Five years blogging

Was reading Liew's post on how he has been blogging full-time for three years when I suddenly realised that my own blog is now five years old. My first post on this blog was on September 8, 2003 and as they say, the rest is history.

This is how my blog looked in 2003:

Birthday Dinner

Had a dinner party at our house last Saturday evening. The occasion was to celebrate the birthdays of my daughter, my wife and her friend - Roby.




Roby had already made an extremely delicious Tiramisu cake on Friday night. Really sorry, forgot to take pictures :-(

My wife made Lamb rogan, Sayur Lodeh (lontong), Pulut kuning (yellow sticky rice) and Nasi Impit and Roby made a special vegetarian Italian dish something like Lasagna (I forgot the name).





Had a nice time. We must do this more often. Thank you so much for all the wonderful gifts guys.

1K + posts

This is my 1001st post on this blog.

My blog also turned 4 last month. My first blog post was on Monday, September 08, 2003 and it has come a long way since then.

I picked up a lot of skills as I went along and learnt from other bloggers. Through this blog, I made some really good online friends, most of whom I have never met in person but feel like I know them personally.

I would like to say a BIG "Thank You!" to all the visitors to my blog.

Belated birthday gifts

I received a very pleasant surprise this morning. Was getting ready to send my daughter to school when the doorbell rang. There was a delivery lady with a parcel. I could make out the words Amazon on the side of the box and the first thing that came into my head was "I didn't order anything!"

Then I guessed that it must be a birthday gift and I was right. It was from my two sisters (Juliana & Diana) and Fred down in Australia and consisted of a book - "The Age of Kali: Travel and Encounters in India" by William Dalrymple, Two volumes of Herge's "The Adventures of Tintin" and 3 DVDs of "An Inconvenient Truth".

Thanks a lot guys. You really made my day.

Tags: birthday books comics gifts personal

Just another day

It was my birthday yesterday.

Had a long distance conversation with my two sisters down under. Then chatted with my parents over Skype. It really cheered me up.

In the evening we had a small private party - me, my wife and our two darlings.

Growing older and hopefully wiser.

birthday
cake

Hari raya gatherings and a birthday

The Malaysian community here in Coventry had a Hari Raya gathering yesterday. A lot of nice Malaysian food including Penang Laksa, pulut, etc. Nice to have a taste of Malaysian dishes so far away from home.

Even though the population is not as big as in Birmingham, the community (most of them, post graduate students) here is quite close knit with almost everyone knowing each other. They have even arranged to have a Quran reading class for the kids every saturday here at a commmunity centre.

Anyway, just realised that we have been in UK for a month now. Time seems to fly so fast. Gives me an idea about a series of blog posts - about the difficulties and challenges we faced, handy tips - what every Malaysian planning to come to the UK should know.

We were lucky to have good friends to guide us around but not everyone is that lucky. For example, I heard about a family who couldn't find a suitable place to stay and had to 'tumpang' at someone's place for quite sometime.

Today is the 29th of October and the last Sunday of this month. "So what's so special about this day?" you ask. Well we had to turn back our watches and clocks by an hour as UK changes to winter time. Rahil also turns 3 today.

Went to the car boot sale at Stoneleigh Park again today. Bought a lot of stuff including several books and toys for Rahil. We later bought a small cake for her and some balloons. I had to drive around quite a bit to search for the birthday candles as it was Sunday and most of the shops were closed. Finally found one in an shop in Foleshill road and it was the last packet. We didn't invite anyone but Rahil was really happy.

Tags: Birthday Car boot sale CJ's Car Boot Rahil