destination: penang [28 - 30 september 2018]

28 september 2018 (friday)

this trip to penang was all sponsored by miss a (flight ticket and hotel). she redeemed flight ticket from celcom (reward) or something like that, huhu.. if not mistaken, we took the 7.45am flight and arrived at penang airport at 8.55am. we rented a car (viva) and our first stop was roti bakar hutton lane. we must first fill our stomach before beginning our adventure in penang. after breakfast, we checked in to our hotel, hotel malaysia georgetown. then, we joined the blue mansion tour (the mansion is right behing our hotel).  the mansion is also known as cheong fatt tze mansion and had been setting for many films, the most famous and recent is crazy rich asian. we were lucky to have the owner of the mansion as our guide.

before boarding at KLIA2

breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so make sure to do it right

the blue mansion

with our tour guide who is also the owner

mahjong scene from crazy rich asian

after the tour, we had lunch at hameed pata mee sotong. seriously, most of our itinerary for this trip is makan, so this trip is really a JJCM (jalan jalan cari makan) trip.our next stop is none other than bukit bendera. unfortunately, it was raining and we couldn't enjoy the view but we did enjoy the bingsoo worth ice, haha.. we then returned to our hotel and prepare ourselves for dinner at pak mat western (see, it's all about FOOD). to get there, we had to cross penang bridge (around 30 - 40 min drive depending on the traffic) and for it is located at bukit mertajam. the food was amazing. the portion is generous for the the price we paid.

ermm, honestly the taste is just mild..

our mango strawberry bingsoo at bukit bendera

mixed platter (RM23.90)

29 september 2018 (saturday)

today, we spent the whole day at escape park! we first spent the time at adventure park and then the waterpark. the passes were for multiple entries using our finger print. as usual, my finger were hard to detect and miss a had to scan her finger twice just to let me in and out. overall, it was worth the money. our body was sore afterward, doing all those activities. and until today, i still couldn't believe that i tried the banana flip!!! one of the requirement is you must be a strong swimmer. i never see myself as a strong swimmer, i barely float! but the boy there and miss a had me convinced. the pool depth is 5m!!! by the time we left, it was already 6pm. we bought some jeruk madu pak ali on the way back to the hotel. we had nasi kandar line clear for dinner (within walking distance from the hotel).

escape park penang

we only managed to complete level 1 obstacle course.. it was harder that it seem, huhu..

taken before changing cloth

one of the slides at waterplay

yummy!!!

30 september 2018 (sunday)

on our last day, we went to the asia comic cultural museum. there were only a few people around. what i love about the museum is you could collect stamps from different regions. the museum lay out is according to the origin country of the comic. once you collected all the stamps, you'll receive a postcard. along the way, we fed ourselves with penang road famous cendol, ghani famous rojak/pasembur and bubble tea. since we still got plenty of time before our flight back, we decided to visit the war museum. overall, this trip is 80% eating and 20% exploring, hehe...

pasembur or rojak

waiting in line for the cendol.. you better ask for less sugar if you are like me (don't like too sweet food much)

i forgot what the name of the shop where we bought this bubble tea

with ujang figurine, famous local comic artist

the stamps i mentioned earlier

only a few people visit this museum

one of the prison

quite narrow tunnel

catching up with friends...

well well, these last few weeks seem like the time of me catching up with dear friends. i may have mentioned this before that i'm bad at keeping in touch, huhu.. i rarely contact my friends even with the technology we have these days. but the best thing is even we didn't talk with each others for quite some times, when we do meet, it felt like nothing much has changed. our whatsapp groups would be inactive for quite sometimes, then one of us would post some fun facts or pictures. this is like a notice to each other, that our friendships are still alive and intact. or sometimes, one of us would rant about our problems just to steam it off and we always knew we have each other back. here are some of the photos of us catching up!

*FYS (FIZA - YATI - SYE2) with Ummi@Shima

i just LOVE this 'kawaii photobooth' and i always manage to drag my friends along to take pictures with it!!!

we had lunch at 4fingers ioi city mall, putrajaya. this was my first time eating there and the foods are quite good, really...

l-r: fiza (our nickname for her is 'adik' since she is the youngest among the three of us, shima (nickname ummi for she is so motherly), me (they are the only person that call me sye2 or and their niblings also call me auntie sye2), yati (our nickname for her is 'cik puan' for sometimes she could be the most matured among us)

*HASYAR (MS A - ME - RAFIZ) with Ateng

haha, i managed to convince these nice people to have a bowling night at wangsa bowl ioi city mall(i'm wearing the same attire when i met with fiza and yati for these are the only cloth i had at putrajaya, haha... well there are a few other but i love these the most! even steve jobs and mark zuckenberg wear the same attires all the times...😆)

our first frame

our second frame, and please notice that i got first time despite being last in the previous one, haha...

ALG18 (FADHIL - NORA - ME)

l-r: nora (she's currently live in germany for her husband is german. they have a cute son named nora. she came back to malaysia for holiday. her hometown is in segamat), fadhil (she's married to our friend, apad which also originally from segamat) and me.. so this meeting is really adhoc at starbucks segamat..

*MECHE OUM BP

my master classmates.. left row from front to back: dr kamisah (our lecture), mak jah, angeline and syareena right from from front to back: tn haji (my dad haha..), kak fazi, sue ann and me! lunch at papparich batu pahat

[*our whatsapps group's names]

hello 2019!!!

haha, it's already the end of january but i still want to welcome 2019! honestly, 2018 is  a little hard for me, being hospitalized for both mental and physical illness. but alhamdulillah, everything works out fine in the end. my resolutions for 2019 is achieving my resolutions fro previous years including:

• eat clean (at least try to, i'm trying to reduce my current weight of 60kg to at least 56kg. i gained quite a lot after being warded. my maximum weight that time is 70kg!)
• more exercise (my cholesterol is very high, 8! it was 11 before. i do know the bad consequences of it. doctors suggested that i start taking medicine to control it, but i said NO and will try to lower it by practicing a healthy lifestyle)
• khatam Quran and read its meaning at least once this year
• volunteer more
• learn new language (japanese & ASL, this has been going on for more than a decade i think, haha..)
• finish my study, insyaAllah (down to one subject and final thesis)
• GET MARRIED!!!😂

well, there are other small things that i really want to do and achieve but the above mentioned resolutions may sum it up. this year though i may not be travelling abroad. i must save money to pay my tuition fees since i repeat and refer two subjects. probably will travel abroad again next year. i'm thinking of joining worldvision volunteer work in myanmar. hope that'll happen. anyway, here are some photos from 2018.

with buzz and woody at hong kong disneyland [sneak preview for later entry]

Ruins of St Paul Macau [sneak preview for later entry]

this was actually taken during my manic episode (could you tell?)

i freak out at the sight of blood in my IV tube while being hospitalized at kajang hospital for lithium intoxication (now, i'm only taking seroquel/zypressa)

asia comic museum, penang [sneak preview for later entry]

mercy malaysia light of hope walk

out with the old, in with the new (new shoes bought at JPO)

last minute study as usual

letter from my sponsored child in myanmar

ps: later entry = destination: hong kong and macau & destination: penang, when? when the mood strikes, hopefully soon...😊

destination: johor bahru and changi [28 - 30 december 2018]

28 december 2018 (friday)

last weekend, miss a and i had a day trip to singapore just to attend the changi wizarding world. miss a came to segamat on thursday after work and we journeyed to johor bahru on friday morning. we stopped for lunch at kari kambing 40 hari and stumbled accidentally with one of our former schoolmate (stj). we stood in front of him for anout 5 minutes and still he hasn't noticed us eventhough some of his friends saw us. he only realized our existence when we said goodbye, saying his name.

looks very delicious, right?

miss a, fariz and moi

after lunch, we continued our journey and stopped at johor premium outlet (jpo) to look around. in the end, both of us bought nike sport shoes. done shopping, we went to larkin central to eat one of the famous dish in johor, kacang pool. only then, we checked in at our hotel. erica hotel. we chose erica hotel because it's near ciq. we'll be taking a bus from there straight to changi airport.

posing with our purchases

kacang pool and ABC

after freshening up at the hotel and surveying our route to ciq, we went to putri harbour to attend moscow circus. we didn't know the way, so as expected we asked assistance from mr waze. mr waze took us to a home residence and we were lucky to actually arrived at the right location on time. we bought the tickets online, so we have to redeem the tickets latest at 8:30pm. the circus acts were very fun and entertaining.

29 december 2018 (saturday)

originally we planned to get the 7am bus but since we had a late night, we chose to take the 9:15am bus. we walked about 2km to the bus platform. unfortunately, we had to wait for almost two hours fpr the bus. it seemed that the bus we were supposed to take was stucked in a traffic jam at changi airport. so we took another bus instead. we arrived at woodlands checkpoint about 45 minutes later and we had to stand almost three hours for immigration clearance!!! once done, we waited for around 30 minutes for the bus to changi. we finally arrived at the airport around 2pm!

we started our magical journey at terminal 2. in order to take part in the ativities, we must first pose and post three pictures and posted them on socmed (facebook, twitter, wechat, weibo) with the hashtag #changiwizardingworld. we muat also installed the iChangi app. the picture must include you to avoid people using someone else's picture. most of the exhibitions are at terminal 3 but there is one at terminal 2 (whomping willow) and one at terminal one transit area (newt's menagerie).

done taking picture with the whomping willow, we took the skytrain to terminal 3. we took pictures again at diagon alley and hogsmeade village. we queued up for taking a moving picture and ere really happy for the result. after that, we had our lunch at 4fingers. on this visit, we only spend SGD10 for food and all the other activities are free. we even managed to redeem our lunch receipt for two free rides on the slides. we took the bus back to johor bahru around 7:15pm and had our dinner at city square.

30 december 2018 (saturday)

we checked out around 11:30am an went to majlis bandaraya johor bahru to pay for our parking ticket. entirely my fault for thinking that saturday is considered weekend and no need for parking coupons. the original amount is RM30 but since it was paid early, the amount is reduced to RM15. we then went to aeon dato' onn to buy tealive since i got the tng wallet promo, RM2.50 per cup that will end on 31 december since there is no tealive in segamat (it turns out that segamat got it's own tealive outlet that was opened recently which i didn't knew).. miss a did a lot of shopping though, hehe.. we arrived at segamat around 5pm and went to karaoke first before returning to my parents' house.

ps: overall, honestly the changi wizarding world is not as good as i expected. luckily we did other activities beside that during our short holiday.