MELAKA HERITAGE FOOD FEST 2008

Me : Sabaahul khayr! (Good morning!)

You : Sabaahul nuur! (Good morning!)

Nothing about Jordan today. I'd like to share with you my experience this morning at the Melaka Heritage Food Fest. This is an annual event organised by the State government and the Malaysian Tourist Board.

Almost every state in Malaysia sent their representatives, so my sis and I had a gala day tasting all the different, yummy dishes. Some were familiar, others seen for the first time. Lots of photos were taken and lots of questions were asked too. After we had visited ALL the stalls, we didn't have to worry about our lunch!

The extremely sweet dessert from Kelantan - "Bunga Tanjung"

The ever popular satay and 'ketupat' from the famous Samsuri satay, Kajang, Selangor.

What about this set of food accompanied with rice, normally served at a Malay wedding in Melaka. The green one is jelly as dessert.

There's the famous asam laksa from the island of Penang.

This delicious fish-pattie, "otak-otak", wrapped in coconut leaf and grilled. Yummy . . from Johor.

Another fish delicacy wrapped in banana leaf and grilled . . . 'satah' from Pahang.

My favourite, barbecued soya-bean cake with spicy sauce, from Johor.

And finally to quench your thirst, this refreshing herbal cordial, from the royal state of Johor.

Now I ask you, how to have luch?

QAHWAA BREAK-TIME

Actually this should come after the post below but first time, am having problem :-) sorry! Do enjoy the slides.

JOURNEY UNTO YONDER

Masaa'ul khayr (Good evening!) and you would answer Masaa'ul nuur in response. On 1st May, Thursday, it being a world-wide public holiday, the 20 of us 'students' were taken by Dr. Adnan and Dr. Usama from the Language School on an adventure to the countryside. Amman, the capital of Jordan, was crammed with old and modern buildings and residences, the latter surprisingly all natural cream-coloured blocks. You wouldn't believe it - you can't see the dirt of the hill . . . only blocks of houses packed close together covering the slopes and valleys.

Here is one hilly landscape on the outskirt of the city, the green patch in the foreground is an olive garden.

So it was with some eager anticipation on that cool morning, we travelled with the 2 good doctors. It was a pleasant journey, observing the greenery, rolling hills and valleys. On the way, we stopped at a coffee shop ('maqhaa'). See below:

Getting some qahwah (coffee).

Think I'll get some qahwah myself now.

MARHABAN!

A candid shot of a group of children as we passed through their village. I took this precious snapshot from the window of the bus, from where I was seated. They just disappeared within a wink of the eye!

Marhaban! Hello! Marhaban! Hello! I'm still wrapped up in my Arabic world, so please bear with me when a few Arabic words appear now and then. You can learn the language with me as we go along. In the previous post I mentioned 'Ahlan wa sahlan' (welcome) and 'i lal li qa' (till we meet again). Learning a foreign languge is really challenging AND fun. You should try it.

Well, Jordan is another beautiful country to visit. Having visited so many countries, I must say all God's land is awesome. I really loved the bare rolling hills, the mountain ranges, the deep valleys, the red sandy desert, the aquarmarine Red Sea and Dead Sea - all so fantastic - Ma sha-a Allah! (What splendour God had created!) And the weather then was cool and refreshing, it being spring.

Jordan is the land of the prophets - Islamic and Biblical - land where many of Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him)'s friends lay buried, land conquered by the Byzantines, the Romans and the Muslims. I walked the path that they walked, I saw the scene that they saw . . . there's Jeraesh, Petra, Ijluun, Pella, Om Quais. Also visited old Damascus, Syria, beyond the border. I'll tell you about them later. Really it was so overwhelming.

I learnt more outside the classroom than inside. Met some nice people (and some not so nice, naturally). Chatted with the pretty salesgirl named Amani, the young man from Egypt named Rabeh at the grocery store, Sayeed Ahmad or Abu Yazid, our bus driver. I managed to be understood!

Yes. . . I learnt a lot. Stay with me! Ma' as-salaamah (Good-bye!).

HOME SWEET HOME!

Ahlan wa sahlan! Yes, I'm home again. There's a popular Malay saying which goes like this :

"Hujan emas di negeri orang, hujan batu di negeri sendiri. Lebih baik negeri sendiri".

Roughly translated, it reads "Golden showers on foreign land, Stony showers on home land. Yet home land is better!" Correct?

Arrived home yesterday after a month-long stint in "The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan" or "Al-Urdun" for short. It was an experience being a student again what more following an intensive course, yes I stress the word "intensive" because it was not easy for this 62-year young golden girl to sit still from 9.00 a.m. till 3.00 p.m. listening to 1 teacher chattering away in a foreign language. Then back to the apartment, tuition continued after dinner - luckily not for many nights (always gave excuses to the student-tutor, Ustaz Aswandi, to cancel the classes - really so tired!).

However. weekends were our saviours. Always looked forward to weekends when field trips were arranged to take us all over the country, visiting famous landmarks, historical sites and also to local homes. So I'll write about these gradually. As for now, must sign off because I'm atill having my jet-lag. See you soon, i-lal-li-qa'.