Across the Land

Apart from shopping for paintings, fabrics and silver crafts at the specialized stores, we also shopped for things that our children fancied at the more down-scaled retail stores.

If you like paintings and woodcrafts, Bali is the place for you. If you want to see unique and exotic culture, then Bali should be among your list of must-travel destination.

Think ICT, think of Pantai Sri Tujuh or Sri Tujuh Beach. Tujuh means 7 which refers to the number of lagoons there. Sri? Not important. The coastline is ever changing, the effect  of the northeast monsoon. The strong waves pound the shores causing quite severe beach erosion but the beach builds up again during the southwest monsoon, creating sand ridges and lagoon. An appropriate geography lesson for the Malaysian students.

Out of our almost 30 years of marriage, only 3 times we celebrated Eidul Fitr in my hometown in Sabah. The rest (excluding 4 times in the States) were spent in Tumpat, Kelantan. There's no such thing as taking turn. I prefer to go back to Sabah during the longer holidays so that I can spend more time with my family there. You know, the airfares are not cheap to go back often. The same routine happened year after year like going to the market and preparing Raya food on the last day of the fasting month. Since my family was the one who often went back earlier than the others, I was the one who will do the cooking for the first Day of the Eid. Sometimes I also cooked for the second Day which I'd rather rest.

Two hours after leaving the Stong State Park, we finally reached Tumpat at about 2.30 pm. It made a record as the shortest journey from KL to Tumpat in our more than 20 years of traveling back to this part of the world. A place where husband grew up under the care of his grandmother. Most of his relatives grew up and resided here. This fact woke him and his BIL up and together they drew up the family tree(s) but it is still under construction. Need interviews and more interviews with family and relatives. It was hot and really humid if you were inside the house but outside, it was cooler with wind blowing from the sea.

As I flipped over the album pages of the many pictures taken for many, many years, I thought of documenting my early travels in my blog. That means I had to photograph the photos and see how they would look digital. The first one I selected to write is our very short trip to Japan as a result of 'winning' free tickets plus fully paid expenses to stay 3 days 2 nights at Shinjuku Prince Hotel in Tokyo. While I have forgotten much of the details to write about, I can still  post a few old pictures of the 1999 March trip.