Hajj 1433

Of a hajj story..

The feeling of being there is indescribable, totally incomparable.

All I can say is that anyone  should definitely strive to go and experience it on their own, by all means.

Worth every single second of your life, trust me.

Day 1 : Went there by road. Left home with 40 other Malaysians staying in Jubail.  As we reached our Miqat(Taif) it was wee in the morning. There, we put on our ihrams, did some supererogatory and such, and headed for Mecca after Subuh prayers. All the way we were reciting talbiyah - the "battle" begins. While entering Mecca,  we could see that it was already crowded with people. As usual, no matter how many times you've been there at the Holy Land, you will still feel overwhelmed like you felt during your first time.  Yes, that gush, it never changes.
Our mushrif gave us 5 hours to perform tawaf Qudum & lunch.We already bought food earlier, so we thought it would be better to perform sa'ie right away. Could save us some time during Tawaf Ifadah later. By mid day,  went to  our camps in Mina,  which happens to be our home for the next 5 days.

Day 1: After performing Tawaf Qudum & Sa'ie

Day 1: There were still many people in Mecca though lots have moved to camps in Mina

Day 2 : It's Arafah day. Personally, this day was my favorite. From moving towards Arafah, to settling there (Wuquf) till coming back safely. Mom told me countless times that Arafah day is an exceptionally special day and one who experiences it should make the best out of it. So did I. I extremely cherish those sacred moments. It was the highlight of my hajj memories because I felt it all in that one day. After Maghrib we took the train back to Mina and again left to Mudzalifah hunting for pebbles.

I was given the honor to be the pebble-counter & QC-ing while mom & dad searched for pebbles. 210 pebbles for the three of us!

Day 2 : Leaving to Arafah after Subuh

Day 2 : The LRT train that carries locals to Arafah

Day 2 : Waiting to board from Mina 3.

Day 2 : Buses carrying non-locals to Arafah 

Day 3 : Its Eidul Adha.  I haven't really got the chance to celebrate this particular day for the past 7 years in Russia. My Eid will always be like waking up early, going to prayers at hostel No.5 and calling a cab to class to save me from being late. So, this year, it is definitely something big for me. Especially celebrating it in such way. Alhamdulillah for the opportunity. Went out to Jamrah but this time on foot. Due to some circumstances, they shut down the train operation on that day for a while. Most of us in the group decided to just walk together rather than waiting for it to resume operation. It was quite a stretching journey but it was worth the experience. Honestly, everything there was totally worth the moment. I could see millions of people walking together beside, behind and below, all to the same direction. After stoning the pillars at Jamratul Aqabah we headed to Mecca (also walking) to perform Tawaf Ifadah so we could remove our Ihram upon completing the 1st part of Hajj on that day itself.

Day 3 : At Aqabah, Level 4

Day 3 : The crowd on Eidul Adha

Day 3: Heading to Masjidil Haram on foot

 Day 3 : It takes only one more tunnel, then its Haram. Still, we stopped to rest & buy drinks.

Day 3 : Alhamdulillah, completed part I

Day 4: On the next day, we, the ladies started on a mission to complete reading the Quran as a group. We were divided into groups of 6 people and each group were subdivided with 3 pairs each. Every person was assigned with surahs to read. We read in pairs (ie: while one reads, her partner will listen & correct if necessary). So basically the whole day was spent in our camp and we went to Jamrat only after Isya'. After throwing pebbles, we did plan to meet some of our family & friends who came from Malaysia, however, we unfortunately took the wrong route from Jamrat and when we finally found our way, it was already too late. We didn't have much time left or else we would miss the last train back to Mina. Came back fruitless, but there's always a next time InsyaAllah.

  Day 4 : Jamratul Qubra

|Day 4 : Malaysians from Dhahran & Jubail


Day 5 : It was our last day in Mina, before leaving tomorrow. So, we had to hold the Majlis Khatam Al Quran tonight. All of us geared up in reading and alhamdulillah we managed to complete it successfully. After Maghrib prayers all the ladies gathered in a halaqah and we started the session. We went to Jamrah a bit late that night. There were less people in Mina as most of them (from Mecca, Jeddah etc) had already left. Of course, that also makes shopping a lot easier - marked down prices, easy to haggle, and less crowded with people.

Day 5 : Majlis Khatam Al Quran

Day 5 : Last night in Mina


Day 6 :  The finale day. We packed up our stuffs early in the morning and right after Zohor prayer, we headed to Jamrah, for the last time. I already felt all emotional & sad inside since last night but I didn't wanna think about it too much. Instead, I put it all in my prayers, hoping for a mabrur hajj & accepted duas.
We left the camp right after Asar and it took us hours to reach Mecca. We arrived there, greeted by athan for Maghrib. Since we did Tawaf Ifadah from the second floor, this time dad suggested to try the third floor. Yes, his suggestion was ideal! Eventhough the circumference is more, but the crowd is less so we managed to finish Tawaf Wida' just in time for Isya' prayer. We completed our seventh round seconds before athan for Isya' was commenced. After that, we drank zam zam and dad gave me a kiss me on the forehead, with a warm hug and congratulations. He even addressed me as "My daughter, Hajjah Aysha". As usual, Dad is always big on these kind of things - achievements, proud moments etc. He never fails to do the small things that means big to me. My hajj journey couldn't end any better!

Day 6 : A wrap at Jamrah

 Day 6 : Leaving our camp (Tawaif) at Mina 3.

Day 6 : View from the the top floor

Day 6 : Upon completing Tawaf Wida'

Alhamdulillah for being selected as one of  His guests this year.

Alhamdulillah for the ease in the whole process - before, during and after hajj.

Alhamdulillah for the great health & physical condition during the whole period.

Alhamdulillah for the chance that came at a young age.

Alhamdulillah for the timing that couldn’t be any perfect than it was.
  (commitement-free, no study obligations anymore, no job yet, no family/kids to leave behind)

Alhamdulillah for being able to perform it with my parents.

Alhamdulillah for the wonderful people I met, the things I’ve seen, the values I learned.

Alhamdulillah for still being alive & being able to share this with you.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Little Malala

This is a 14 year old girl who is just like any other at her age.

She loves stories that lasts with happy ever after..
She believes that prince charmings do exist..
She loves ice cream, vanilla to be exact..
but most of all
She loves going to school, learning, reading books - obtaining education

Recently a tragedy occurred and she is now doing none that she loves. Instead she is fighting all the circumstances just to keep alive.

A fighter she is, even at such a young age, I'm sure she will combat this one. The world prays for her recovery. The world fights along with her.
I hope she can make it through this time, she still has a lot to offer to the world.

InsyaAllah, going to hajj this time, I will include you in my prayers, little Malala.

Wordless Wednesday

Silent Monster

I've been pretty silent lately.

That is all because....

 I was busy doing what I do best - enjoying food :)

Coffee morning with mummy's bunch of friends.

 

 Indo-Malaysian delicacies

 After all those sinful eating, this is an attempt to eat healthy

 

 

Being the host - our own spread

Homemade lemon meringue pie which turned out to be ridiculously sweet.

Favorite munchies

 I'm sold whenever I see this.

 And this.

And even worse THIS, I'm completely sold!

Sweet tooth  can be my middle name, but Monster should be the first!

Of An Old Pic

Eidul Fitri, Tallahassee, Florida.

This pic is dated back from 1992. 

Yes, it has been 20 years ago.

How I wish time could unwind sometimes, but if we live by keep on wishing impossible things to happen, then even cows would think they can fly someday!!

Think its easy peasy to guess which is yours truly.

Man and Wife of 28 Years

A quote says that :

"Parents are a privilege from God that you don't choose nor can change"

Well, I don't ever want to. Not even the thought of it.

Being their daughter is a privilege I wont trade, not even for life.

So, the best gift I can give to them on their anniversary is...

Dear God,

All these while, I've been kept and brought up in very good hands, therefore, I pray that You will always keep them safely in Your good hands.

.....and it'll continue for the rest of my life.

THEME SONG

They still look at each other the same, even after all these years.

Counting My Blessings

I just realized that there are so many things that we don't appreciate in life. People always say count your blessings, then only you will be grateful. But do we really count them? Literally?

Neither did I. 

So I gave it a try.

Then I realized that they are actually countless. In fact, they are plenty of blessings that we overlook at it as something normal just because we get that blessing everyday! If we were to say thank you for each blessing, then that will be the only word we'll be humming throughout the day.

Like being at home..

I'm having a great time being at home. Plain fun. It's a bliss to be waken up by Dad for Subuh and pray together with the family. At home, I strictly refuse to use the alarm clock to wake up. Simply because :

1- I miss being waken up by my parents, like I always do when I was a kid. I know eventually I'll get married and won't be living with them my entire life,  so I want the most of things when I can still have it.

2- since I was 13 I've been waking up by alarm clocks, from boarding schools to college to university, so basically I just want some time away from that annoying thingy for a while

3. When I'm at home, I couldn't care less where my phone (my alarm) is. I don't see my phone for days!

Then, breakfast will already be prepared on the table by mum (shame on me!). Still, we always have our mother-daughter fun time preparing lunch together. Sometimes shopping for groceries, watching some Korean soap opera etc. If not enough fun, we'll do some smurf baking, trying out some new recipes.

It may seem like just an ordinary day to some people, but to me, it is the day(time) I know I'm never gonna get back. I've been living in a different county than my parents for 13 years, meeting up with them only during school breaks. I know well how it feels to wish you could do something with your loved ones but you just cant. So I'll  do whatever it takes to make the best out of it when I get the chance. Let it be just an ordinary day. Point is - and ordinary day is still a BLESSING. 

Of course there are million other blessings but I don't intend to publicize it. Rather to highlight our lack of appreciation of how blessed our lives are but we  keep wanting more, and even more never seems to be enough.

Let's all start counting those plain, normal things that we get everyday and say Alhamdulillah.

Back In The Kingdom

Im back in Saudi Arabia about a week ago but only now we manage to get the wifi fixed. Yes, so much time for readaptation,huh? As if there were so many things to do around the house. Actually no. We all were fasting for the past 6 days so were taking things one at a time.

- Stocking up food, spices, perencah and all the what nots from Malaysia that you can never get here. (Sometimes we do get it over here but it's the mind set that says THAT Malaysian brand is the best and your taste buds are so used to it that you can't cheat them and change to another brand)

- Wardrobe space-making to fit in the purchase from Malaysia (and being in denial to throw old ones that are barely used anymore, for the reason it has sentimental values). As a result, your wardrobe seems smaller than the last time you remember it was. 

- Arranging the whole rack of souvenirs to put up the new ones bought during our recent trip. Then we realized we'll need a whole brand new rack for all the stuffs but there's no room for another rack. Again, the house seems smaller than the last time , too.

- And, of course, cleaning the whole house. My parents left this house for the whole June for eurotrip and again another  month in Malaysia so you can bet on how it was.

This time I'm here for a bigger purpose other than taking a break before I make a suicidal jump into the working world - being an intern. Will not talk about that yet. Im estatic  about something else. 

Mandi rice + Iraqi Kebab + Grilled Chic + Hummus (my diet goes down the drain)

For the past week we've been fasting sunat for 6 days but manage a couple of dine outs. Boy, why I love this place so much, 2nd of it being home to me, is that all the favorite food on my wish list are available here - everywhere!!

In A Week

I'm back from KL! Our supposed-to-be 5 days stay in KL extended to 8 days instead. Some problems just love to follow one after another.

1/4 of stuffs brought back. Half arrived by post and with help of Der.

He's so kind to bring back 40kilos of my stuffs, and a few more next semester

However I'm glad that I manage to get almost ALL my stuffs that I brought back from Kursk.

Coincidentally, tragically and mysteriously there are still 2 more boxes left stranded in Moscow. 2 different people were suppose to handle one box each. However both of them got into quite the same problem that made things go haywire and resulting into - the boxes didn't come home. I feel so sorry that both of them lost their passport at the airport (one case stolen, another case careless). I hope they'll be able to manage and deep down  I also hope that they can deal with whatever they can so that my boxes can be brought back safely. Honestly I can't remember what are in those particular boxes but I'm sure most of them are gifts from others, coz nearly all of the things that I brought back were gifts.

I choose this Flamingo Pink color for me,but I dont think this will be my room as we wont be staying here, not anytime soon I guess.

We went and stayed in our house (but not our home) that Dad bought over 15 years ago. At the moment there is no tenant, since we renovated this house a month ago. Just in time we had to go to KL, the renovation was all done and we were lucky not having to rent apartments like we usually do.

Seconds before I rummaged into it.

Came back home and bro told me that I got a package - it was from Dubai! I literally rampaged the Aramex plastic wrap and saw an Aviator watch inside - a birthday gift from Emirates. My second birthday gift for this year (Dad always wins first place). Well, its kinda cool to get early gifts as I wont be celebrating my birthday on the day itself this year. Worse still, I will be alone on that day - travelling. Not that cool after all,huh?

But that is life. There are more things to count on, like the things you get rather than the things you cant get, right? So why bother. God has always been kind to me, giving me more than I ask for, so I do not have the right to complain. I can't be any happier than the state I am in right now, and I'm  sure there is no way to be grateful enough.

 

Pre-Birthday. No doubt Emirates has always been my favorite airlines in the world, and still am.

So that's about it of the past one week. These are the last 10 days of Ramadhan. Let's gear up in doing ibadah, strengthen our iman and taqwa, and let's strive for Lailatulqadr. InsyAllah.
Hope that you too will have a happy or even happier Ramadhan.

Wordless Wednesday

Thank You List

1. My utmost gratitude goes to , of course, God for giving continuous blessings throughout my whole journey. Never did He put me in a situation that I wasnt able to handle and I was always "saved" in difficult situations and hard times. On top of that, He always answers my prayers in ways better than I asked for.

The Pink Panthers on that day.

2.Secondly, I owe my parents countless thank you(s), in fact, I owe it all to them. From the moment of making the decision to further studies in medicine till my last final paper, it was them who was there beside me all the time. From little things like adapting into lifestyle changes and dealing with rude Russians, to being scared of failing exams, we went through it together. I was happy, so were they, I was stressed, they were even more. That is why on my graduation day, I purposely set up a theme color for us as it is not only me who should be honored for the day, but them as well since they were a huge part of this whole 7 year journey. They deserved it well!

Dr. Sergeev - during surgery class

3. My teachers. There are so many of them to list from my pre-medical year to my 6th year. Each one of them has taught me everything they had, of course, in many different ways of theirs. Some I like, some I didn't really agree with their method, some I find being too strict, even some I was scared of, but at the end of the day, I realized that what I know today is the sum of their hard work and effort. Hence, they too, need to be thanked.

3. My relatives. Even though we meet only once a year, but my grandparents, my uncles/aunts, my cousins and the rest always make sure that they are up to date with my well being and studies. Before my finals begin they will pray for me, to make things easy for me, to make sure I'm healthy during that period and so that I can make it through with no hindrance. They wont be relieved till I tell them the good news that I passed, and starts to count days till I come home. This, has been going on since the first year till the last.

How it has always been, and always will

4. My Gurlz. People say sisters are best friends sent from heaven. In my case, they are my sisters sent from heaven. They are the reason that I can keep walking even I fell down to my lowest point. They've been there with me through thick and thin. They've been my reminder for every single thing, tiny or big. There wasn't any moment I felt alone, because they always will just pop up in front of me before I could even feel lonely. We had a great time during our days in Kursk and I'm thankful that it is with these people I created memories of my university life. They've been my sidekicks all the while and million of thanks would never be enough. They can never be replaced. XOXO

Saranghae-yo

5. My Ice-cream - Dyna. We don't meet everyday, as much as I meet The Gurlz. Our daily schedule is totally different and we rarely meet in between classes. But she is the one kinda friend that no matter how different our lives can be, she will always be there every time I need her. Even if I try to hide anything from her, she'll know it before I could even hide it. She knows me well till the level that whatever people say about me, she's able to judge whether its true or not without even asking me. Not just about being confident, she's that such of a great friend. She was the first friend to approach me when I'm down (I had a quite tough time adjusting during my pre-medical year) and she was very commited to make sure I'm happy here in Kursk and doing fine. Thanks to such a commitment like that, I manage to pull my way through and graduate med-school. So Ice-cream, here is my huge thanks to you. Love you to bits!

How bestie T got the name .

6. Bestie T. You've made me become a tough cookie and you were always there especially at those crucial moments when I was incapable to handle things alone, like I thought I could. You're level of patience in dealing with the mounting headaches that a person like me can cause, deserve a huge respect. Honestly, that level of patience is like no other!

The Unpredictables, with their undying devoted supporters

7. My Unpredictable team-mates which I heart very much. Even though it has been only 2years but we became like sisters since forever. Also, another great Kelantanese I met over there - Der. No one could ever know how blessed I feel to meet such a great person like you! Also, my other juniors who made it even harder for me to bid good bye to Kursk. Owh, and a special thanks goes for their willingness to bring back my stuffs (a total of 100kg, Der himself brought back almost 50kg). Where else to find a friend like that, huh? I wont trade for life!

Batchmates & groupmates - hope we all will make great doctors!

8. Lastly, to every single person I've met over there, every counter has its own significance and I'm glad that I've met many different people along the way. God bless everyone!