16th Anniversary ~ Part 1

Today marked our 16th anniversary. That's the official number! The unofficial is 24th...since we first met 24 years ago when we both were in KPP/ITM, Shah Alam. I know many of my friends met their life partner there including me. At that time, we were only 18. Still young to be thinking of marriage, family and kids. Tapi itulah yang dinamakan jodoh.

It was a long distance love affair and the 8 years before we finally tie the knot was full of challenges. But hubby is loyal to the relationship, it was really extrordinary. Eventhough we were seperated thousand of miles, he kept faithful. He was in New Zealand and I was in UK and at that time our mean of communications were through telephone and letters. There were no e-mail, internet, facebook, twitters, mobile phone like what we have now. Glad we did not have all those stuff, kalau tidak tak graduate lah sebab asyik chatting.

Every morning I would wait for Mr Postman to deliver the aerogrames. There was no mail box then, but the letters were pushed through a hole fixed at the door. So, whenever I hear the "sound", I would rush to the door to collect the letters. That was my daily routine. Hubby loves writing aerogramme and he would number them accordingly. So, whenever I received more than one aero/letters, I would read according to the sequence. Kalau tidak, cerita tak ikut episodlah. The number could reach 450++ a year which means he sometimes wrote more than 2/3 aeros a day...

It was a scary moment whenever the phone bills arrived, every 3 months. Mine alone would go up to 400 pound when our allowance at that time was only 286 pound a month! So, you can imagine how tough it was to settle the bill. Pening kepala....but we managed somehow!!

I was still in UK when my mum called me one day to say that hubby came and visited them in Kuantan. That was a brave move and that took me by surprise. I knew then that he was really serious about the whole thing.

That was my side of the story...I shall let him continue...stay tune,

Reunion of Ex-KUB and KUB at Singgahsana

Yesterday I attended the ex-KUB and KUB reunion at Singgahsana. It was good to see so many ex-KUBs at the gathering. It reminded me of the good old days when KUB had its raya gathering or other events in Singgahsana organized by KUB or its subsidiaries. Thanks to Adam who took all the trouble to organize the event single handedly and to Tuan Hj Rohizan and Nina for allowing us to use Singgahsana and offered attractive discount for the food.

It all started with a small group of ex-KUBs e-mailing each other to wish Selamat Hari Raya. The group then grew bigger and bigger and the list kept expanding to more than 100 people. Many of them from KUB Holdings time like Nurmazilah, Tifla, Imran, Abang Kamal,Shila, Anis, Saifudin, Yamin, Teresa, En Megat Ahmad Sani dan ramai lagi. Adam managed to gather around 50 ex-KUBs and on that day, 8 didn’t turn up. There were more than 100 people in the hall including their family members.

My staff from LSD (Legal & Secretarial Division) Shema, Shida, Azilah, Sue, Ina and Zahrin were there. It was just unfortunate that Zack, Ita, Zulee, Is, Hajar and Fauzi were not there with us. Otherwise, the place would be chaos!!!!! I do miss my time in KUB, it was the best time of my working life. Having them around made work so easy even through challenging time and leadership. We worked as a team and as a big family. Of course the hottest gossip was about my maid! It's been a long time since I saw them. The kids have really grown especially Walid, Nina, Adam and Sofia. We all had a real good time catching up, sampai tak ingat nak balik!!! Biasalah sekali-sekala berjumpa.

Other KUB Malaysia colleagues like Hiruddin, Jaja, Sara, Shahar, Rozliham, Nurmazilah, Anis, Zul, Shila, Tifla, Uzaini were there as well. Nik couldn’t make it as she was overseas and Natrah had to cancel last minute. Ex-staff from KUBTek, KUBD and KUB Realty pun ramai yang hadir. Maaf tak dapat sebut kesemua yang hadir, ramai sangat. For the price that we paid, the spread of food was excellent especially the Nasi Tomato and Cucur Udang. Sambil menjamu selera, kami dijemput ke pentas untuk menceritakan kisah hidup kami setelah meninggalkan KUB. Azilah took the opportunity to celebrate Sara’s 8th birthday. Majlis diakhiri dengan upacara bergambar beramai2.

I hope this gathering will continue for the next hari raya. Selain menjalinkan silatulrahim, ia dapat mengukuhkah ukhwah sesama kita. Kepada Shida yang akan berangkat ke Mekah pada 19 November 2009 untuk menunaikan ibadah haji, semoga selamat pergi dan kembali dan mendapat haji yang mabrur.

Early exposures

Nowadays, the kids are very lucky indeed...quality of life has improved a lot since Malaysia was born...communcation technology has advanced so much and machines made travelling faster...which means the world has virtually become smaller and the remotest place on Earth is no longer so remote. As a result things chage very fast and the past is fast disappearing.

I wanted the kids to get early exposures and experience on life in other parts ofthe world, near and far...other countries, other kampongs or other continents. As described in past stories, they have been to Egypt, Mekah and Madinah...once for Faiz and Thaqif and twice fo Dini.

Where else have they been??? Faiz and Dini were once in Japan, when their uncle was working in Nagoya. They were there for 10 days and the uncle brought them around Japan...of course Tokyo Disneyland and around Tokyo. Of course we were not there!!!It was the best time to go to Japan....there is so much to learn from the people of the land of the rising sun.

All 3 had also experienced visiting Indonesia...Jakarta, Bandung & Puncak. It was during one of my working trips to Jakarta and we took the opportunity to see the country....chaueffer driven!!They visited the Ci Ater hot spring, Tangkuban Parahu volcanoe, the Safari at Puncak etc...loved the place and I'm sure they learnt different sets of values from that trip.

They had also visited southern Thailand during one of the visits to Nenek's kampongs. This include coverage of araes such as Haadyai, Songkhla, Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala & Betong. Again....there were different things to see and learn.




Apart from those family travel, Dini had also visited Turkey with the grandparents when one of the granduncle was an army attache in Ankara. That was the time when she performed her umrah when she was eight!

We will continue to travel and encourage travel...it has countless benefits. We've seen the hard lives of Thais and Indonesians....in December we plan to expose them to the luxuries of Singapore and we hope they will continue to learn about life, people and geography.