When Bapak is bored....

Whenever I'm bored or ... err. feeling rather stress out, I'll de-stress ... or put more colours into my life by menyakat my daughters. I think I'm pretty good at getting on their nerves. Nowadays whenever I'm in such a mood, they'll try their level best to ignore me.
Like today I decided to "rename" my daughters with new names.
For the sheer fun of it, I'm calling Alia - Cinta, Asma - Kasih and Arissa - Asmara.
(of course I've gotten "daggers" look from them before they proceeded to ignore me totally).
But I'm not that easily disheartened. But I can be quite persistent.... and before long all of them screamed in frustration. Ahaaaaah, mission accomplished!

I Love being a Bapak!!!!!



Or else I kacau the wife .... like today when she decided to cook nasi lemak for lunch, I 'demanded" that she "decorate" the nasi lemak. She lovingly obliged ... hehehe.

I love being a Suami!!!!

Dania - Our first fourth generation!

We balik kampung again last weekend to welcome our first 4th generation into our extended family. Farhana and Hasri (Yan's niece who got married last year) became the proud parents of Dania (there's a longer name but I could not, for the life of me, remember it).
With Dania, both Yan and I automatically acquired the grandparents title, sort of. And the girls became Tante Lia, Tante Asma and Tante Rissa respectively.
Like most babies, Dania was down with jaundice thus has to be put under the blue light. Here's two-day old Dania in her very first sexy post. Mengancam woo. Unfortunately, our camera acting up so most of her photos came out blurry, except for this one.
The new mommy and the new moyang yang kalut. The first night Dania came home, she didn't sleep. Keeps on checking on the baby every hour or so.
Our rombongan menyerbu the hospital to visit Dania..... that's the new daddy jadi door stopper. Its still surreal for Hasri... welcome to parenthood.


And oooh since we were in the neigbourhood, that Saturday we took time off to attend another wedding in Ipoh - this time anak sedara Yan - Fatihah - punya wedding.
The parents of the bride.....salam2 with the tetamu... punya lah ramai manusia siap with traffic jam. My mother in law and I were so ready to turn back...but luckily we presevered as
we met so many sedara mara yang lama tak jumpa... like Wa here with Yan. Wa who is married to the bride's uncle is also my junior in school...
This is Yan and Pilus. Pilus is Yan's BFF when they were in school. Ye lah cousin pun sekali...

Cousin sebaya .... Ati and Arissa

New aunties --- the tantes

Mak meeting the tuan rumah....

Childhood friends.... Yan with An and Liza... kengkawan masa kecik2 dulu

More relatives... Kak Eton and son Ron...

Kita orang melepak after makan-makan....

Dan terkejut jumpa seorang cousin ya g terlebih gaya...

A Panda is also my favourite animal

The girls watched Kungfu Panda movie a couple of weeks ago with their cousin at Kinta City. We, Yan and I, didn't join them. But after the movie, we went and pick them up and Alia was all: "Bapak, you should see the movie. It's hillarious and the panda is sooooo cute and funny. And you would be proud that you are fat!!!!".

And I was like: "????????????"

Anyway just like Horton the Elephant in March, Po the Panda is a gem (yeah watched it over the weekend online). It's a simple story about Po the Panda (voice of Jack Black) which dreams of being a martial-arts master but is, in reality, a fat, lazy, black-and-white slob (like me??). But when his town is threatened by evildoers, a group of real kung fu experts need to transform Po into the legendary "Chosen One," who is destined to save the day. What happened next was classic animation at its best.

Go see the movie...it might take your mind off the problems around us (fuel increase an all...) for a while.

A Day for Bapak!

Yesterday was a Father's Day. To all my friends who are bapak, abah, ayah, papa, and daddy, my best wishes to you.
As for this Bapak, the girls (and their Mak) baked my favorite cake. And that made my day.
I love being a bapak. The girls - Alia, Asma and Arissa - are my sweetheart. My only hope is that they will grow up to be beautiful Muslimah. And in the word of Randy Pausch, I also want them to grow up knowing that I was the first man ever to fall in love with each of them.

As bapak and the whole family are still nursing bad bout of flu, fever and diarhhea, we didn't go out to celebrate. Instead, Bapak and Asma invaded the kitchen and later presented the family with this dish. Then we ate together together. Happy.

Road Trip: Balik Kampung

It seems that we have not been going back to our hometown for ages. Even during the last school holiday, our earlier plan to go back had to be cancelled at the last minute because of ... what else.... work. Much to the dismay of everybody. But fortunately, I've got an appointment in Ipoh on one fine Friday and as such managed to plan it to coincide with the last weekend of the holiday. Horray!
So with a rather military precision we went home North. For the much desired break .... from the madness world of expensive life. Huh, tired!

When I was small, whenever we had a trip to the big old KL, my arwah bapak will almost always made it a point to stop over at Templer Park in Rawang for a picnic. Don't know why but that seems to be a very popular stop over for many motorists from north into KL then. That and the Tanjung Malim's Yik Mun's Pau restaurant. Even Yan's dad also did the same thing - I mean stopping over at Templer Par whenever they went to KL.
So in honour of the old family tradition, I decided that we, instead of having breakfast at home, berkelah somewhere along the way home. I'm glad we did it. It's fun. Lucky that we have lots of R&R along the PLUS highway. But I missed the serene surroundings of the Templer Park.

That nite, we had a belated birthday gathering of sorts for the Mak Mertua at a Char Kway Teow place in Kampar Bandar Baharu. Char Kway Teow dia penuh ngan air.
The reluctant birthday girl. Dia punya birthday dia yang kena belanja. Mean ....mean children and grand children.
Somehow, both Azian and I will always ended up at many Pasar Sehari near my SIL's place. This time we checked out a Pasar Pagi in Malim Nawar, a small charming town not far from Kampar. I find that these Pasar is delightful and you sometimes will terjumpa benda-benda interesting like.....
this one. This is apparently an ice cream maker. And we were mighty jakun.... .
And it cost only 50 sen per stick. Can you imagine it? Mine was strawberry flavour while Yan opted for Coke ice cream. Life is much much simpler there.
It's the case of langkah kanan too as one of the Yan's last remaining bachelor cousin got married that weekend... yes in Malim Nawar. Anak Pak Utih's Mat finally got married to a girl from Jerantut Pahang. So we bersiap2 to attend the wedding.....
where we met so many sedara mara - that's why we like to go to weddings. Long time no see. The pix above showed only a handful of relatives that we met that day... seated next to my Mak Mertua (to her left) were two of her brothers in law Pak Usu and the groom's father Pak Utih. Dah tua oooo.... both in their 90s. The rest of the people are Yan's cousins including our one celebrity cousin (seated the other side of Mak) hehehehe.
Dan the kenduri kahwin ada chicken chop...... yummmy!
We were so busy chatting up with so many sedara mara that we only met up with the Pengantin Baru as we were making our way back home....

Ahhh... bestnya balik kampung.

Oh No! Welcome to Malaysia

What can I say? What caaan we say?
We were on our way to Damansara Perdana just.... and the petrol stations were jam-packed. All over town.
An increase of 78 sen? I'm thinking of relocating elsewhere cheaper. Where ya in Malaysia? Do tell me... I'm dead serious.