luck dessert and also some dishes to add on to the host's menu. That night our special guest was the Malaysian Ambassidor, Datuk Zamri who grace us with his presence.

Since some of us were working the next day, we all made our departure a bit earlier than usual.

Another week has passed by since I last updated my blog. As usual we ladies had a fun & pack week ahead. To start off the week, breakfast at D'Arcy on Sunday morning. As normal, after breakfast we all went shopping around (look see aje).

On Monday, we all gathered at Farida's place in Al Khuwair to have breakfast cum lunch cum cooking learning session with our chef Kevin from Oman Air. He taught us how to prepare "Seefood Pasta Arabiata" Our host was so nice to even cook for us "Penang Assam Laksa" which I have not eaten for a long time. So lepas geramlah.....makan. She made a dish call "Chicken Bamia" which she served with french loaf.

We were all so busy eating and me malas nak balik masak lunch for my hubby so I made him come over for lunch. We also had Haji Zunaidi & Syed Rafee to join him for lunch. Unfortunately, Sazali was too busy to join. Since Syed's kids were already there, I made the driver drop Haikal, Ben & Nadia at farida's place also.

We left Farida's place at 3pm with plans to meet up on Wednesday night at Raja's place.

ps. Tks Ros for the picture.

Hurray! hurray! the weekend's here. This time around our activity started way, way, way earlier and it was back to back. Schedule heavy giler, kalah menteri. On Wednesday morning, Rohaya, Zaileha, Oja and myself took Ros, Farida and her daughter, Hurin to Muttrah. Main reason was to to look for farewell gifts for all those that will be leaving Oman very soon and at the same time bring our fellow new arrival to look see/shop kat Muttrah without their hubbies. Since it 's seldom that we visit Muttrah, sempatlah some of us selik purchase somethings for ourself. Spend the whole part morning bargain hunting for some nice gifts.

On Thursday, all the kids wanted to go to Al Massa Mall for bowling. Parents semua malas giler nak bowling. So after sending them and making sure they will be safe, Hamzah, myself and not forgetting Haikal went to Yiti to check out the location. We were disappointed to see a lot of construction being carried out at the beach front. I understood for some people who came here before, Yiti use to be a nice place to have picnic and camping before Hurricane Gonu.



After Isya, we all (minus Hj/Rohaya) gathered at Oja/Rohimi's place for a some sort of pot luck gathering. Our host prepared Mee Rebus & lasagne. We also had donuts, chicken rice & soup (tks to Rohaya), tomyam soup. This time around I made Shepherd's pie & my famous carrot cake.

Since it was an anything you want to do gathering, we had people were having dinner/munching at the same time there were others playing pingpong, duk borak-borak catching up on current issue or borak kosong aje and macam biase there were some of them singing their hearts contents with our favorite pass time activity karaoke. We ended the night at about 10.30 pm.

As planned earlier in the week, we all gathered at Marjan beach for our snorkelling session. Since the sea was quite rough and there was something call "Red Tide", only the guys and the kids decided to play/snorkel nearby in the sea. The ladies all gathered in front the food chit chatting while munching away. Our morning breakfast menu included Roti Bom with fish curry, fried rice, fried kuey teow (2 types red & spicy and plain fried with soy sauce), tuna sandwiches, fried bananas & jemput-jemput roti. As usual menu makan best nor matter where we go or how early we are.

After snorkelling, our Tok Pengetua made an impromptu invitation to his house after Asar to bakar satay and lepak-lepak. Most of us arrive at 4.30pm after a short nap. While the men folks prepared whatever necessary to started bakar satay, we ladies gathered in Rohaya's new big kitchen to help prepare the rest of the food. Our gracious host managed to make us "Laksa Sarawak" and also chicken wings. As usual, we all brought additional food ie Nasi goreng, bubur kacang, "Onde-Onde", Chocolate mini cupcakes and also fruits. So we ended up with a spread of nice and different food to eat.

Here we are in Rohaya's new kitchen.

While we adults were busy eating and yakking away, the teenagers kept themselves busy playing video game "Rock Band", singing, playing drums & guitar. They even played volley ball. The juniors(kiddos) were busy playing PSP, running around Aunty Rohaya's big new house.

When Haikal came home today, he was so excited and eager to show me his artwork that he did last Wednesday. I remember him doing this particular artwork because when he came back from school last week, I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the condition of his uniform. It was covered with spots of paint of all sort of colors.

Since he could not wait for us to reach our apartment, I decided to let him show me his artwork while walking home. When I saw the artwork, I felt proud of his work and told him keep up the good work. I guess he was also proud of his hard work.

Every night just before he goes to sleep I would sit down and read to/with him any story books that he brings home from school. Tonight was no different except this time around he surprise me by reading the book himself. Although the book was a simple story book, I was so proud of him for trying to read . To reward him for reading the book by himself, I told him that we would buy him a gift/toy (bribery lah). Hopefully with this gift, he would take more initiative to learn to read more book.

Today, he made me feel proud and happy to see what he accomplish in school over the past two months.

As usual we had so much fun talking about the events that took place over the weekend, gossiping about everything under the sun including giving birth in a government hospital. We also made plans for the weekend.

After breakfast, we walked to the nearby mall to look for scarfs and to look see, look see.

The much awaited Hari Merdeka celebration by the Malaysian Embassy here in Oman finally took place yesterday at The Diplomatic Club at Al Khuwair area after 2 months delay.

Since we were supplying the satay for the event, we were not sure if we invited for the said celebration. The first person in our group to receive the invitation was Rohimi/Oja followed by Hj & Rohaya. The only two couples that did not received the invitation was Sazali & Hamzah. We finally received our invitation this morning which the Embassy send my mail.

When we arrived, we noticed that the guest included all or most of the Malaysian registered with the embassy here. As usual there were lots of VVIP there from all over the world.

The food served was a mixture of local Omani (Arabic) food and also a few very popular Malaysian food ie Laksa Sarawak, rendang daging, nasi lemak wt sambal udang, curry puffs, cucuk badak, pulut panggang, mee siam and not forgetting our satay. During dinner, some of the children from the PDO community performed traditional dances ie Joget Pahang, some Iban traditional dances and there was also a song performed by Malaysian Children studying in TAISM.