Selamat Hari Raya Eid-ul Fitr

Took two days off work to celebrate this year's Eid-ul Fitr with the family at home. It's a small celebration with homecook meals consisting of familiarr comfort food we try our best to recreate from whatever ingredients we can get our hands on here in Stavanger.

We cooked rendang ayam for dinner on the eve of Eid, in the morning we had seafood mee hoon goreng, beef rendang (Sulawesi spices) and satay ayam kupang. The cooking definitely would not beat Mom's tradisional raya dishes or even Cik Su's concoctions but there were sufficiently decent to remind us of the warmth of our family back home during festive days such as these.

Selamat Hari Raya Eid-ul Fitr, Maaf zahir dan batin.

Nazeri/Jul 2014

Sirdal again

A great way to satisfy that climbing fix and enjoy the view from the top to boot : get a cabin in Sirdal, drive up to the cabin at 725m and trek up the top mountain at 1100m via a gentle sloping ridge. Ahh ... what a view, and the fresh air at 17 deg C.

The drive to Sirdal is only about two hours from our house, in the summer you can still make it within the day even if you leave the house at 6pm. The ride up winds through scenic lakeside and mountainside view. If it's not a major holiday there's practically nobody else on the road other that the odd one or two families having the same thought as you for the weekend.

Nazeri/Jul 2014

Home

We travelled to KL/Kuantan/Pasir Puteh mid June. Sampled food that we've missing and dropping by places we haven't seen for a while.

The house is still standing strong albeit the lack of proper maintenance. When the house is empty all sorts of things can happen ... leaky roof, wild garden and squatters in the form of pigeons and bats.

This trip confirmed that maintenance trip of once every two years is insufficient to keep the place in top form. We managed to put in place a monthly maintenance schedule for the next 2 years with a local contractor to be complemented with at least once yearly visit.

Hopefully the house will be looking better in the years to come. Fourteen days occupancy a year is all we can afford at this time.