Uncle Nisar

Uncle Nisar with Ahmad Ali (on his stroller) at Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf.

Last Wednesday, we had a special guest for lunch—Uncle Nisar Shaikh with his sister and mother. Uncle Nisar is a very good friend of my dad who lives in Palo Alto, California. He was a professor teaching in University of Nebraska – Lincoln before working in an IT company in Palo Alto.

 

Aeshah (left) and I plucking persimmons at Uncle Nisar's front yard.

All of us love Uncle Nisar! He is really fun to be with. The last time we met Uncle Nisar was in September 2006 also in Palo Alto. I love Uncle Nisar’s former house which was surrounded by a huge garden. Upon reaching it, you could see two big persimmon trees. The trees were bearing lots of juicy fruits when we were there in September 2005. My mother was very fond of them and would always mention the trees whenever we talked about the house. The fruits were not really ripe yet at that time, so we took some back to Malaysia. And how sweet they were!

Ali and me sitting on the hammock with my sisters Aeshah and Anisah standing beside us.

What I love about the house was the huge backyard with a hammock and a big vegetable garden. It was where my siblings and I played during our time there. My little brother Ahmad Ali who was 2 years old at the time would be running to the cherry tomato plants every now and then to pluck and eat the tomatoes. There were lots of fruit trees and vegetable plants around the house and we squealed excitedly when we found two pumpkins in the garden.

 

Anisah stood as Aeshah was showing the pumpkin we 'found'.

Uncle Nisar is a great cook too. He loved to cook apple sauce and spicy tofu dishes. They were really delicious. His neighbor grew lots of organic apples and they are very, very sweet and crunchy. There was also a fig tree somewhere near the house that had lots of ripe fruits at the time.

 

Ahmad Ali reached out as he tried to pluck one of the organic apples.

Uncle Nisar and his families were very kind and nice. They invited us to their houses and his sister and brother in law lent us a red van so that we can drive around Palo Alto.

 

All four of us posing beside the red van.

Uncle Nisar flew to India from Singapore last Thursday but we’ll be meeting him again as he would be coming to Malaysia again next month!

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A Wonderful Weekend With Aunty Selina

On Friday night (29th of January, 2010) Aunty Selina reached KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport) for a 3 days trip. Aunty Selina, who lives in Maryland, USA,  is a very good friend of my parents. She stayed at The Renaissance Hotel Kuala Lumpur at Jalan Ampang.

She brought all of us lots of lovely presents. I received a 1000 pieces jigsaw puzzle ‘Home Sweet Home’ (a part of the Medallion Collection, featuring a picture of the countryside in the morning) and a beautiful historical fiction novel, ‘Stepping On The Cracks’ which I finished reading that very night. She also gave us two packets of a very tasty ‘Lindor’ by Lindt chocolates with peanut butter and orange fillings. The dark chocolates are so deliciuos and the chocolate fillings burst with aromatic flavour as they melt in my mouth. I just love them and could not stop eating them. I love Swiss chocolates and Lyndt is my favourite!

On Saturday, Aunty Selina spent her day sightseeing around Kuala Lumpur on the KL Hop-On Hop-Off bus. That night, we had our dinner at  Ayam Penyet AP Restaurant in Wangsa Walk Mall which served  delicious Jawa Timur (East of Java) and Minang  food. The special dish was the ayam penyet (smashed chicken) which originated from Surabaya. Unfortunately they were out of avocado. Indonesian styled avocado juice or ‘es alpukat’ is one of my favourite drink.

That night, we saw a big and bright blue moon (a blue moon means the second full moon of the same month. This phenomenon only occurs once in a blue moon 🙂 ). The moon was also supposed to be the brightest and biggest of the year.

We spent the next few days going around Kuala Lumpur with Aunty Selina. We went to Masjid Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Masjid Darul Ehsan, Putrajaya and lots more of interesting places.

Thank you so much, Aunty Selina for the wonderful presents and the delightful weekend we spent with you 🙂 . Please do come again to Malaysia. It would be great to see you again. We really miss you.

Friends from Sri Lanka

Last Friday, my family and I went to May Tower Hotel in Jalan Munshi Abdullah to meet Uncle Zahedi, Aunty Suzana and Brother Hisham. They came from Sri Lanka to send Brother Hisham who is currently doing his Master’s Degree in Islamic Finance here in Kuala Lumpur.

We met them after the Friday prayers. When we reached there, Aunty Suzana looked at me exclaiming, “Oh, she looks just like Aishah”. Aishah Salihue is Aunty Suzana’s niece and a friend of mine who lives in San Jose, California. Coincidentally, Aishah shared the same name with my little sister, Aeshah, while Aishah’s little brother shared the same name with my little brother, Ali. I had met her and her family twice during my visits to the USA in 2005 and 2006.

I remember going to her house in 2006. Her huge backyard is like a wonderland  filled with many kinds of fruit trees. On the day I visited her, Aishah found out that their first apple had ripened in the backyard. She excitedly pluck it and ran with the apple indoors to show it to her mum. There was also a tent, Aishah’s bike, his little brother, Ali’s wagon, a table with benches and a trampoline in the backyard.

I remember feeling so excited as I succeeded to ride Aishah’s bike without any difficulties even on the grass. It was actually my second time riding a bike without the two tiny side wheels to help me balance. I also remember pulling Ali’s wagon with both ‘Alis’ giggling inside. We also drew pictures and wrote stories on the wooden table. But the best part of the day was when I met Aishah’s grandparents who came all the way from Sri Lanka. Aishah’s grandfather gave me a lot of very beautiful Sri Lankan stamps which are now safely kept inside my stamp album.

We had a great time. Before we left, Aishah’s mother gave me a beautiful brown hijab. We still keep in touch through emails and we sent stamps to each other several times. I really hope that Insya Allah, I could once again visit Aishah in her wonderful backyard.

It was so enjoyable meeting Uncle Zahedi, Aunty Suzana and Brother Hisham. They are very nice and wonderful to be with. Aunty Suzana is very sweet, beautiful and friendly and she really reminds me of her younger sister who is Aishah’s mother.

‘Kenduri’

Now is the mid-year school holidays in Malaysia and it means a ‘wedding season’ for us – Malaysians in Malaysia. We received wedding invitations here and there from both relatives and friends; sometimes we  attended a few wedding receptions  in a day!

Today we attended two wedding celebrations, first in Keramat and after that at the Dewan Merak Kayangan in Jalan Semarak. And after sending us home, dad attended another wedding reception close to our house.

We arrived at Uncle Anuar Ibrahim’s house at about 12 o’ clock. Uncle Anuar and his wife, Aunty Salamah are  close friends of my parents. In fact Uncle Anuar’s father and my mum’s father are close friends too!

As usual, everything is always beautiful at Uncle Anuar’s and Aunty Sal’s party. And the food are always good too. Aunty Sal is a great cook and she bakes the nicest cookies and cakes. And for today’s wedding reception, she baked delicious cupcakes and decorated them with beautiful pink butter cream roses. They are just so beautiful that I wish to take each of them. My little brother Ahmad Ali ate lots of them!

Ahmad Ali eating his fourth cupcake and he still has lots more on his plate and the best part is… he finished them all 😀

Ahmad Ali really enjoys the cupcakes.

This is the top part of the tower. I stood on tiptoes to snap this photo 😀

There are lots more different type of cupcake but they were all decorated with roses

These are the tiny cupcakes. They look just as nice… infact, Ahmad Ali loves these small ones. He described them as ‘Cute’. Indeed they are…

Guess you know why Ahmad Ali keep taking more and more 😉 .

Look! Aren’t they lovely?

The tower of beautifully decorated cupcakes

*Note: Please click on the photos

Dad met lots of his old schoolmate at the reception. One of them is Uncle Apo or Uncle Abdul Ghaffar Mohd Nor who has been reading my blog… Thank you for visiting my blog, Uncle Apo. Please drop a line or two in my blog if Uncle Apo can find a free time; its is always nice to receive comments… something like receiving a letter. 😀

A photo of dad and his old schoolmates. From left to right: Uncle Apo, Ami Ma (my uncle - dad's elder brother), Uncle Bukhori, Uncle Anuar and A Karim Omar (dad). Photo taken from http://sulaimanian.wordpress.com . Photo snapped by... ME! 😀

Anyway I’m sad to hear that Uncle Anuar’s father is not in good health. Insya Allah we’ll be visiting him together with my grandmother in Kuala Terengganu this weekend. And before we left, Uncle Anuar’s sister in-law took us to Kak Norjie’s room. Kak Norjie, the beautiful and charming bride was dressed in  red and she looked so marvellous in her wedding attire…

Busy Sunday

My busy Sunday started with a trip to the market. There weren’t many people at the market as it was school holidays. Even some sellers were not there too. Later, we went to another market called ‘Pasar Pagi UO’ (UO Supermarket’s Morning Market). We bought 14 IKAN KELI (catfish)! I just love catfish and so does my sister. Mum used to buy 10 but it wasn’t enough.

After our Zuhr prayers we went out in beautiful clothes to two ‘Kenduri Kahwin’ (wedding receptions). The first was near the Taman Greenwood where my dearest Jiddah would wait for her bus everytime she went back to Kuala Terengganu. The food there was quite good. The second wedding reception was held at a mosque near Taman Melati. The food there was even better and I just love their lamb.

We went back home to perform our Asr prayers and went out again. This time dad drove us to visit a stamp exhibition. It was just a small one but we saw all kinds of beautiful stamps. Each of us got our chance to choose some stamps for ourselves and mum paid them. She also bought lots of lovely flower stamps as my birthday present and some cars and locomotive stamps as Ali’s birthday present. I had been collecting stamps since a few years ago; after admiring mum and dad’s stamp collections. Anyway I only have a small collection. So I am always very excited to be able to add more stamps to my collection.

At about 5pm, my parent’s good friend Uncle Khairul and his wife Aunty Shida came to our house together with Aunty Intan and  Uncle Bad. After performing our Mahrib prayers, we took them to Pak Ya’s Corner for dinner.They really enjoyed their food.

After dinner, we went back to my house. Uncle Khairul, Uncle Bad, mum and dad were discussing something while Auntie Shida and Auntie Intan watched the television series ‘Merlin’ with me and my siblings. We all had a great time and they went home at about 10:30pm. It was indeed a very busy day but it was really fun.