Fasting and Hari Raya Eid-ul Fitri in Stavanger

The past few weeks have been filled with cycling, scootering and fishing for the kids. Sunny weather or rainy weather they'd be out cycling. With school already moving full steam with regular classes and school activities, the children have less and less time to themselves.

Fasting proved to be a long drawn out affair here in Norway. Sahur starts about 3am with fajr around 4am and sunrise 5am; break fast was late well into 10-10.30pm at the start of Ramadhan. It proved less tiring with complete sahur meals for the children. The were more complaining about the break in their sleep rather than the usual dwindling appetites. Fasting start 19th July with Hari Raya celebrated in a much scaled down affair 20th Aug. This year we didn't even have time to take our annual Eid-ul Fitri family portraits. Hoping to do so before end of Syawal.

Our sparse iving now jammed pack with the few furniture items we brought over from Miri, Sarawak. The rest are still packed up in Pasir Puteh, Kelantan.

Aisya at the 2012 Stavanger Steamship Festival, standing next to our dream wooden boat.

Aisya with our first mackerel which ended up as mackerel goreng tepong the same morning for lunch (the raya weekend).

The weekend before raya we managed to squeeze in a trip to the fjordes by bus and returning by ferry.

Not many pelita lit up around Stavanger for Hari Raya this year, we made do with Hundvag bridge lights.

 Being far away from family, raya this year was a very understated family affair. We attended a get-together for pot-luck cookout with several other Malaysian families and singles around Stavanger, and there aren't that many of those. We are however discovering more and more Malay diaspora in this cold northern lands.Some have long taken residence in Norway.