Raya Part III - Of the hypermall, of the hypermarket

I find myself running out of time lately. Shall I ask additional hour or two on top of our 24 hours now? Well, may be it's not about time but effort. By the way, here we go after all the efforts spent.

KB Mall. At least it was not a regret to pay a visit to KB Mall. If I am not too much, I may want to leverage KB Mall with Mid Valley or perhaps Suria KLCC. Of course I am not judging it by its scale. The built, the setup, the arrangement, etc are mostly at par with the ones I mentioned in KL. I also like the brightness and the cleanliness of KB Mall. I hope this is due to its good maintenance and not because of its newly existence. Not to forget the hypermarket attached to it that become an additional attraction perhaps. Anyway, I did not care to go in as I saw so many people wandering in there.

Having mentioned all that, if I want to give one consctructive feedback to KB Mall is on the parking lot. To me, it should be easily accessed / entered. Being not that familiar with Kota Bharu, I found it difficult to enter the basement parking lot. And based on the signboard, I made 2 rounds of tour at the same lot before I managed to pass thru to the other lot. It's confusing.

Of all, I believe I can tolerate. But the pic above, I have to blame somebody.. :). Or should I call it hypergrammar...? Is it because of that, the parking was still free or quoted as "percomo" by the attendant.

Raya Part II - The Western Song

Although it is late, I am back as promised :). I hope everybody is still in raya mood. I am. Partly, I can't wait to go to my alumni gathering a.k.a raya gathering tonite at Nelayan Restaurant, Tasik Titiwangsa, Kuala Lumpur. The other encouraging part is, I am personally involved with the multimedia presentation for the event. Well, few days of catnap, outside dinner, no kids laughter, etc will hopefully get paid off. I will be off to Nelayan tonite with me in baju melayu suit (the first re-appearance in this full suit since my marriage) while Alex will be in kebaya ramping :). (Well, a bit loose perhaps to cover unnecessary spares... hehehhehe...)

Back to raya. 3 days before raya, I was already in Kota Bharu. Got nothing to do of my own, I went out to the city and halfway decided to pay the visit to KB Mall for the very first time since its opening probably 2 or 3 years ago perhaps... Pardon me for I am not that sure.

Did not care much of our raya mood, one music station was loudly playing "the western song" that obviously superceded all other songs including "Dendang Perantau" by P. Ramlee. Me who has strong western blood streaming my veins plus the kids, chose to stop at the rack full of western cassettes. I finally bought 2 pieces of them due to unavoided amazement to the song that was played then:

Bicang pakak bicang, cang pakak bicang,
cang pakak bicang, pakak pakak kito kaji...
Kalu peranga ketam, kalu peranga ketam
Jatuh kok rang apo jadi...

If you are as western as me, try the beat as if you are singing "Chan Mali Chan". I always find myself laugh to this for most of their songs have elements of advice, humorous, poetic rhymes & entertaining. Not to forget, they are melancholic at times. However, if you wish to get your piece, please be careful as among the collections, they may sound a little "porno" which is not suitable for kids.

In my state of origin this western song is also knowned as "dikir barat".... Mawi's popularity doesn't seem to drive its own fans away... :).... Even after few decades...

By the way, did I mention KB Mall just now? Yeah, I will be back with Part III. Stay tuned!

Raya Part I - The Traffic

For the past 5 years, we start our journey home in a morning, 8am - 9am perhaps. Partly to avoid the traffic. The most appaling reason is that I can't seem to be able to stay up driving at nite anymore. Unlike those days, we used to be travelling at early morning, even up to dawn.

Is this a sign of age evolving or something? - A big possibility. Or the zest is no longer great like last time? - Another possibility.

The kids were really in Raya mood. Our eldest, Azwar woke at 3am in a morning to get ready & he did not sleep even after "sahur". Followed by the 3rd, Awadah who woke up at 6am. The father (who was still in hibernation) was consistently disturbed until about 8am.

So as usual, we departed from our rented house in Bangi at about 9am on Saturday, Oct 29th. Yeah, it was still early for Raya... :). Both of us have taken early leave. As expected, the traffic was rather smooth & clear until we reach our first destination, Kemaman. We should thank Samy Vellu for the East Coast Hiway (LPT).

By the way, our journey on the next 2 days heading to Kota Bharu was a bit disturbed as we gotta take a non-hiway route. Hmmm... No hiway by the way... Having said that, we should also thank the Police for preventing lorries from the road during the season. Besides this, I think the Police should also prevent Mercedes (make 1960) & Toyota KE20 from taking the road too during the season. We (and many other drivers) gotta tolerate with them. Who to blame anyway? The car that can take 60km/h max or the driver who just wanted to go to "surau" nearby? It's nonsense to ask them to speed 110km/h to reach the surau which is not even 5km away from their home rite? Hmmm...

Well, that incident was easily tackled by remaining +ve while driving. With the intention not to lose so much fun, I keep reminding myself "diorang pun bayar road-tax...". So, be it lah!

In general, the traffic condition was well-organized. Not many reckless drivers anymore. Except 1 or 2 who don't have a tv set in their house. But overall, the tv ad has given the effect. Unlike previous years, I have seen lesser "potong Q" incident this year. Thumbs up to those who behaved & please continue to become "pemandu berhemah".

Generally, our journey home was good. The 11-hour journey back to KL was good too :D...

That's all for now. I will be back with Part II.. Stay tuned!!!
Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri...!