Archive for July 2011
Well, literally it reads, I’m back.
Back from two holy lands in Islam, Makkah and Madinah al-Munawarah.
Masjid Quba’
Flight from Jeddah (JED) to Kuala Lumpur (KUL) touched down KLIA at around 10.45am and yeah, welcome home to the cheap looking cars and below 50 degrees Celsius temperature.
I miss Madinah & Masjidilharam already
:’(
I don’t know what about other Saudi women but this is my experience with one of the female traders in front of Masjid Nabawi. I don’t think they are Saudis though. Maybe they are from other African countries because they’re Blacks.
I was busy photographing the minarets of the mosque but suddenly I heard someone was angry and shouting. I thought the shout wasn’t for me but apparently it was.
As the woman couldn’t speak the language that I speak, she asked a Saudi man to translate what she was going to say and yeah, she thought that I took a photograph of her.
I was like, “What the hell? You even got your face covered with your niqab, hijab and what not, could I satisfy myself with the photos if I photograph you?”
But hey, it does makes sense right? Why on Earth I want to photograph someone who got her face totally covered except her eyes?
Blergh.
One of the things that I noticed while in Saudi is, the kids are attention grabber. Regardless what nationality are they, they are attention grabber especially when someone is holding a camera.
When I was at Masjid Quba’, two Turkish little boys were winking at me begging for their pictures to be taken. My DSLR was on manual ‘M’ mode that time so everything was a haywire indeed. The first picture is really overexposed and it’s not a good picture at all.
The next picture I captured when I was shopping for souvenirs with my mum at some shops in Madinah. These two boys noticed that I was holding my camera but I got it switched off. So, they kind of ‘signaled’ to me that they want their pictures taken, so yeah, I took their pictures. Alhamdulillah, they were cute. :D
The last picture, hmm… I have nothing to say. LOL.
So I went to Saudi Arabia to perform my Umrah. Went to Madinah first so I didn’t have to worry about wearing ihram in flight from Malaysia. There are so many restrictions while in ihram and if you disobey one of those, you might have to pay for dam (punishment).
The architecture in Saudi was spectacular; none of those I’ve seen in Kuala Lumpur. Above is Masjid Quba’. It’s world’s oldest mosque and its first stone was positioned by Prophet Muhammad PBUH and later expanded, renovated to occupy more pilgrims from time to time.
Umrah flights (not Hajj) used to land at the North Terminal of the King Abdulaziz International Airport instead of the new Hajj Terminal.
Now that the Hajj terminal is buffed up, aerobridges were added, the air conditioners were put on steroid, Umrah flights are also redirected to here.
There are only small restaurants and convenience shops there and usually struggling to lure customers to shop at theirs.
Today, marked my first not first, but third international flight with Malaysia Airlines. Called themselves a 5-star airline, they have absolutely many Skytrax awards under their belt.
However, the most sought airline; unfortunately, failed to impress me with their Malaysian Hospitality like they have always advertised. I must say that I felt like I was in an aircraft from the 1990’s.
The food was mediocre, the Audio Video On Demand (AVOD) was made unavailable throughout the entire flight. Imagine, it was a medium long haul flight; 8-hours and no AVOD available? It was a bad service experience, bad, really bad.
Hello!
While you’re reading this, most probably I’m on the plane already; enroute to my destination.
I renewed my passport in June. It’s an ICAO compliant passport. I was like, wow, just like Singaporeans’ and the Americans’ passport.
RM150, 2 years validity.
Malaysia was the first country in the world to introduce biometric passport back in what year, I forgot. The passport was developed by IRIS Corp. It’s a local company. Even though the passport’s technology was a groundbreaking at that time, I don’t know why the rest of the world didn’t adopt the technology but instead, introduced a new standard, ICAO compliant passports.
Did Malaysian Gov’t raise its white flag to ICAO? I have no idea.
The typical passport’s first page.
Guess that’s all for now, pray for my safe journey forth & back.
Take care alright!
Hello hi.
I know it’s a hiatus once again.
I’ve been busy. Just recently appointed as SIFE UiTM Malaysia’s new president.
SIFE UiTM Malaysia is a legendary SIFE team in Malaysia, having a clean track record, won 8 National Champions out of 10 National Competitions. That was really an achievement.
This year, celebrating SIFE UiTM’s 10 years anniversary in SIFE, we’ve got to win the National Exposition (it’s the competition’s name, by the way) once again so that we can compete again this year at the World Cup 2011.
It’s quite tough to be a president of a very strong SIFE team, knowing that myself is an introvert person. Anyway, I took the challenge and I must prove that I can do it!
Dewan Undangan Negeri Sarawak
I flew back to Sarawak last week to monitor a project there in Lundu. SIFE UiTM Sarawak was awesome, warm hospitality, and of course, the project was awesome too.
Couldn’t reveal much about the project as other SIFE teams might be watching it.
Me & SIFE UiTM Sarawak
So, that’s about it. I’m flying out of the country once again tomorrow. Gonna be away for 2 weeks.
Take care everyone!
:)