And our fun day ended...

Pheewwwwhhhh so exhausted both from the journey and the zoo adventure. Feel like resting and put my feet up for the rest of day. Wish I could read Cornwell book, been sitting on the shelf for months. But I have a good theory book to finish. Takpe fazid..tak lame je lagi...think positive...

Glad I have some soto left over and nasi lemak bought from the brisbane nasi lemak seller. We bought four nasi lemak for our lunch today, but still have two more packets. hahahahhahah...

OK...got to go. I had a very wonderful day today, spending time with love ones on this special day. And I am happy for today I received many happy and warm wishest from friends. Was surprised to see soo many wishes on my wall just now when I login to my fb. Thanks friends for the thoughts. Am totally speechless. So before I go to bed today, I must reply all the messages as a token of appreciation.

A surprised birthday card from my two lil princesses and my hero.

This is the first time I received a birthday card from all of my love ones in one card .... hehehheheh... yaya wrote (and at the same time reading them) the birthday wishes while atang supervise her. I was pretending not to hear anything although I was in close vicinity..ahhahahaha...

Celebrating my 34th birthday with the love ones......PRICELESS!!! 

p.s. will try to post the oz zoo story as soon as I can ya...

yours truly,

At Australia Zoo

We hv arrived, now enjoying the wildlife warriors n Bindi show.

Off we go

We are on the way to Australia Zoo. For the kids having fun and for the parents watching the kids having fun yeehaa....
Will keep updating whenever I can. This is the opportunity to write somethng besides cooking and our mundane routine. And a chance to divert the attention from the thesis.

Salam Maal Hijrah....Salam Tahun Baru

Salam kengkawan and friends. May everybody in good health. The new hijrah year has started, and soon the new year of masihi will come. Hope everyone has planned for the whole year. Wish a great success, wealth and health to all of you.

Thanks again for all the doa and prayers for my abah. I was back in Malaysia, a couple of weeks ago, for several days, to visit him. Though his condition is not promising, but alhamdullillah his spirit to keep going is still strong. We now hope for the best for abah. The tumor is at stage 4. What a shocked we had when we learnt the truth, and that is only after the doc told abah, with the presence of mak, along and bang long about abah condition, almost a week after the operation. I was on the way to the airport with my brother, heading home to Brisbane, when my sistah, along called my bro, and told him everything. I knew immediately, from the tone of my bro's voice, that it was not a good news. Yup, the bad news came just before I was leaving Malaysia, but not at abah bedside.

Abah is now recovering from the stiches and wound at home. Doc, on medical advice, unable to remove the stomach that was affected by the tumor. The medical team had to perform three bypasses to abah's intestines and colon, so all the food will no longer go into the stomach. As a result, abah has to change his diet to soft food. That was from my understanding. We will wait for the advice of an oncologist for abah's treatment. Meanwhile, we hope abah in stabil condition, hope everything is good for abah. What ever the doc said about his time, that is just on medical term, life and death is in Allah's hand.

A week after abah's operation, my sistah and her family, came and visit us in Brisbane. They spent 10 days here. The trip was already planned early this year. They were supposed to come a week earlier, due to this circumstances, my sistah postponed (well actually, she nearly cancelled it) a week after. We were very happy that they finally here in Brisbane. And for the rest of the week, we were the hosts and tour guides for them. The bonus is, our two little princesses are here. Came with my sistah and will stay until my completion. So we are back as 'one' again.

My nephews and niece, penat n ngantuk after 8 hours of flying.


Our itinerary of 10 days:

Brisbane view at night at Mount Cootha;


bus rides, citycat rides;



koala and kangaroo visit at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary;



fruit picking, juice tasting, fruit eating and that delicious apple pie at Stanthorpe;







sale! sale! and sale! shopping at DFO, Carrara Market and Harbour Town;



MovieWorld, DreamWorld, Wet and Wild (we only went to the MovieWorld, the rest of the parks my sistah and her family went by themselves)


and last, the Queens St Mall tour.

phewwwwhhh.... 10 days, and that is not enough, there are still other places that we couldn't visit. For 10 days, the ten of us (with my sistah's family of 6), crammed together in our small crib. The kids did enjoyed themselves, and the adults couldn't be better, though with a hole in our pocket, seeing the happy faces, hearing the laughter, what more a parent would asked for. My sistah and her family went home on boxing day (after the boxing day shopping of course). Leaving us to finish what I have came for. And I got 9 months more to the finish line. And that is only my new year wish.

Hope you too, friends had a wonderful holidays. Till I have the time again, take care and salam.

yours truly,

Coffee break, with delicious apple pies

Eh...tak abis lagi kisah Stanthorpe nie...hehehhe... this is the last entry (phewwww...) :p.

On the way home, like I have mentioned in the previous entry, we were looking for a coffee shop for a fill-up (caffein la apa lagi). I decided and wanted to go to Heavenly Chocolate, but we missed the turn, so we end up at Sutton Juice factory, again. Mungkin dah jodoh dengan apple pie yang sangat-sangat menarik tu.



We walked in, and the lady at the counter remembered us...ahahahahah... I told her we came for the apple pie (ye memang gelojoh). We ordered each of us a cuppa; mocha for abby and me, atang with his latte and one black for mael.

And the apple pie......owwwwhhhhhh sodap, the crust was soft, I liked it that way than a crispier crust. Together with the apple pie they served homemade vanilla icecream and whip cream.

Makan sudah, minum sudah, we hit the road. We arrived Brisbane at a quarter after 6, and stop for maghrib+isya at Darra mosque. Atang and me sent mael, abby and little hafidz (little hafidz is such a good baby, tak banyak karenah, kadang-kadang aje merengek nak susu. senang bawak jalan hafidz nie) home, and we arrived our home sweet home at 8.15pm. 15 minutes to Earth Hour.

Penat sudah semestinya. But we enjoyed our one day trip.

~The End~

Stanthorpe's town

Before we went home, we drove around the town of Stanthorpe. Kecik je pekan dia. It reminds me of my kampung, Kuala Klawang, Jolobu. But Kuala Klawang is bigger than Stanthorpe town.
We were also looking for a coffee shop. I need caffein..hehehhehe... Couldn't find any interesting coffee shop, ahahah..so I decided to go to Heavenly Chocolate shop, on the way back.

Bye-bye pekan Stanthorpe. We will be seeing you again, InsyaAllah.

The journey continued to a vineyard

Grapes harvest time...ahahahaha... the grapes, they charge $2.50 per kilo. I did ask for the specific name of the grapes, but mind you of my forgetfulness, lupa daaa. Anyway, there weren't many grapes left. It was the end of the season actually. Grapes and berries are summer fruits. Autumn is for apple. Anyway we were still lucky to get heaps of bunch of grapes (adeh, heaps of bunch of grapes??...heheh).

Yeah... gunting-gunting. By now it was nearly half past 2. Baru la mula terasa penat dan ngantuk. We have completed our agenda for that day. Owwhhh almost forgot, we did stop at a cherry farm, unfortunately because there was a short rain that afternoon, the farm was closed.

Mana lagi nak gi.....hmmmmmm....

Lunch @ Stanthorpe's "i" centre

For lunch, we stop at Stanthorpe's "i" centre. It is a one stop centre for tourist or visitor to get information about Stanthorpe. There was a huge lake behind the centre.

Heavy clouds hanged on the sky. Look like it was going to rain soon. Strong wind shoke trees, cooling the air. Chilling wind, we ate heartily, and laughing at jokes.

A far, there was one family seated at a family table, having their lunch. From a distance we saw ducks swam on the lake. Soon more family came and passed by our table, walking around the lake.

What a wonderful and peaceful surrounding. SubhanAllah.

After lunch, we perform Zuhr + Asr (jamak) prayer at the picnik area. Then off to the next destination.

2nd stop... strawberry picking

We continued our destination to a strawberry farm. The distance is about 15 minutes from Sutton Juice factory. Along the way we saw many farms, vineyard, cottages that sell homemade products such as jams, leather products and cheese. We didn't have enough time to stop at any of these cottages. Our agenda for that day was fruit picking. Maybe next time we will come again for these shops.



Look at the strawberry farm, huge, sayup-sayup nampak ujung. For picking, they provide 3 types of containers. We took the smallest (only 2 mouth to feed). We started picking, and at the same time we ate several, then more, and more strawberries went inside our mouth. They were very sweet. The smallest one especially.

We couldn't stop picking them as well. Excited betul!! Jakun pun ye. This is nothing like picking strawberries at Cameron Highlands. Yela, different climate, different soil, different type of strawberry.

I told atang, kenyang makan strawberry nie, tak payah lunch. ahahahha... We even joke about paying the strawberries at the counter, for we had eat a handful of them, so imagine while paying we accidently burp infront of the farmer, ahahahaha... she may charge for that as well.

Ok bayar-bayar....next our destination.... well, we planned to go to a grape farm, but we got lost. So we decided to rest for awhile, and had lunch.

TBC

Inside Sutton Juice Factory

Inside the farm house aka factory, there are varieties of apple juices, apple cider, and some alcohol product.

The apple juices were so tempting. They came with many flavor. Some are according to the type of apple. Some are a mixture of apple with other fruit, for example, a mix of apple and orange.They provided free testing, so we sampled a couple of them, and decided to buy 2 bottles of juice, each from Gala and Jonathan.

The apples and juice cost us $14. And I was also eyeing a plate of apple pie inside a display cabinet. Aiyohhhh.... it was too early for lunch, and yet the pie was so tempting. Anyway, I managed to break away, ahahaha...said goodbye to the shopkeepers cum farmers, and off we went to our 2nd destination.

The first stop...apple farm

When we walked in the farm house, we saw bottles of apple juice everywhere; lining up in the shelves, in some crates. The wonderful smell of apple pie lingered in the air. We went up to a counter, a friendly lady greeted us, and without hesitation, she quickly brief us on what to do. She told us, 1kg of apple will cost us $2.

With a couple of plastic bags, we went out to the farm. We saw apple trees, hundreds maybe, in straight lines.



Am not sure what type of red apples were there. And there was also Granny (green apple). The red apples were kinda dark red color, maybe it was Jonathan. Anyway, it was one enjoyment. Picking the apples, walking from one tree to another, and to another, crossing lines of trees. Until we said, we couldnt stop picking, and our plastic bags were getting heavy. But what suprised me was, the apple tree was a little too short, not as I expected. I was expecting a tall tree, like rambutan tree. But all the apple trees in this farm were almost at the same height. Probably the farmers trimmed the tree to prevent them from growing taller. Easier harvesting maybe.

Satisfied with our harvesting (chewah), we walked back into the farm house, that was also a factory.

TBC :p

The journey has begun....

It was a last minute decision and preparation. Together with Mael, Abby and little Hafidz, we started our journey to Stanthorpe, a town popular for fruit picking at 7.45am, on 28th March. Stanthorpe is located at south east of Queensland, near the border of New South Wales, 223km from Brisbane. Roughly the journey took us around 2 hours and 30 minutes.



Along the road, there are acres of land filled with corns and sunflowers. There are also herds of cows, sheeps and horses. It was scenic, with crops, farm houses in the middle of huge lands. Mountains or hills at a distance. The road is almost empty. We passed by a few small towns, until we reached Stanthorpe.

We arrived at our first stop, an apple farm, around 10.10 am. When we got out of the car, we felt chilling wind. The recorded temperature was 22 deg C. Well, Brisbane was not that cold at that time, so we were practically shivering because of the first draft of air.

Nevertheless, the excitement of first experience in fruit picking quickly bring warm to us. Heheheh... Indeed everybody was happy. More than 2 hours of travelling, getting up early in the morning to prepare some food, fatigue, never crossed our mind.

Beeming, we walked up to a nearby farm house....

to be continued

Prologue: Out of town

A much needed break.

A long awaited jouney.

A one day trip.

Last Saturday.

We headed south east, to a small but popular town in Queensland.

With only one agenda.

Summer ended : Australian bushfire to Queensland Flood

Alhamdullillah, we survived summer this year round. This time it was hotter than last year....phewwwww... I think the highest recorded temperature (as far as I know) was 39 deg C. Luckily I spent daytime in the office (though sometimes it was warm inside the office, maybe they wanted to conserve energy, hence they have set moderate temperature inside the office), otherwise I will definately loose focus working from home. There is no air-conditioned unit inside the apartment, only a couple of table fans to cool the apartment. Guess that is why they took long vacation during summer, maybe to get away from the heat.


This summer the nation was shocked by two heart-wrenching tragedies. Maybe some of you are aware about a disaster happened at Victoria, Australia, the bushfire tragedy. To date around 200 people died because of the disaster. The state is still on alert because some places are still affected by bushfires. Victoria's capital is Melbourne, you can see the affected area from the map below (taken from http://enviro-map.com/victorian-bushfire-map).



In this picture (taken from www.reddit.com/user/antardis/, you can see in the background the bushfire engulfed the forest, and black smoke almost concealing the sun. Indeed a scary sight.



The aftermath (www.smh.com.au/.../2009/02/09/1234027889048.html). The red alert portal was setup to aid the community. You can find information about bushfire in the website.

Early in February, large part of North Queensland was affected by heavy rain and flooding. Actually the same tragedy happened last year, same part of Queensland. The only thing that is different, this time it was worst.





Picture taken from http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/environment/weather_and_climate/news.php?q=1233873708


I received a number of messages, via email, faceboook and YM from friends, asking me whether we were affected by the flood. Thank you friends for caring about us hehehe....Alhamdullillah, Brisbane was not affected by any of these tragedy.