Smelly fish market

So Smelly!!!!

These girls have never been to a wet market!

Let alone a fish market!

Everything was so stinky! and wet!

Look at the fantastic Trengganu fish market here:

http://trengganuholiday.blogspot.com/2010/07/trengganu-fish-market-fresh.html

all the fish are fantastically fresh, straight from the sea...no need for middlemen,no need to transport for long distances!

All sorts of variety too!

and cheap!

To us there is no smell because we are used to it.

but these girls only shop for fish at the hypermart...all de-intestined and shrink wrapped!!

Aryani Resort by Raja Bahrin

http://trengganuholiday.blogspot.com/2010/08/aryani-resort-by-raja-bahrin.html
http://trengganuholiday.blogspot.com/2010/08/aryani-resort-total-cultural-experience.html

In Merang, Trengganu, we happened to visit a resort called Aryani, (actually, we were looking for a restaurant for dinner!) and last night, after googling Aryani, I found that it was the resort built by Raja Bahrin,a Trengganu prince and an architect and conservationalist who built resorts and buildings from old artefacts.

File pictures of Raja Bahrin and his daughter during their younger days

Raja Bahrin was in the news 15 years ago when I read that he spirited away his two children he had with Jacqueline Guilespie, put them on a boat and brought them back to Trengganu because he wanted custody of them and wanted to bring them up as Muslims.  The boy and girl are now grown, they are my 2 big children's age and the girl just got married last year.  They located their mum and reunited with her (they have not met her for more than 10 years.)  So touching!! I nearly shed a tear or two! (when newspaper showed their meeting).

Raja Bahrin invites ex-wife to daughter's wedding
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/2/12/nation/3245994&sec=nation

Pascarl-Gillespie who has been invited to Raja Shahirah’s wedding.

Utusan Malaysia reported that Raja Shahirah Aishah, 23, will wed Syarul Reza, the frontman of local indie band Love Me Butch, on March 7 at Aryani Resort, Merang, in Terengganu

In case you don't know, here is the story....
She was a young ballet dancer in 1980 when she met a Malaysian prince Raja Datuk Kamarul Bahrin Shah who was in Melbourne studying architecture. They married in 1981, when she was 17, and moved to Terengganu the following year, where Raja Bahrin was a junior member of the that Sultanate. They had a daughter, Shahirah (Shah), and a son, Mohammed Baharuddin (Iddin). Raja Bahrin later took a second wife under Islamic marital law. By this time, Jacqueline claims the marriage had turned violent. She returned to Australia in 1985 with their children to visit her sick grandmother, and never returned.

The couple divorced in 1986. Bahrin signed over custody of their two children, an arrangement which was later ratified by the Family Court of Australia. In 1990, she married TV journalist Iain Gillespie. They legally separated in the mid 1990s and formally divorced in 2000. Pascarl married former school friend Bill Crocaris in 2002.
Paternal abduction

In 1992, Raja Bahrin came to Melbourne for a pre-arranged custody visit, after which he failed to return the children. After some days of uncertainty of his and the children's whereabouts, Raja Bahrin surfaced with them back in Malaysia. He appeared in an interview on television, but refused to say how he had managed to smuggle them out of the Australia, saying only it was the "will of Allah".
It was later revealed that with the help of an accomplice, Bryan Wickham, he had taken them by car to Weipa in Australia's far north, and by boat from the Cape York Peninsula to Merauke, in the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya. From there he took them to Malaysia via Sulawesi, where the authorities retrospectively awarded him custody, and the children were then settled with their father in Terengganu. Wickham spent one year planning the abduction, arranging vehicles and a boat, studying the escape route.[ Wickham later served nine months in an Australian jail for his part   Malaysia is not a party to the Hague Convention, which recognizes custody by the habitual residence of minor children, and so the Convention could not be used to return the children to Australia.

 
Raja Shahirah Raja Bahrin Won Global Battle of The Band!
Who doesn’t know about RAJA SHAHIRAH RAJA BAHRIN. The girl who was involved in one the greatest custody battle in history of Malaysia and Australia. Recently, Raja Shahirah’s band, Lab Rat had been declared as the winner of the Global Battle of the Bands (GBOB) Challenge Malaysia 2008. The event was held at at Titanium Bar & Dance Club in Petaling Jaya. Raja Shahirah is Lab Rat’s keyboardist and vocalist. Congrats to her. I often see her dad does his Jumaat prayers at Masjid As-Syakirin, KLCC.

                                                   RAJA BAHRIN AND HIS KIDS, IDDIN AND RAJA SHAHIRAH




12 Feb 2009 ... RAJA Datuk Kamarul Bahrin Ahmad Shah, who brought his two children home by boat from Aust
thestar.com.my › News › Nation - Cached -


Jacqueline Pascarl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They married in 1981, when she was 17, and moved to Terengganu the following year, where Raja Bahrin was a junior member of the that Sultanate. ...
Biography - Career - Paternal abduction - Reunited
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Pascarl - Cached - Similar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Pascarl


Amazon.com: The Raja Bahrin story: A father's dramatic rescue ...

Amazon.com: The Raja Bahrin story: A father's dramatic rescue mission (9789812047311): Raja Bahrin Shah, Bryan Wickham: Books.
www.amazon.com/Raja-Bahrin-story-fathers.../dp/981204731X - Cached

Maid Two Clean Service

When I came back from school, I was greeted by these 2!!!

Who are they?

Hehehe! Of all the funny prizes won, this one must top them all: free maid cleaning service,

grand winner it seems.

So here they are.  I thought that a van will come, and men would come and clean.

But these 2 maids had to take a taxi here.

Kenny forgot to give them the Zip products that is part of the prize.

They set out to do their work.

I followed them everywhere.

They brought this.

Cleaning shutters.

Verdict? Not good! They only wiped and cleaned surfaces, swept the floor, and splashed the bathrooms. Superficially!

THEY DID NOT MOP THE FLOOR OR SCRUB THE BATHROOM TILES OR DO ANY MAJOR JOBS!

And they did the whole house in 2 hours!

Kijal Beach

Do read my Trengganu blog here:

Kijal Beach

http://trengganuholiday.blogspot.com/2010/08/beach-at-kijal.html

Breaking Fast with Colleagues

Huh? No, I did not fast, but I "broke" fast with my colleagues at Ancasa Hotel in Petaling Street, formerly known as Impiana Hotel (Ancasa not Petaling Street)

Our breaking fast buffet was at Saffron Brasserie, but this picture belies the true situation

Lobby looks breathtaking in its website picture

In actual fact it was so crowded! the buka puasa crowd!

Earlier, the IT teachers had a seminar here...followed by the buka puasa buffet dinner

While walking there, I saw people with their food in front of them but waiting for the signal to break fast to start eating

Cigku Firdaus and Zukhairi comparing photos...they had already broken (fast)

Only after the HM left did we loosen up and started camwhoring!!!!

Cik Ros, Cik Nor and Cik Roz...! and me

Cik Kee (the organiser of this buka puasa thing) Nadia, Pn M's youngest and Kee's boyfriend

let's go around to see what they have: kuih apam balik: a roadside favourite

my favourite: all sorts of ulam with pucuk paku (ferns), kerabu taugeh and three types of dips: fermented tauhu, cincaluk and another that I forgot the name.

DIY mee soto and mee kari

DIY rojak sayur

4 types of bubur

the usual desserts

choc fountain (so ubiquituos now) and jars of traditional Raya kuih, I saw "batang buruk" that I first learnt of at Parit Sulung, but I was too lazy to open all the jars.

Pn K with her children.

Pn M the boss of IT with her family

going back we saw this "Pengemis Kelas Atasan" an able bodied beggar that looked suspiciously like one of our teruna (young male unmarried, eligible bachelor) teachers.

ha ha ha he is En Firdaus! They are all waiting at the gate off Horley Link for Pn Munni to open it.  Only she has the key, all of us has the smart card which isn't so smart after all!!!

Mould!!! Fungus! Mushroom? Spores?

Can you ever imagine what this is?

Looks like a science experiment like what my youngest daughter will do for her school  project.

Mould!!!

Moss!

Wet culture of entire species of floating fungi!

 Colourful, wonderful specimen of sporific mushroomic splendour that my camera could not capture or do justice even though I put it at macro!!

Can you ever imagine where it grows???

At the bottom of my fridge!!! Has the spores floated upwards and contaminated the entire contents of the refrigerator? (whatever is left of the aftermath of THE funeral?)

Under the fruits compartment! Normally the fridge would not be so empty but we are in the process of downsizing and relocating.

Imagine my shock when I pulled out the drawer to get some fruits!!

I don't know what possessed me to pull out the entire drawer! Normally, I do not do such a thing! The other compartment is also wet with collected drips but mould hasn't grown yet.

Naturally, the culture of mould that threatened to sprout into entire new breeds of mushrooms put me off the fruits!!!

Foreigners Cannot Buy Ron95!!!

Guess what I saw when I went to pump petrol at Puchong:

The yellow pump is Ron90, the green is Ron97

The sign says: (rough and literal translation)

From 1st August 2010, foreign registered cars (Includes Singapore):

1. Are forbidden to buy Ron95 (petrol)

2. Not allowed to buy diesel more than 20 litres at any one time at stations within 50km from the border

3. Only allowed to buy RON97 petrol (unlimited)

                                                                                 Controller of Supplies, Malaysia