Down to Earth

Dear Bloggy,

I just came back from Dungun, Terengganu. It is a place where I am going to work soon. The first time I came there, what catch my heart is the blue sea. Just imagine every day when you come out from the office all you see is the deep blue sea. Wah, amazing. I was there for house hunting. The city is very small and really 'hulu'. No shopping complex and there are only few shops and a one 'pasaraya'. The worst thing is the residential areas are terrible. Although the town is clean but I do not really understand why the residential areas are dirty and are not well maintained. Bushes every where, roads have many holes and buildings cracked. My God! I was a little bit down yesterday.

However, today a coordinator from UITM Dungun called me and informed that there are two young lecturers need a housemate. So, I was delighted by the infos.

Ok, wish me luck!

RULE #1 People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs and replace any 1 questions that they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.
RULE #2 Tag 5 people to do this quiz and those who are tagged cannot refuse. These people must state who they were tagged by and cannot tag the person whom they were tagged by and continue this game by sending it to other people.


1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?
From my past experience, I get so angry and upset. If he keeps lying to me, I will seek for the truth and fire him back. Then I will let him go.

2. If you can have a dream to come true, what would it be?
Hmm... I think I don't really have a dream. All I want in my life is happiness and relaxation.

3. Whose butt would you like to kick?
Oh, it's my 4th ex-boyfriend's butt!!!

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?
Well, I don't know la. Probably get a jaguar for myself because it's my dream car. Other than that, shopping as much as I want and go travelling around the world.

5. Will you fall in love with your bestfriend?
Nope. It feels weird and I'll get confuse whether I should act as a lover or a best friend with him.

6. Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone?
Huh? can't it be both? But I do feel bless if someone love me.

7. How long do you intend to wait for someone you really love?
I think it depends on what God say. You know sometimes why do I have to waste time to wait for someone who is not meant for me or doesn't love me but only me love him very much. "Love breaks and love divides", it's life.


8. If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do?
Oh, kumbang bukannya satu so I don't have intention to fight unless I know that he likes me too.

9. What do you pray each day for your loved one?
Happiness and forgiveness.

10. What takes you down the fastest?
Huh?!

11. How would you see yourself in ten years time?
Hmm... Married! With 2 kids at least. Has my own career (I wish I am a full-time housewife) and home.


12. What do you really want at the moment of responding to this tag?
Oh, nothing because I was bored and thanks to this tag for giving me a task.

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
Well, she was my ex-schoolmate. Honestly, I don't really know her very well in person (how I wish I know) but just know her from her writings. I guess she must be a kind and nice person.

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married but poor?
Married but poor. I prefer having big happy family rather than having lots of heartless property.

15. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
Text him and then go to the toilet!

16. Would you give all in a relationship?
I wish I can but I'm not perfect. Sometimes, I do need a room for myself.


17. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously, who would you pick?
I never had this kinda experience before. But I guess I will choose the one that I feel can be trusted and attached to me more.

18. Would you forgive and forget no matter how horrible a thing the someone has done?
Yes, I will definitely forgive that person but definitely can't forget. It's normal la. Once bitten twice shy.

19. Is there a relationship that you regret working hard for it?
Yeah I think there is one. It's my 4th relationship because the person betrayed me. However, on the bright side, I learnt a lot from this relationship. Makes me mature in choosing man.

20. Would you leave your family behind just to chase your dreams?
Erk...I guess so. I mean I've done this before like leaving my family behind for further studies in overseas.

I tag these people: Noreen, Ifan, Kelvin, Vanita and Reena

Dear Bloggy,

I'm in Tanjong Malim now. Probably quite surprising why am I here. As usual, following my dad travel for work purposes. He has to be interviewer for nursing course intake in Slim River Hospital. Actually I am supposed to be in Slim River but my family decided to stay in Tanjong Malim after looking at the spooky resort in Slim River yesterday. Just imagine you arrived late at night like quater to 1 am in a huge resort with no receptionist, no security guards but only met two drunk men living in one of the rooms in the resort. Not much street lights around the resort area and it is quite isolated from town. So, all of us decided to drive on to Tanjong Malim to find a hotel. Well there are few hotels here but I am sure none of them are star rating hotels. Luckily, we found a nice hotel named Cahaya. Quite strategic, not much facilities however, it is clean and acceptable (comfortable to stay for few days, not a week). I'm happy to stay here especially with good coverage for my celcom broadband.

Another news is that I finally received my posting letter to UITM Dungun in Terengganu. Alhamdulillah, at last I can plan my career much smoothly. Just that, so many things to think such as accomodation,teaching programme etc. Anyway, I hope everything will be fine. Cross fingers.

For this post, I feel like updating my trip to Madrid and if I am still not yet sleepy, I might write about Toledo and Seville too. Alright we'll see how it goes. So after 3 nights staying in Barcelona, the three of us moved on to Madrid. If I still remember, we reached Madrid quite late than we have planned because we missed the train that we have reserved earlier. Thanks to the person who gave us wrong instructions! Of course we had to get a new ticket and had to pay more. Sigh... Anyway, we arrived Madrid safely and thats the most important thing.

The day we arrived to Madrid, it was a White Night. According to one of the Spanish people we met,she (who I don't know her name) said White Night is a special night where everything (meaning the theatres, musuems etc) are open for free entrance! And also, there are lots of street performers around Madrid city. Most importantly is the Real-Madrid stadium is open for free entrance including free guided tour which I missed! Quite frustrating actually.

On the White Night, Chiunghui and me (without Wang Wen as she decided to stay indoor because of too exausted) enjoyed ourself by watching the Flamenco in one of the bars in Madrid.

Flamenco show in a bar in town

Flamenco is the famous Spanish traditional dance where you can see either the men or women dance very energetically. The dancers normally show a very serious expression when they dance and the audiences will shout 'ole' loudly every time the dancers make some good and outstanding movements. The lady dancer usually wear tight dress with fluffy skirts to shake around and both man and lady dancers wear special shoes that when they knock their heels continously, sound according to the music tempo can be heard.


Pictures taken on the White Night

After watching Flamenco, we walked around the city centre. There were so many people in town, really crowded. We watched some street perfomance like Spanish culture dance and people playing music. It was fun. I think we slept quite late that night around 3 or 4am.

I woke up late the next day, so did Wang Wen. Chiunghui woke up early and left us for his own interest of tour around Madrid. Wang Wen decided to go for shopping instead which I was not really on the mood for it but I hate to tour alone. It was quite lucky that I saw an advertisement of free guided tour in the hostel's kitchen and made a deal with Wang Wen. In the end, we decided to go for shopping in the morning and by late afternoon to follow the tour. My mood for shopping was back when I saw there ZARA in the city. I really love the Spain ZARA collections as they produced variety of designs and I grabed 3 clothes from ZARA. I was very happy with the clothes I bought and did not expect that they were cheaper than in the UK.

Around 3pm we followed the free guided tour. There were like 10 of us who followed and came from different nationalities-China, Malaysia, Slovakia and many more. In fact, the tour guide herself is not originally from Spain, she came from Australia and decided to settle down in Spain since she enjoys her works alot! She is very familiar with the history of each places she brought us to. If you see the slide show below, these pictures were taken during the tour. I cannot remember all of the stories except for one about the bear, it is the symbolic of Madrid.


Pictures taken during the free guided tour

In the hostel where I lived in Madrid, I met new friends. It is good that the hostel provides a shared kitchen where everyone can meet up each other. It is some sorts of like common room for everyone who stayed there. From the kitchen I got to know a girl from France (I cannot remember her name but she is in my facebook) and she gave tips of where to go in Madrid. Too bad we did not have the chance to hang out together as she was in her last day on the day I met her. She left her Madrid city map to me. Very nice of her. Also, I met a guy from Canada. He was the one who told me about the free entrance for Real Madrid stadium. He was lucky to go. I met a group of Malaysian students who are still studying in Glasgow. They are doing farmacy course. Well, this is how I make friends from travelling. It is better if the hostel has good and comfortable common room so that everybody can meet up and chat. The hostel that we booked in Madrid is really good and we did not regret staying there for 4 nights. It is clean, strategic, and convenient, very easily to go to the plaza and metro station. Surrounded by shopping centre and restaurants.

It is 2.02am now, I guess I have to save the story in Toledo and Seville in the upcoming post. Oyasumit nasai! zzzz...

Dear Bloggy,

I just noticed that I have been keeping my blog for a year! Happy anniversary Bloggy. Well, actually happy belated anniversary because the anniversary date supposed to be on the 7th of October.

This is the place where I write, updating about myself. I wish I had keeping this blog earlier but you know as I mentioned before, my days are committed with works so has to be balanced lah.

Alright, I'm off to town now. As I have promised, I will update about the Spain-Portugal trip in the next post.

Dear Bloggy,

Currently I am really bored. I haven't start any work yet but preparing mentally to teach soon. Just got my internet connection. I registered with Celcome broadband. It is quite good so far. Very fast access for facebook and other websites which Streamyx failed to provide a fast mode access. Anyway, since I am so free at the moment, I thought of updating the Spain trip I had recently before I came back to Malaysia.

Travelling makes me feel good. I really love to explore and see new things such as culture, architecture, people etc. And sometimes I get to taste food from the country I visited. 4 years in the UK I have managed to travel to many countries in Asia and Europe. But mostly, I travelled to European countries during the holidays because it is must easier to travel to these countries from the UK. Places I have been are Ireland, Japan, Chez Republic, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, Australia and France. Quite a lot of cities I covered in each country I went and it is a bit unreasonable to list down all because a lot!

After finishing my Masters programme my friends and I planned a 10 days trip to Spain and Portugal. The trip was supposed to be joint by 4 people but one of us could not make it and thus, left us three went there together. Honestly, I did not really study Spain and Portugal that much. I only read the basic information about these two countries such as about the transportation, food, crime rate, languages etc. I hardly know about the history of the places I went unlike my trip in Italy, I studied about the history of the arts and architectures of Italy.

I spent around 7 days in Spain, 3 days in Barcelona and 4 days in Madrid. In Madrid, I did not spend the total days there. I moved around to the nearest places to Madrid such as Toledo and Seville because I wanted to make use of the euro train pass I bought in London.

Barcelona is a wonderful place. If you look at the Barcelona map, it is amazing to see that the buildings are built up together in a square shapes. I do not really understand how the oldies architects were able to design such city. Some of the buildings are unique especially those who designed by Gaudi, one of the famous architects in Barcelona.

Random pictures taken in Barcelona

I took some pictures of the buildings designed by Gaudi such as Sagrada de Familia, Case Battlo and Park Guel.


Park Guel


Casa Battlo and the interior designs by Gaudi


More interior designs in Casa Battlo

In fact, I also entered one of Gaudi’s buildings in the city and enjoyed looking at the beautiful interior design made by Gaudi. He seems to love arts in a form of nature and animals.


Sagrada de Familia

Sagrada de Familia, the most famous building, looks really ugly to me yet unique. Historically, Sagrada de Familia was said to be unfinished design because Gaudi was killed in a tram accident and it was left unfinished until today. There are many arts things in Barcelona and I bought quite a lot of souvenirs such as bag, earring, necklace, fridge magnets etc which engraved with nice arts.

La Rambla


One of the stalls in La Rambla

I love to walk around the La Rambla, a place like ‘Petalling Street’ in KL. However, it is not really safe to walk alone around Barcelona because there are drug addicts, drug dealers, pick pockets etc. I have seen these in my own eyes. There was one time I walked with my friend, Chiunghui, I saw a drug addict was injecting himself and kind of drunk of drugs. You know what I mean like in fantasy. Anyway, I do not really like Barcelona, because firstly the hostel was sucks even though it was in a strategic place that is near La Rambla. Secondly, the city is quite dirty and crowded. What I love about Barcelona city is the architecture and the beach (though Malaysia beach is much better it is acceptable).

Alright, in the next post hopefully, I will tell you more about the trip to Madrid, Toledo and Seville (my favourite place among all places I have been in Spain).

Dear Bloggy,

Sorry for not updating you for such a long time. It is not because I am lazy but there is no internet connection back home in Kedah so I have to go to any free wifi area in order to get one. Time moves very fast. Last few months I was still in the UK worked hard on my thesis and later went for a long vacation in Spain and Portugal. Now I am back in Malaysia and have been here for 13 days. A lot of changes around here and I can see that Malaysia is developing in fast pace. However, I am not sure about the mentality of the Malaysians, whether they have change or not. As I observed some of them did not change. Some still does not know how to queue up and does not familiar with the pharse "sorry" and "excuse me". Anyway, I am getting use to the life here although I still miss the people in Great Britain.

I have spent my first raya here after 4 years in the UK. It was the most emotional raya as I cried of happiness on the first day of raya with my families. I guess I must have been really missing them all this while. I am glad that I am back this year. Took some pictures during Hari Raya and wish to share with my friends who keeps visiting my blog. Thanks to these people who keep supporting me with my writing.


On the first day of raya. The emotional moment.


Family gathering.


Alysha, my cute niece and me.