3 Days in counting........

Hari Raya is coming up!

This just makes me sad. I LOVE celebrating it back home. I never used to like raya that much though to be honest. It was the same old routine every year. We'll have an open house at an aunts house one weekend, and the next weekend its at another aunts house and they'll invite the same exact people, AGAIN! It gets frustrating because you'll run out of things to say after 3 weeks in. And the thing that i HATE the most is that everytime, and i really mean EVERYTIME we have our family gatherings, the first thing the aunts will comment on is always and will always be your appearance. And usually its the bad bits that they'll get you on like the classic "Apesal awak nampak makin berisi eh". And the funny thing is it's like they're asking a question but making a statement at the same time. It's like being featured in a tabloid with the papparazzi going "TOO KEEN FOR SOME RENDANG" on your photo!

Negative views aside, I always look forward to the FOOD. That's the only time of the year that you get to eat 100 servings of rendang, ketupat, kuah kacang, lemang and alllll the kuih raya!
And the best one by far is always my mum's rendang and kuah kacang.

Our family "ritual" for raya consists of getting dressed with our favourite baju kurung/kebaya in the morning and coming downstairs to the best breakfast ever! Mum's rendang and kuah kacang with nasi impit. YUmmmmmm.......
Before heading off to WAN's sisters' house, we have our mintak ampun "ceremony". Ellia will always be the first one to cry! And then me :p. Well who can blame us. It's a very emotional moment. I'm not gonna get into it coz it'll make me cry just talking about it! In 2007 though, we didn't have our little ceremony. We didn't have one in 2006 either and I just thought it was because Ellia was in Aus and our family wasn't complete without her, so Dad just decided not to do it. But I felt really disappointed when we didn't have after that year. :(

I remebered this one year when I was like 11, we spent 2-3 nights helping the surau by kopek-ing like 3kgs of bawang!! ;). I remembered the burning eyes, INSANE! We resorted to sunnies and the "mancis dlm mulut" theory. Didn't help tho :p. Good times.....I miss that. Don't u ever feel like u're slipping away from your family the more u get older. I do. Maybe because my life before was mostly about family. Now that I'm older, I have more portions of my own life (well being in another continent and all!) and that family bit is so small that I feel like I'm deprived of it. I guess that's normal. The transition. But I still wasn't ready to give my family up this much.

Anywho! Every year the Wollongong Malaysian Society does this potluck gathering at the botanical garden. I bought some mud cake last year because I didn'd have a proper kitchen to make something of my own. But this year I'm planning to make some kuah kacang+nasi impit, since that's easy to make in big portions compare to rendang. And if all goes well, I'm planning to have a "raya" picnic with my friends during my term break. Can't wait for that!

It sucks to be celebrating raya away from home. You don't get into it coz no one cares. But at I can say I've experienced it once in my lifetime. It's different. It's unsatisfying.

But hey, it's not the end of the world.

And I must say I'm glad that I have CHRIS and G1 around to celebrate it with me.
They're my only family here.

SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDILFITRI
MAAF ZAHIR&BATIN