Travel Galore - a summary

My husband came back on the 3rd of October and we had a family dinner/buka puasa at his parents house in Taman Tun. The next day, we went back to Sabak Bernam and had a buka puasa at Kak Iti's house. We came back to Tasik Puteri on Sunday afternoon and we treated our neighbours for a buka puasa at Jintan Manis restaurant. Food was okay but the service was a bit poor.

Our trip to the East Coast started on Monday, the 6th of October. We had a brief stopover at Kuantan for a 'spot' of shopping...hehehe. Just bought a few tudung for me and Aliah. We didn't book a hotel or anything, we just took a chance. Luckily, there was a family room available for us at Awana Kijal.

We arrived in Kijal about 5.30 pm, and about an hour later we were on our way to Dungun to break our fast with Ayah Su's family. We were treated to a sumptuous feast. We finished everything...hehehe. We followed Ayah Su to do our terawih prayers at Masjid Batu 7 if I'm not mistaken. After terawih, we continued eating bubur and other deserts at Ayah Su's house. We left around 10 pm and had a stopover at Kerteh to buy something for Aliah and Hadi's sahur as our sahur were provided by the hotel.

The next morning, we only started our journey around 12 because we were supposed to meet my PIL around 3 pm in KT. When we discovered that Mummy and Daddy will only arrive after Asar, we had a stopover at Noor Arfa's show room. The boys stayed in the car while Aliah and me went in. I just bought a few pieces of Kaftan for Aliah and me...hehehe

We made our way to Taman Tamadun Islam and Masjid Kristal as our accommodation was the guest house next to Masjid Kristal. We waited for them to arrive just before 6pm. The house had 3 bedrooms, a living/dining area and a small kitchenette. The kids shared a bathroom with us. The kids ate chicken rice while we break our fast with all trengganu food fare with the likes of ikan singgang and ayam percik...hehehe

At first we wanted to perform our terawih at masjid Kristal... infact we were already inside the beautiful masjid when Daddy called us out and drove out to a nearby masjid. I've forgotten the exact name of the masjid or was it a surau?!! The funny thing was, Hadi told his ayah that he had to pray so many times...hehehe.

To tell you the truth, I loved the spotlight show at masjid Kristal, it changes colours every few seconds, very beautiful at night. But, I was a bit surprised that the inside of the masjid was smaller than I imagine. There was only a small space for ladies to pray, maybe just enough for 8 rows. When we were there, it was packed and a lot of people had to pray outside which was a shame really. For the millions that they spent building the masjid, I thought comfort for the jemaah would have been well thought out.

On Wednesday morning we were greeted with 'ant attack'! We woke up for sahur but was shocked with the thousands of ants attacking our food. Only the bubur lambuk was safe...eeee. My MIL had to fight the 'ants' and we had to clean up the area. Wednesday is also our relaxing day, we didn't go anywhere. We were treated at 'Bbenteng' inside Taman Tamadun Islam. No complains there as it was a free meal...hehehe. We had terawih in Masjid Hiliran, my FIL's kampung.

There were two layers and men prayed upstairs. The Masjid was made of chengal I think, but everytime the men sujud, we could hear them so loudly...hehehe. We were lucky because they were 'khatam' the alquran that night, so instead of doing 8 rakaat, I did the whole thing. Alhamdulillah. We were waiting for the sound of the canon, but since we heard none that meant that Raya would be on Friday.

Oh, by the way, my FIL was so proud of the canon that he got so excited telling his grandchildren about the history. On the first day we were in KT, I think he was more excited than the kids...hehehe. It was a case of 'bedil' here and 'bedil' there. Well, maybe for the Trengganu folks, the canon during Ramadhan signals a long held tradition and reminding them of their childhood. Something that never changes though everything else move with the times.

On Thursday, my husband bought his first DSLR camera, a canon 550EOS because there was no Nikon D90 in stock. We break our fast in a restaurant that have been mentioned by my FIL for the umpteenth time (whenever we went past it, okay?!!). It was crowded but the service was fast and efficient. I tried the 'sotong sumbat', not bad.

Did I tell you what Aliah said about our accommodation? Well, around KT we travelled in one car, so one day Aliah asked her To' Ki, "To' Ki, why couldn't we stay in a better hotel?". Oopss, alahai, these kids. Their definition of a good hotel start with having a bath tub and astro channels on TV. That would be the first thing they would check when we arrive in any hotel...hehehe. Those and the fact that there were ants there definitely brought down the standard of the accommodation to a 'homestay'.

To be continued...