aidilfitri eve

"Hari Raya hari yang mulia, penuh bererti kepada kita, tua muda miskin dan kaya, menyambutnya dengan gembira,
Berhati-hati dijalan raya,semoga anda selamat pulang,
Ucapan Selamat Hari Raya dari Saya untuk semua;p"

p/s: Sorry Eon for stealing your famous raya theme song

Assalamualaikum, aidilfitri is coming. It's time to unpack your new/old baju melayu,baju kurung,kebarung and kebaya and iron it till it crisps and smooth!haha
This year will be my fifth year of celebrating aidilfitri in the land of Green. The sadness of not having a chance to spend 'raya' with your family is still there but hey, life goes right. Looking back throughout these years, spending 'raya' in Dublin was not that bad. In fact its AWESOME!!(haha kinda exagerating here)..well sometimes it is and sometimes it is not. I think the ingredient is with whom you are spending/hanging your 'raya with'. I once gave an opening speech of the uniqueness of Malaysian spending 'raya' here. On how we dressed up with our best clothes walking to Malaysian Hall with all eyes watching at us(at our samping esp.) and even cars honking at us. Some enquiristic mind may also ask us on what we are wearing and why.

Then after our prayers we flock out from the hall for our favourite photography session. We take off our jackets/coats and brave the cold weather just as long as our new 'baju raya' is not hidden underneath it and to be in the picture. Then people will regroup and head off to their destined raya place i.e to friend's, stranger's(example like how afifah experience) and our most favourite destination 'Haji Fauzi'(very rich but extremely humble+generous dude who has been living here for so long). When you take a bus, you will see a group a malaysian and sometimes malaysian occupied the whole seat upstairs of the double decker bus to go to raya. It will fill with bahasa melayu all around that sometimes it's kinda 'pening' as malaysian talks very loud esp. in large group excited to go to 'raya' and planning their trip that some of them even has up to 10 houses to go to in a day. Talk about bloated stomach! Some may have a goodnight sleep after a full stomach and some lucky ones may have diarrhoea.

In the end it has been an Awesome 4 years. Let see what will happen in the fifth year. Quoted from Wan Mohd Firdaus(UK) on his raya trip to Dublin "inilah raya yang paling happening aku pernah rasa" (well after renting a car and 16 houses..who doesnt :D ).

These are few of the more memorable picture of my experience here in Dublin, Ireland(notice the difference in the quality of pictures as time passes by..from 2mp-6mp-whooping SLR) :



The Malays bunch in Trinity from final tp premed (03/04)

1st compulsory group picture in M'sa Hall (03/04)

exPackenham housemate soon father to be Azlan still in mamai mode on 'pagi raya' (04/05)

exHousemates+Wan Mohd Firdaus celebrating raya on a high note (04/05)

hanif in dying need of water=extremely hot dishes! (04/05)

Reciting takbir on Hari Raya eve(05/06)

broad smile= who shouldnt when you have the chance to take a picture with 4 girls at once(05/06)

Jumping in excitement= weekend jalan raya (05/06)

The last open house in Packenham (06/07)

Last Neesa's/Ika's (now doctors) open house (06/07)

Sore eyes after to many flashes (06/07)

The annual 'gambar lompat' (06/07)

Photography session in apartment 13(06/07)

Selamat Hari Raya guys and girls!! Have a splendid one!..hasta pronto