Goodbye 2012..hello 2013

31. December 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Celebrations, Life, Traditions · Tags: , , ,

This year we’re spending the end of the year in San Sebastian, Spain again with my sister-in-law and her husband and his family. So far it has been a gastronomic journey, as usual, and a lot of walking. The weather has been lovely albeit a little cold sometimes, but its nice and refreshing to be by the sea.

Bahia-de-San-Sebastian

Tonight we will meet up with a few of their friends and then spend the evening enjoying the gastronomic treat of Mariasun, and at midnight we will follow the countdown to 2013 according to Spanish tradition – eating one grape for every dong of the clock.

My wish for you in 2013: may your hair, your teeth, your face-lift, your abs and your stocks not fall; and may your blood pressure, your triglycerides, your choletsterol, your white blood count and your mortgage interest not rise.

May you get a clean bill of health from your dentist, your cardiologist, your gastro-enterologist, your urologist, your proctologist, your podiatrist, your psychiatrist and your plumber.

May what you see in the mirror delight you, and what others see in you delight them. May someone love you enough to forgive your faults, be blind to your blemishes, and tell the world about your virtues.

May New Year’s Eve and every day find you seated around the table, together with your beloved family and cherished friends. May you find the food better, the environment quieter, the cost much cheaper, and the pleasure much more fulfilling than anything else you might ordinarily do that night.

May the telemarketers wait to make their sales calls until you finish dinner, may the commercials on TV not be louder than the program you have been watching, and may your check book and your budget balance – and include generous amounts for charity.

May you remember to say “I love you” at least once a day to your spouse, your child, your parent, your siblings; but not to your secretary, your nurse, your masseuse, your hairdresser or your tennis instructor.

And to my lovely painters, may your brushes always be filled with just the right amount of paint, may they always do whatever you tell them to do and may every project you paint turn out exactly the way you want them to.

Feliz año nuevo and have a great 2013!

new_year_wallpaper_2013-8

Our year in 2012

24. December 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Celebrations, Experiences, Family, Life, Travel · Tags: , , ,

We returned from our Central American Cruise on the Seabourne Odyssey in January all rested. I think it was one of the best cruises we had been on as we met and made friends with so many nice people: Sandra and Ray from Australia, Brigitte and Dieter from Switzerland and Jack and Linda from Mexico. Its certainly a ship we would like to go on again, even though we had a bit of a rough time on one of the sea days.

A week into the new year we heard the sad and tragic news of the death of hubby’s cousin, Daniel – it was hard to believe and hard to say goodbye to him. But we were glad that we had the opportunity to see him and his family in Valladolid in 2010. We spent a weekend in Dubai in the second week of January as hubby attended a conference and watched in horror as the Costa Concordia sank in an unfortunate accident. At that moment at least, I felt I wouldn’t go on another cruise…

The capsized Costa Concordia

Danial visited us in Kuwait also in January this year – what a great event that was as it had been quite a while since he spent some time with us in Kuwait. Thanks to a job change from Delloitte to AirAsia that gave him unspent annual leave to spend! It was a lovely start to a new year and I enjoyed every minute of doing “stuff” with my boy. We had our first shooting experience at a range in Kuwait, in addition to fooding, of course, and some shopping! Everybody’s always too busy when I go home! The first day we went out together again in Kuwait, like the old days when he spent his Australian summer vacation here in the winter, he said to me, as I drove us to the Avenues Mall, “We never get to do things like this eh, Mum?” *heart* Danial coming to Kuwait was a  bonus this year as we got to spend some quality family time together.

Dan in Kuwait

Three weeks later, I went home to Malaysia on my usual first trip home of the year. It was great to spend time with Mum and the rest of the family and of course more time with Danial, when he had time of course Smile. He was very excited in his new job and although I hardly spent that much time with him, I was glad for the opportunity we had to do a few things together.

As usual I took the opportunity to make some minor home improvements while I was home and this time it was to add the laminated wooden floor to that part of the apartment between our kitchen, guest bathroom and the casual dining area. Small as it was, that change did make a difference to the area! I was also concerned that the morning sun was the cause of the damage to our conversation piece of a sofa and tried to install some attractive and functional blinds on our balcony which we could pull down in the mornings. Somehow the building management had rules against the type of blinds I wanted to install so I had to contend with some sunscreen blinds behind our curtains instead.

Kuwait had not one, but two elections in 2012, once in February and again in December and also witnessed a couple of “firsts” – the first ever flashmob (incidentally an event choreographed and sponsored by hubby’s employer, Zain) and the first ever Guinness World Record event – the largest fireworks display in the world.

There were also a couple of other firsts for us in 2012 – one of which was the first time ever we participated in a cooking competition.  It was a Paella Cooking Competition organised by the Spanish community in Kuwait in April. The second first for us was that we won the competition! Smile

Our certificate and the unique trophy

The Malaysian Embassy in collaboration with PERWAKILAN Kuwait (the Association of Malaysian Ladies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) held a very successful inaugural Malaysian Food Bazaar in 2012 and my friend Zaharah and I participated and helped to man the satay stall. That’s two food-related events for me this year!

Malaysian Food Bazaar 2012 011

In June we went on a weekend trip to Abu Dhabi to catch Madonna’s MDNA World Tour in the sweltering or should I say scorching, summer heat. A couple of weeks later we took off on another kind of tour – driving around Ireland and Scotland. It was a great 16 days in the UK and while we had been to Scotland before, it was our first time in Ireland. We kicked off the holiday driving from Belfast to the Giants Causeway then Galway where we spent my birthday. Despite all the places we visited in Ireland, certainly the highlight of our visit was our experience at Dún Aengus.

At the edge of the wrold at Dún Aengus

Scotland was just as green and lovely too, despite the cold and wet days we had. We only cancelled one activity and that was a visit to Dunnottar Castle at Stonehaven because of a really bad fog: this was all we could see of the castle!

Dunnottar Castle or what's supposed to be Dunnottar Castle, in the fog!

All the other days were great as we drove from one city to another in Scotland from Loch Lomond to John O’groats to Inverness..we loved the Fairies Glen, Skye, Lybster and all the glens, cairns and lochs we saw and visited! While in Scotland we also arranged to meet up a couple of times with my sis-in-law, Maria and her husband Iñigo, who were also on a holiday in Scotland. It won’t be our last holiday in Scotland as there is so much more to see and do there.

This year I spent half of Ramadhan here in Kuwait with hubby and half in Kuala Lumpur with Danial and my family. Closer to Eid, hubby arrived and this year as usual, we invited friends over to celebrate Eid with us at home on the second day.

Us at Eid

There was another first for me this year – during our trip to London, I finally met a Facebook friend with whom I’d been in touch not only on Facebook, but spoke to on the phone and Skyped with…but never met. Norlizah drove down with hubby, Anders from their home in one of the London suburbs to have dinner with us at Tok Din’s. We had a blast and it was a memorable evening. She happened to be in Kuala Lumpur during Ramadhan and of course we caught up with each other again.

We travelled again to Italy this year and spent 8 days in Milan during the Eid al Adha break. It was supposed to be our annual la dolce far niente break but we ran out of ideas as to where to go without repeating destinations – so we decided on Milan. We enjoyed the fooding and did a bit of shopping. Just a bit.. In a couple of days we will do the last bit of travelling this year – this time to San Sebastian in Spain to spend a bit of time with my sis-in-law, Maria and her husband and family. We will spend a couple of days in Madrid and try to catch up with hubby’s cousin and aunt there too.

2012 was a very busy year for me at my painting studio as my seasoned painters (and friends) continued to come and paint and many new students began their decorative painting journey. I kept classes to  two times a week so that I still had time to prepare for classes and also enjoy other activities. I still did not paint as much as I wanted to though.

My favourite painting this year

As usual, so many numbers every year. Hubby and I celebrated sixteen years of marriage this year and we are thankful for the good life we have had together. 2012 marks our ninth year in Kuwait and 12 years of life abroad. Certainly we are looking forward to the day we will “retire” back in Malaysia and I’m not giving away any dates here yet. Soon is all I can say. Smile

Danial turned 27 a couple of days ago and I find it hard to believe sometimes that he is my “grown-up” son and no longer the little kid I pampered and nurtured. I guess as far as I’m concerned, as a mother, pampering and nurturing doesn’t ever end. And don’t think for a moment that I tire.

2012 will go down as the year that the “Mayan Apocalypse” was predicted and did not happen…I wonder if, in the years to come, we’ll still remember the hype created about the 21st of December being the last day of civilisation or will it be just another day in history like Y2K.

So only one week to the end of another year. Time flies as everyone says and I get the feeling it won’t be long before I sit here again trying to remember where the year went and trying to write something new and different. Anyway, it has been a good year as always and we thank God for everything. We pray and hope for a year of peace and harmony around the world ahead in the new year and look forward to new opportunities to learn and do something better.

Awal Muharram, the Islamic new year

14. November 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Articles, Celebrations, Traditions · Tags: , , , , , , , ,

November 15, 2012 of the Gregorian Calendar is the beginning of the Islamic New Year (Arabic: Ras as-Sana al-Hijreya) 1434 in the Islamic or Hijri Calendar.

The Arabic word Hijra (also Hijrah, Hijrat or Hegira in Latin) means migration of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) and his followers from Makkah to Madinah in 622 AD. This event was considered so momentous in Islamic history that Muslims mark it on the calendar as “year zero”. The subsequent passing of time is then related to that event.

The Islamic year is written with the letter “H” for “Hijri” or “AH” for “anno hegirae” after the year. So “1434 H” or “1434 AH”means that 1434 years have passed since the time of Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) migration from Makkah to Madinah.

The Islamic calendar was first introduced by the close companion of the Prophet (PBUH), Umar ibn Al-Khattab. During his leadership of the Muslim community, in approximately 638 AD, he consulted with his advisors in order to come to a decision regarding the various dating systems used at that time. It was agreed that the most appropriate reference point for the Islamic calendar was the Hijra, since it was an important turning point for the Muslim community. After the emigration to Madinah (formerly known as Yathrib), the Muslims were able to organize and establish the first real Muslim “community” with social, political, and economic independence. Life in Madinah allowed the Muslim community to mature and strengthen, and the people developed an entire society based on Islamic principles.

Tala al-Badru Alayna – a traditional religious Islamic song (Nasheed)
that the Ansar sung to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) upon his arrival at Madinah
after completing the Hijra in 622 AD.

The song is currently over 1400 years old, and is one of the oldest in the Islamic culture. This version was composed by Yusuf Islam in 2008.

 

The Islamic calendar is the official calendar in Saudi Arabia but many other Muslim countries (including Malaysia where I come from and Kuwait where I live) use the Gregorian calendar for civil and commercial purposes and only refer to the Islamic calendar for religious purposes.

The Hijri year has twelve lunar months, and each month has either 29 or 30 days, usually in no discernible order. Traditionally, the first day of each month was the day (beginning at sunset) of the first sighting of the lunar crescent (the hilal) shortly after sunset.

The Islamic year is therefore 11 to 12 days shorter than the Gregorian year, and as such the Islamic new year does not fall on the same day of the Gregorian calendar every year.

Crescent moon

The first day of the new year, called Awal Muharram, is an important religious day for Muslims. It is observed on the first day of Muharram which is the first month in the Islamic calendar. This day is a public holiday in Bangladesh, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia (known as “Ma’al Hijrah”), Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

The other eleven months following Muharram are Safar, Rabia Awal, Rabia Thani, Jumaada Awal, Jumaada Thani, Rajab, Sha’ban, Ramadan, Shawwal, Dhul-Qi’dah and Dhul-Hijjah.

Within the months, each day is counted as beginning with the setting of the sun. Thus, what we call “Monday” would actually be counted from sunset on Sunday evening to sunset on Monday evening.

Hijra
The beginning of the Islamic new year is a religious holiday and traditionally is not “celebrated” by Muslims the way the Gregorian new year is celebrated. The passing of time from the end of one year into the new year is, however, acknowledged with supplication and non-obligatory prayers and fasting. Muslims around the world may spend the day in prayer or attending gatherings at mosques to listen to special readings of the Quran, narrations about the Hijra or other private gatherings to listen to lectures or nasheed. Many may simply “celebrate” the occasion by spending some quiet time in reflection and contemplation, dwelling on thoughts of how they are leading their lives, their own mortality, and thereafter making resolutions for the new year to change and improve themselves.

On this occasion of the Islamic new year 1434 H, greetings to one and all, salam Muharram and “Hijri Mubarak”. As the eminent Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world”.

Wintery new year’s eve

31. December 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: Elsewhere, Travel · Tags: , , , ,

Looking out of the train window as we travel back to San Sebastian, I wonder if we might be in good old England instead of sunny Spain! It is dark and gloomy. Sunless. Foggy. It looks really cold too. These were the best pictures I could take because the window glass on the train was reflective.

 

 

It was 3 degrees centigrade when we left Valladolid this morning but it certainly looks much colder out there right now. We must be about half way through at Miranda.

It actually looks quite depressing and I can only hope that it’s better weather in San Sebastian.

 

 

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

 

Goodbye 2010!

30. December 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Celebrations, Cruises, Experiences, Life, Travel · Tags: , ,

It seems like only yesterday that I was writing a round-up of 2009′s activities yet its been a whole year and this year is already almost gone.

We spent the beginning of 2010 in Manama, Bahrain at the Ritz-Carlton ushering in the new year with friends Andrew and Tosin. It was my first trip to Bahrain so I was able to “add” another country and city to my list!

Bahrain: The Ritz Lobby

And I did that many more times during the year! This year’s travels brought us to five new countries and many new cities.

Our summer holiday was a 10-day land tour of Morocco followed by a cruise with 7 stops in the Western Mediterranean.

Casablanca _2010_06-1

Morocco, especially Casablanca, was somewhere I’d wanted to go to since forever. We met some nice people during this trip from our tour guides Mohamed and Tata, to the staff at Riad LaRoussa. There were many highlights of the trip but a few we will remember most would include our stay at Riad LaRoussa in Fez, the home-cooked lunch at Tata’s family home and the night we spent in the Sahara Desert. We also caught the Sahara sunrise and that was memorable too.

Catching the sunrise in the Sahara

We went to Rome again this year to board the Costa Pacifica for our cruise. And it was great to eat in our favourite Italian restaurant – la Capricciosa again! I think they should give a loyalty card because we could have eaten there for lunch AND dinner everyday!

La Capricciosa - favourite Italian restaurant of all time!

We did some sightseeing of places we had missed the last time we were in Rome and of course some shopping too. We also made a day trip to Florence and Pisa since we had never been there before. We enjoyed the cultural experience thoroughly and not only that, but hubby also found his iPad, of all things, in Florence.

I also found something I had been looking for but it wasn’t an iPad :-) No prizes for the right guess!

Pisa graffitti

Ponte Vecchio, Florence

The cruise was more relaxed for us this time and we added Monaco, Malta and Tunisia as new destinations! The Costa Pacifica was a fine ship but there were some things we did not enjoy about it so we don’t we will be going on another Costa cruise.

The Costa Pacifica

The highlight was definitely meeting Rose and Joe Saliba in Malta. I was glad that I managed to contact them before the cruise and they were waiting for us when we arrived in La Valeta. We had met them on our second cruise which was to the Caribbean in 2006. They hadn’t changed much at all – it was great to see them and we spent the entire day with them seeing the sights of the island of Malta.

Valleta, Malta

Monte Carlo was also fun – we walked all the way up to the top along the Formula 1 circuit – and I loved the quaint city of Taormina when we stopped at Sicily. Overall the cruise experience this time was just average and it was a little sad that we didn’t meet anyone interesting like we had done on previous cruises.

Monaco

During the year, we also planned and organised a long-awaited trip to Beirut, Lebanon and across to nearby Damascus, Syria. It was to take advantage of the the long holidays in Kuwait for the national and liberation days in the third week of February. Of course I looked forward to it as, after almost 7 years in Kuwait, I was quite tired of answering my Lebanese friends’ questions: when are you going to visit my country?

We had to cancel that trip because of an emergency.

2010 will go down in history as the year Mummy suffered a stroke which left her paralysed on the left side. We flew home in a hurry to be with her and the rest of the family. I stayed 6 weeks in Malaysia till mid-March and saw Mum everyday at the hospital. I was back again in the first week of July and stayed 2 1/2 months until mid-September. We found a very good Physiotherapist for mum and he goes three times a week to do various exercises with Mum to help her develop her strength and do all the things she was doing before the stroke. Mum is doing very well and insha Allah, she will be on her feet again soon.

Eid at home

I spent the whole of Ramadhan in Malaysia, and hubby spent it in Kuwait. This year we “celebrated” our 14th wedding anniversary on Skype and it was the first time we ever did so. We both agreed we would do something together for the anniversary when I got back from Malaysia. Eid came and went and we went on a family trip together with Danial to Cambodia for a few days after Eid before going back to Kuwait.

It was a humbling experience being in that part of the world.

Phnom Kulen with the girls who sang for us..

It was also World Cup fever in 2010 and we experienced the fever in various locations – on the streets of Rome and on the cruise ship. Back in Kuwait it got more exciting as Spain made it to the quarter finals and we joined the Spanish community to watch the match and cheer Viva España! I watched the finals in Malaysia with Danial while hubby watched it with other Spanish people in Kuwait at the ballroom of a hotel – all organised by the Spanish embassy!

FIFA World Cup Final: WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!

The most important thing we discovered in 2010 was “la dolce far niente”, thanks to the movie “Eat, Pray and Love”.

I never knew that the concept of doing nothing could be so rewarding.

To me it had always been important to make sure that every moment should be spent doing something “productive” so we were always planning, organising, writing down to-do’s and then ticking them off. It always gave us a sense of achievement and it felt like we wasted TIME if we didn’t do anything. We had an opportunity to live this out on our trip to celebrate our anniversary in Mauritius in November. For the first time in our history of travelling, we went with no itinerary, and no plans. Just a general idea of what we would like to experience and a lot of clothes to suit anything we wanted to do. We over-packed big time! LOL

It was a very interesting holiday and for the first time we felt truly relaxed.

At the Oberoi, Mauritius

Hubby didn’t do much business travel this year but we went to Paris together when he had to deliver a paper at the World GSM conference at the end of October. It was almost completely unplanned but I ended up meeting a couple of Malaysian friends who now lived in Paris. It was good to see them and relive old times and make new memories.

The Esplanade at La Defense, Paris

Towards the end of November and the whole of December, hubby travelled virtually every week to Dubai, Sharm alShaikh and Amman for his strategy meetings. I was supposed to go to Dubai with him to stay with our friends there but had to cancel it because I needed to do a lot of things in Kuwait!

This year I picked up on my Spanish with a great new learning series by Michel Thomas and am more confident about saying things in Spanish. I still have a bit more to go through before speaking the language fluently but one of my resolutions is to keep it up and speak more with hubby so that I don’t lose it!

Now on this trip to San Sebastian I can understand a bit more and am willing to try and say things in Spanish and not be too embarassed!

I didn’t do as much painting as I would have liked to but added quite a few new students through taster classes I held in February and December. My advanced students came and painted a nice large canvas and Nina especially, painted a few interesting things as usual! Kudos Nina for your adventurous spirit in painting.

Painting The Waratah & the Butterfly

I started an oil painting a few days before leaving on the final trip of the year to San Sebastian and it’s coming along great. So great that I wished I didn’t have to stop and do the packing for our trip!

The top to-do for 2011 is to paint more oils on canvas. This I promise myself.

Danial is doing really well developing his career and building his career in his consulting job at Deloitte in Malaysia. This year he started kickboxing and seems to be enjoying it a lot.

He recently celebrated his 25th birthday. Dan, the man. And I continue to miss having him with us.

We are now in Valladolid, Spain spending the day and evening with hubby’s uncle, aunt and cousins and tomorrow we return to San Sebastian to spend the traditional new year’s eve dinner with my sis-in-law, her husband and her in-laws. Her mother-in-law will make the evening memorable with more of her special dishes, I’m sure.

Around Valladolid

2010 also marks the end of a decade of living and working abroad for us and I’m grateful that we’re blessed with good health and a good life.

What awaits us in 2011?

I don’t know but lets put 2010 behind us and don’t fret about that list we didn’t complete! A new chapter begins and we go on another trip around the sun. But I promise myself to make every day good. In whatever way. To touch the life of another. To do something I couldn’t do before. To be better at something. To savour life and create meaningful experiences.

Feet in the sand

So, goodbye 2010, and welcome 2011!

 

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

 

Location:Valladolid, Spain

Sin city?

02. January 2010 · Write a comment · Categories: Celebrations, Travel · Tags: , , ,

Towards the end of our trip to Bahrain, hubby asked me as he usually does after a trip, “So what title are you calling your post about Bahrain?” And I replied, “Sin City!” Mind you, that’s BEFORE I had done any kind of reading about Bahrain.

Would it come as a shock to you to find out that Bahrain was voted number eight among the world’s top ten Sin Cities in 2009? Well, it shocked me.

Bahrain at sunset

From Al-Arabiya:

Making the list of the Top Ten “Sin Cities” around the world may not be good news for Manama, Bahrain’s capital, as police launched a crackdown on prostitutes in the city following its listing by a western men’s magazine as the party hub of the Middle East for its vibrant sex and alcohol industry.

Police in Bahrain rounded up 300 prostitutes and pimps in Manama [...] as Bahraini religious authorities called for a crackdown campaign on debauchery after the capital made the cut as the eighth most sinful – and the only Arab – city in the world…

Even the New York Times reported that “prostitution is rampant in the hotels and nightclubs, and the streets are filled with massage parlours. Bahrain is a destination for sex tourism”. So you really have to be careful where you go in Bahrain, lest you ended up in the wrong place with the wrong people!!

When we were booking the trip, hubby was very careful about where we stayed and where we will spend our new year’s eve – to make sure we were not in the midst of the “wrong company” so to speak. Things can and do get rowdy. That’s why he booked the Ritz.

New year's eve at the Ritz

Our new year’s eve with Tosin and Andrew was fun – our meal at The Plums was “exotic” to say the least…haute cuisine you might say and then it was off to the Ballroom to count down to the new year. It was a long time since we’d been a “do” like this and certainly never in the Middle East.

New year's eve at the Ritz

There was nothing untoward, mind you, it just felt a little weird seeing Arab men in their dishdashas and women in their abayas and niqabs among the crowd. Not many, but there were.

It wasn’t rowdy at the Ritz, just your usual new year’s eve thing with balloons being released from the ceiling at midnight…auld lang syne…and lots of noise. Very typical.

On new year’s day we had dinner with a couple of friends from Kuwait at Mezzaluna. The restaurant is set in the open courtyard of an old Bahraini house in Adilya, the “bohemian” part of Bahrain where, in the last few years many of the old townhouses had been turned into art galleries, cafes and chic restaurants. It was quiet there and the food was good. Again, haute cuisine!

What hubby ordered at Mezzaluna

Then we thought we’d find a place to sit down and listen to some music and that was when it became difficult! To find a place which we would be comfortable in.

The “right” place, yet happening? Was there such a place in Bahrain?

We spent a bomb on taxis, going from one place to another. Yes – taxis cost an arm and a leg in Bahrain. Mind you it was triple that before the government made taxi meters mandatory. Taxi drivers could charge you whatever they wanted then!

The “Sky Bar” at the Radisson was not what they said in their web page. A local played live Arabic music. Everyone there was Arab. The place stank of stale cigarette-smoke and looked really dodgy, if you know what I mean. So we left. The “concierge” sent us to the Phoenicia Tower – which was well known for something else, but he assured us it was a decent “happening” place!

New Year Clamp

Hmmmm…it was an adventure! Two clubs on the same floor. One “sin-city” type. One for “normal” people. We go inside the latter, TaBu, which seemed to be pretty decent. It was decorated totally in white. We had our cokes, listened to the music for a bit and decided to leave soon after because our friend had a bad tummy.

We didn’t need an excuse but we felt it was time. We took separate taxis and 15 minutes later, I was glad to be back at the Ritz.

2009…the year that was

28. December 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Art, Celebrations, Family, Kitchen renovation, Life, Life in Kuwait, Migration to MacBook, Our new apartment, Travel · Tags: , , ,

Time flies, as always. This is the time of year when everyone wonders…where did the year go? It never fails. It seems like only yesterday that we welcomed 2009 and soon its time to say goodbye.

We were on board the Crystal Symphony on 1st January 2009 – cruising the Palmer Archipelago – a group of islands between the southern tip of South America and the northwest coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Festive decor on the Crystal Symphony

Cruising Palmer Archipelago - Antarctica

The ship was still decked out with festive decor and outside on deck it was sunny yet freezing!  Antarctica was beautiful in all its splendour. I can still picture it…

This year we will be in Bahrain with friends.

We celebrated hubby’s birthday at the Iguazu National Park touring the falls on both the Argentinian and Brazilian sides. It was part of our post-cruise holiday. It was still winter when we got back to Kuwait in the middle of January. After such a long cruise and post-cruise holiday, can you blame us when we spent the balance of January in “cruise-withdrawal”?

I had to cut it short though because friends were asking for painting classes. I held a few classes through February and part of March and its good as always to see new and old students alike expand their horizons.

Painting classes resume for a while..

A couple more classes during the year but that was it…I didn’t have time for any more. Not even to paint on my own.

So my new year resolution is pretty obvious – to make time to paint, paint, paint. And maybe to revamp my painting website. Update its look and content.

I did rebuild my painting blog, calling it Painting Matters but I must admit that I haven’t posted in it too much. Another new year resolution there.

I also changed the name of my blog from “Cafe Zarada” and moved it from Blogspot to my own domain. I’m still thinking about giving it another revamp!

This year we finally said goodbye to the PC and Windows. We migrated to the Mac and to a new experience. No more crashes and no more blue screens!

Goodbye PC...Hello Mac!

So far I have no complaints whatsoever with the Mac and it does make you wonder why we waited 15 years to go to the Mac.

2009 was going to be the year we finished doing up our apartment and rent the second one so we also planned trips back to Malaysia around that. On my trip back in March to get quotations for our kitchen, Mum was admitted to hospital for a digestive problem the day after I arrived. We were all glad she recovered after a six-day stay and recuperated at home. Three days later my Dad was admitted to the same hospital with a lung infection. It was a challenging time and we prayed hard that both of them would be OK. Sadly though, Dad passed away on 20th April from complications after almost three weeks in hospital . Hubby flew over and made it in time for the funeral. It was a difficult time for all of us and I was grateful to have him there with me. We came back to Kuwait in May and tried to get on with our lives. I kept in constant touch with Mum to make sure she was OK. That was really important to me.

Then it was summer…hubby took 3 weeks off and we went back to Malaysia again in June so that we could  be with Mum on her 75th birthday. My sister was also back from the US with her son and Mum only wanted to go out to a restaurant so we did that. It was just a quiet evening with the family.

Our summer vacation was well-spent supervising the kitchen renovation. Thankfully, we now have the kitchen of our dreams in our apartment in Kuala Lumpur.

New kitchen at our apartment in Malayia

The kitchen renovation was a very challenging exercise and when it was completed, I went on to do up the other areas of our apartment like the guest room cum study and the guest bathroom / powder room. I also designed and ordered the last bits of furniture for the reception and dining area so our home is now complete!

You would think I was done now! No way..I got started on the other apartment, getting it tenant-worthy you could say. It was a simpler and much less challenging task than our own apartment but you could also say that I had moved up the learning curve, right? Soon after the renovation was completed, we were able to rent it out and I was so glad to tick that off our to-do list.

Hubby and I celebrated our wedding anniversary this year in Singapore. A holiday within a holiday you could say. It was my son’s idea to drive down to Singapore and spend a couple of days there since he had a business meeting to go to AND he wanted to spend some time with us. It was fun – we hadn’t done much touristic stuff in Singapore before so this was a good opportunity – the Singapore Eye, the night safari and on our anniversary – a spa treat at Spa Botanica on Sentosa Island.

Spa Botanica - Sentosa Island

I stayed on in Malaysia all through Ramadhan until Eid when hubby arrived. This year we spent our first Eid in our own home in Malaysia for the first time in a very long time. It was something we had looked forward to since the construction was completed last year. 2009 was also our first Eid without Dad.

I spent a total of almost 5 months in Malaysia this year and the rest of 2009 was dotted with a few other trips. It was Dubai in February during the long weekend when Kuwait celebrated its National Day and Liberation Day. We stayed with our British / South African friends and did some touristic stuff…chilled out and played board games. In May I tagged along with hubby on a business trip to Berlin with a stopover in Amsterdam to visit Keukenhof and see the kids.

In October, we went to San Sebastián in the north of Spain for my sister-in-law’s wedding. So now we have a new family member.

Wedding ceremony at Palacio Zuloaga - Hondarribia

We also went on a short trip to Prague, Czech Republic over the long Eid al-Adha weekend in November and then Dubai again in the first week of December when hubby attended the GSM conference there. This time we stayed with Malaysian friends who moved there last year from Kuwait.

Phew! Only the Bahrain trip left.

Bahrain cityscape

We also became grand aunty and grand uncle again this year – one of my brothers’ daughter had a baby boy in October. We’ve not met him yet but it certainly feels like we “know” him already – thanks to photos his parents posted on Facebook.

I also met two of my Facebook friends on our travels this year – one in Buenos Aires and one in Singapore then in Malaysia. She lives in The Hague. Making friends through technology is so much fun!

Danial took the plunge and became an independent SAP consultant this year. He is on his first assignment as a contractor and loving the independence. Despite the fact that he has lived in Malaysia for six years now, it feels like it was only yesterday and I still miss him everyday! Thanks to Facebook and Skype we can be in touch as frequently as we want – when he’s not being busy Mr. Consultant that is! LOL

This year marks our sixth year in Kuwait and our ninth year living abroad as expats. Hubby loves his job so its really difficult to answer the question “How much longer do you guys expect to stay in Kuwait?” or “When do you expect to go back to Malaysia permanently?”

I’ve pretty much given up the idea of going back to work and have decided to enjoy my status of “lady of leisure”! It certainly gives new meaning to the expression “LOL” which I find myself using more and more of late. My life this year was dotted with travelling and seeing new places – taking in their history and learning about their culture (and tasting their food, I might add!). When I’m in Kuwait, I pretty much go with the flow attending meetings of Groups where I’m a member, trying to catch up with old friends, making new friends, blogging and micro-blogging!

Well, that’s pretty much it for the year. That’s where 2009 went.

I’m grateful that we’ve been blessed with good health and more than that, that we’ve been blessed with a good life in a foreign land.

Now I must go and finish what everyone else is trying to do these last few days of the old year – tie up all the loose ends and finish that list of resolutions! LOL

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Plugin from the creators of Brindes :: More at Plulz Wordpress Plugins

Protection Plugin made by Web Hosting