Beauty is subjective.

Still, there is a guideline that I don’t think most people realize, but they fell for it anyway. Mainstream beauty is what they probably call it, those who are pretty at one glance, another glance, at every side, and then you’ll probably get bored of it because they look exactly the same like the rest of the pretty girls in the world, that sort of thing.

Then there’s the unconventional beauty that fashion designers always search for, those models with simple flaws that could attract mixed opinions. Yet they all couldn’t help but agree that they are gorgeous in their own artistic way, intriguing and downright interesting. The features, I mean.


(image from here)

But opinions vary and if I happen to think that a wide-gaped tooth model is pretty, the next person might not. If I think this girl with a large nose is beautiful, the rest of you might scoff in disbelief. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

(clicky click. Joanneme is my favorite Chinese blogger and she's so pretty! Though I think it's her eyes that makes her look oh so gorgeous, but she's still so pretty.)


Still, there is a law in beauty, and if you’re ticked in the right boxes then rest assured, people are going to find you pretty, or at least, not as awkward.

What are they? I can’t vouch for the western standard of beauty, but I’ve seen it here, in Malaysia, that for you to be pretty, you must have;

1. Fair skin
We love pearly glow. Not healthy glow. Healthy glow is not good. It’ll make you look dark in pictures. And we don’t want to look dark. Because we wouldn’t stand out that way. Fair skin automatically makes you look innocent and cute like a white bunny, and don’t tell me that white bunnies aren’t cute. Brown bunnies are cute too but people in my country probably will like white bunnies more. I hate this kind of prejudice. :(

2. Symmetrical face
It’s fine if you have large features. As long as it’s symmetrical with the rest of your face, you will look pretty. As long as your eyes and mouth is considerably larger than your nose, you will look pretty. Otherwise, you wouldn’t look as approachable. Compare a person with a nose as small as her mouth, and a person with a considerably wider mouth than her nose, who'll have a warmer face? Who has a better smile? The wider a smile is, the better it’ll look, isn’t it? Well, what can you do. That's why people try to make their eyes larger, their nose narrower, their lips...well, it's up to one's taste, I guess.

Meh, this topic is depressing. I can list more stuff about it, and many will probably beg to differ, but this is what I’ve observed. And it is kind of true. If not, why would many people find actresses beautiful, while models odd looking? Awkward, even? That sort of mainstream versus unconventional beauty is interesting to say the least, especially how much a person’s opinion differs from the others.

But all in all, beauty sags, people. How many cute babies have you seen, who grow up not to be as cute as they used to be? How many celebrities who don’t look as gorgeous as they did in their prime time?

I can assure myself with that, that beauty is a onetime thing, that beauty is just a handicap and nothing else, but beauty IS a handicap.

Beautiful people DO live their lives, easily. And for them to deny, saying that no, we have it tough just like you do, just couldn’t understand the whole picture.

They have it tough too. But it’s a different kind of toughness.

It’s like saying a genius lives his life just as tough as a slow-learner. As if a clever person needs to study as hard as the slow-learner. No, they don’t. They have a brain as sharp as a butcher’s knife. My brain is probably as sharp as my mother’s knife, which is probably not as sharp in the first place. So I need to sharpen it up, by studying a lot. Those intelligent people can only use a sharpener and they’re good to go. At least until the next test.

But of course, every human on earth has their own difficulties in life. Who to say they don’t?

It’s just that they have their own handicap. Everyone has their own handicap. You either realize it or don’t. But the most noticeable handicap is beauty. Next is probably brain.

Tell me, how many people look at others’ brain first before looking at their face?

As if their eyes can pierce through their brain? No, they pierce through a person’s eyes first. Then to the rest of their being. It’s not until a couple minutes later, heck, maybe a few hours, before they’ll get to the brain part. That is, if they were given the chance. Or if they didn’t screw up.

But if you look charming, then you’re good to go.

If you look ever the slightly nervous, or even a bit awkward, I believe you’ll have a problem there.

Confidence! Confidence, that’s what all people who aren’t born with natural beauty needs.

Resource! Resource, that’s what all people who aren’t born with a genius brain needs.

People might want to be best friends with beautiful people more than with you, but take a good look at your own friends and cherish them. Those are the people who love you for what you are.

Outer beauty sags, inner beauty doesn’t. It might not sag now, they might get better job, better boyfriend, better friends, better everything, but you’ll have a job that you were hired based on your skills, you’ll get a boyfriend who loves you for your inner beauty, you’ll get friends who love you for who you are.

It’s harder to sift through those when you have friends who’re in it for the benefits and the glamour behind it, to find your true friend who only cares about you and not ass-kissing you all the time.

See? Pretty people don’t get through things that easy either. But they do jump over the border easier. We, on the other hand, need to climb it, to make sure we land safely, but once we’ve landed, we’re safe.

People who jump on the other hand, might sprain their ankles.

Same applies to the geniuses.

But here’s the thing, if people don’t want to be friends with you because you’re not pretty to their eyes, then they’re not worth your time.

Would you want to work with a boss who only keeps you around for his viewing pleasure, or for his clients' viewing pleasure?

Would you want to live for eternity with a guy who has such a discriminating attitude?

See, the difficulties that beautiful people need to endure. Sure, you might say, oh they have a lot of options, sure it can be solved easily.

But to find a diamond in the rough is tough business. Especially when the other beads are just as sparkly. But you know they are fake.

Trust your guts! If you feel he’s the one, if he stands by you no matter what condition you are in, then just leave it to God and trust His judgment.

If everything doesn’t turn out well, then there’s another trial for you. What is life without trial? It spices things up, doesn’t it? Life with sparkles and sunshine can be a tad boring after a while, anyway. If anything, it teaches you to be a better person, a better son, a better daughter, a better servant.

As Eric Butterworth says – and this happens to my favorite quote – “Don’t go through life, grow through life.”

Thank you, see you later. :D

of bridal makeup and whatnot.

This is all my opinion.

Four years ago, I was exposed to the colorful world of bridal and runway makeup. I saw beforehand how the backstage people in the Malaysian community worked, their tips and tricks, and of course, the drama.

But to hell with the drama, let’s talk about the bridal makeup in general.

Since eternity I have always loathed bridal makeup. Not the technique or anything, but the way it was executed. I thought it will be better nowadays, but no. I was involved in four weddings this year (there’s my eldest brother and his wife joined wedding reception, my third brother’s wife reception, my fourth brother’s wife reception, my third and fourth – who are twins – double wedding reception) and I saw how nothing has changed.

Heck, just look at a Malaysian magazine's cover and compare it to Western – or even Japanese – magazines and you can see how dreadful the makeup is.


(you can't really see it here, but if you go to a bookstore, really look at the model's face on the cover, then you can see the foundation lines showing and caking on their faces. They could've airbrushed it, and many attempted on it, but it never really looks natural enough in my opinion)

Okay, to be fair, I suppose the eye and lip makeup are bearable. (The makeup in that cover above is very pretty in my opinion)

What really gets on my nerve is the foundation. That cream, stick foundation that they pile up inches and inches on those brides’ face.

I even said this to my sister, “A bride is beautiful when she tried on her clothes, complete with those shoes and accessories, but it all goes downhill once her face is painted with makeup.” To which, all my cousins who were nearby agreed.

Cakey, cracked foundation, eyes that look as if someone punch you in the face, lips too pink for comfort, harsh contouring, especially on the nose, I can see it in everyone’s eyes that they dreaded their wedding day, if only for the disastrous makeup.

And makeup is supposed to make you feel beautiful, isn’t it?

I asked those makeup artists before, “Why don’t you use liquid instead of cream?”

Because in my opinion, liquids look more natural than cream on the skin. At least when compared to the cream foundation that they’re using.

Their answer was, “It wouldn’t last as long.”

Which is true, I suppose. In our humid and hot weather, foundation can melt very easily and it won’t do to have our bride lost her radiance as well as coverage. Plus, most of those female guests will wear makeup as well, and big possibility they’ll wear liquid foundation on that day, and we wouldn’t want the bride to look the same as the rest, do we? We want the bride to overpower them, don't we?

“Besides, it wouldn’t photograph as well as this.”

I don’t particularly think it photographs well either, it looks too cakey in pictures to bother me enough, but the foundation does give some sort of a bridal feeling to it, so I digress.

Another thing that irks me about this all is that they use a one color fits all.

If a person is fairer, she’s going to look orangey.

If a person is darker, she’s going to look grayish.

Okay, I kid. That’s only this one store. There’s this other store, where they actually have three. One for ultra fair, one for kind of dark, and one in between. Contouring and highlighting will alter the skin’s color anyway, so it doesn’t matter if the color doesn’t suit the bride all that much at first, because everything will be blended in and it would look normal.

At least normal by bridal standard.

But I don’t like how the fair ladies look orange. And the tanned ladies look grey. I just don’t.

So this is what I wish those makeup artists would do. And if I have the money, I would so do it, but alas, bridal makeup is not my career (or at least at the moment).

1. Invest in airbrush system
- okay so, I’m not sure how it’ll fair in Malaysian’s weather but I think it’s high time they try a new technology. I’ve seen people with airbrush makeup and while it looks quite dollish and surreal, it is smooth, brimming with radiance and not cakey at all. I think it’ll photograph well, after all, isn’t this what they use in those international fashion shows anyway? No? Okay scratch that I’m not even sure myself. :/ And if those makeup artists can afford thousands ringgit of brushes and a whole array of lipglosses then they for sure can at least buy a small airbrush kit. Hey if people loved your makeup they’ll contact you for your service, and if they really like it they'll recommend you to their friends and relatives, which means more profit for you, right?

2. Ultra long false eyelashes that could possibly touch your browbone
- Falsies are eyes opener. Yes I would agree but what do you call a broom on an eyelash? I don’t think you need such an exaggerated effect to appear lovely in pictures. I believe in subtle beauty and if it opens the eyes enough, and makes her look alive then I think it’s good. Save those kinds of falsies for runway, PLEASE.

3. Don’t force things to bride that could make them uncomfortable
- If they don’t want to shave their eyebrows then don’t, just hide it with foundation. If they refuse to wear falsies then just use a heavy duty mascara. After all, it is their pictures and if they aren’t pleased with that then at least you can be ensured that they are comfortable on their wedding day. My sister in law is farsighted, and on her wedding day, her makeup artist forced her to wear circle colored lenses that have no power at all. My SIL demanded to wear her own contact lenses but the makeup artist refused to hear any of it. She said it wouldn't be pretty that way. The results? She couldn’t see any of the guests, and has to rely on my brother to walk around. I really want to smack that makeup artist’s head but what I can do, I can only smack my own. And are her eyes really that pretty that day? Well they say if you’re happy then it’ll reach your eyes, sparkling with happiness. I can't say for sure. I didn't talk to her that day, she couldn't recognize me. Or rather, she couldn't see me.

4. Don’t draw lips so thin it’s creepy.
Imagine walking up to a bride and notice her drawn lips are half her original lips. Shudder. I understand the need to balance both the upper and lower lips, but all I’m thinking is that they have a pattern to follow and instead of enhancing their features, they are actually transforming the brides into everyone else. I don’t like that. And because of that...

5. Why couldn't they enhance the brides' features and make them look lovely yet still retain their original beauty instead of painting a completely new face on them?

By no means am I an expert. I’m just an observer who likes to observe stuff, who happens to like makeup and how it can sweeten up a person’s complexion. Yes, sweeten up, because I happen to think that people who have proper makeup can look very sweet and charming, exactly how they’re supposed to look like on their wedding day.

Many will probably beg to differ, and I apologize, but on behalf of my loved ones, I seriously wish everything could be changed, and in this era and time, brides will no longer look disastrous and scary, but instead, elegant or cute or whatever their features call for.

I'm still very bitter and scarred just from seeing my sister-in-laws makeup, and I can see that they obviously hated it very much. And the makeup is forever embedded in their wedding pictures.

I don't want anyone to feel that way ever again. Hence the post.

That is all, thank you for reading my rant. -.-

Smile smile smile~ :D

It just occurs to me that even though I’m not as miserable as I once was years ago, my face still looks pretty darn gloomy, as if there are a handful of angry clouds on top of me.

I can probably understand that years back, because that is indeed my purpose, but now that I’m not projecting my miserable aura I thought I would at least look pleasant.

Turns out, not really. I saw those candid pictures of me and I look pretty angry or mellow most of the time. As if I have a problem. A problem with the world. This world we’re living in. If only it ends. That kind of problem.

I do used to have that kind of problem (with the world and the human race) but life’s too precious to worry about that.

When you’ve realized the actual reason behind that, everything suddenly makes sense.

Why I’m always the first one to say hi, why nobody really greets me unless I greet them first, why people look scared to talk to me unless I talk to them first, why they – oh shut it.

I wouldn’t have a problem with it if they act funny once they’ve talked to me. But they didn’t. They are all friendly and cozy and treat me just like they treat the next person. They just have a problem talking to me first. I blame it on my miserable aura.

So that’s why, when people talk to me first, I feel OH SO HAPPY.

But that’s such a rare thing I nearly lost hope on that.

Well, I used to lost hope. I used to not talk to people because they wouldn’t talk to me first. But you wouldn’t get anywhere if you keep on with that mindset. You will be forever alone, alone, alone in this world, alone with no social skills, or any skills, or potential knowledge you could gather, or juicy gossips, take your pick.

So now I’m thinking, I should look pleasant!

I should smile more. I’ve practiced that quite a lot in real life, but instead of looking like :), I instead look like :|.

Oh, but it earns me a couple of points with the aunties. As a result they asked about my wellbeing and included me in their chatters and that’s good I think.

Better than looking like :(, of course. XD <- the kind of face I want to make. Or this -> :D

But you’ll only see that as a smiley. :( Not gonna happen, not gonna happen.

(To be honest, I think I actually look like this -> D;<)

Next is to practice speaking! If I appear pleasant and charming enough in conversation perhaps they’ll greet me first the next time around (wishful thinking).

I find that most people with charming personalities have such a way with speaking that naturally grabbed people’s attentions. Be it with the warmth in their smiles that accompany their chatter, the sweetness of their expressions, or the animated way of their explanations, those are the qualities that to me, make it easy and fun to talk to them.

As for me, I am cold and sour and pokerfaced. :|

Maybe I should practice speaking. Not only will it help building up my social skills, perhaps it’ll benefit me in the long run. I do need to work in the future and probably will be meeting a lot of people which means I need to give a good impression of myself.

Of course, these skills should be developed naturally and shouldn’t be forced, and that is the biggest obstacles of them all – finding your inner charm that’ll charm people with your presence.

Oh the things that we do to satisfy those human beings. If they didn’t like us they’ll step over our head, if they like us they’ll probably manipulate our head.

But at least we try. And what’s better than to earn God’s blessing, by becoming a better you, by creating the world as a better place, by treating His other creations with respect, by being a good servant? :D

Let's flip the pan even though you don't have to really.

As a standard Malaysian girl, you probably learn how to:

1. Cook sambal (onions, garlic, dried chilies, seasonings, sauces and meat of choice goodness)
2. Cook curry (milk/coconut milk and curry powder and brinjal and ocras and stuff)
3. Cook various soups (tomyam, singgang, although I suppose the latter is more of an East Coast thing)

You probably have no idea how to:

1. Cook omelet (although that might just be me)
2. Cook various egg recipes that don’t include sambal, curry, soups or all those jazz.
3. I just want to talk about egg recipes in this post, can you tell? XD

I’m all up for finding unique but simple recipes, and in my quest of finding new recipes to try to add in my list of expertise, I stumbled across this video.

Now bear in mind, I wasn’t attracted to the recipes, despite liking tomatoes and honey very very much.

It’s just that I don’t like eggs that much. But I still eat it, because as long as you’re still living you should eat anything that you’re allowed to eat just for the sake of it (and for the nutrition behind each bite, of course). Imagine those people who can’t eat it, be it for medical sake or lack of production, don’t you feel bless now? Yeah so don’t be picky.

Now. Eggs. Oh yeah! I was supposed to link this video in this post.



OH LOOK AT THAT HE FLIPS THE PAN!

…

I was attracted to the awesomeness that is flipping the pan. And the most logical way to try it is by flipping eggs. Or pancakes.

But I don’t like pancakes that much, and the recipe isn’t about pancakes in the first place, so eggs it is.

(Of course, if the recipe calls for pancakes, I’ll probably be doing that)

SO EGGS! YAY, FLIP FLIP.

And this is the result of my eggs flipping.



I must say it hurts my arms, a bit. Okay maybe not a bit – a lot. I blame it on my mother’s heavy pan. The first try, I can barely lift the eggs on air, but gradually I can make it shake a bit.



About the recipe, I think it’s an interesting combination. I followed the recipe pretty closely (omitted the spring onions because we don’t have that in our pantry) and it turns out quite similar, if I may say so myself. The ginger adds a tangy flavor to the eggs and tomatoes, really merges well with the tart taste of tomatoes, and the honey sweetens the tomatoes naturally you'd think the tomatoes really are overly sweet in the first place, and the salt completes the whole package. Really a nice recipe, I wouldn’t have expected that.

But then again, I don’t have a sweet tooth. My tooth, or rather tongue, likes sizzling stuff more, so this isn’t my cup of tea, really.

So my sister suggested that we add black pepper and Tabasco sauce and chopped fresh chilies.

And this is the result!



This time, I can really flip the eggs. I AM PROUD OF MY ACHIEVEMENTS. YUP YUP.

You can’t really see the chilies because we haven’t added them yet. It’s only after we tasted it that we realized it lacks the kicks we’re expecting so we added some of those later.

And it was umm for the lack of word…hot.

Well! I’m thinking of trying to flip sunny side eggs next time instead of scrambled eggs, because scrambled is too basic anyway, so my next goal is making an omelet. Because I don't like sunny side either. Not sure if I'd like omelet but you can put cheese in it and I happen to like cheese.

Here’s to eggs! Even though I'm well, not that fond of it. But I eat everything, just so you know. :D

Lovebirds

Flashback three years ago and there was this little bird trying to build a nest on my air conditioner. The sad thing is that the surface is quite slippery and thus, no matter how hard the bird tried to make its nest stick, it just wouldn't keep in shape.

Often the twigs will make its way into my room, transforming the area around my window like a dried out jungle. -.- Sometimes I just didn't open the window so that I could escape from the mess. And I guess I did escape from it, because after that, the bird finally laid its egg, and as you probably expected it, the egg rolled over the air conditioner surface and broke on the floor.

If I'm not careful the egg just might make its way into my room, but really, poor bird and its egg. T_T

The end of the story is that the mother egg learned its lesson and decided to build a nest on my brother's room air conditioner. Seems like the surface isn't as smooth over there, judging by its successful breeding and such, and so the bird family live happily ever after, or at least I hope so. It's been three years since then and I no longer know where they are, or even noticed them to be honest.

People say that when birds build a nest at your house, it signifies good luck, but I can't attest to that. Although to be honest, most of my relatives who always have birds visiting them and living at their houses seem to have childrens who are millionaires and successful beyond words, so I guess perhaps that statement rings true. I mean, I'm not that successful either but who can believe my luck that I'll be able to come to Saudi and perform Hajj at a young age? Not that the bird's the sole reason for that, for most of the things come from God himself, but this birds thing is kind of fascinating.

But that's not the point of this post. What's the point of this post again? -.-

Oh yeah, well, we have birds over here too!



There used to be only one last year, and it's the noisiest thing alive HARHARHAR T_T

But now there's three, and that's triple noisy for you.


(another one is in the hole)

This place is weird. And by that I mean it's an empty place with no doors to get into, only windows, and even then, there's this net covering it, so you really can't get in there. And what's worse is that, some of the people who rent upstairs dried their clothes at the balcony, and often the clothes will fly away and fall into here. There's even a carpet in here. I have nothing to say to that.



Now that I went away for three months, I came back to notice that the bird has found two partners, had a lot of eggs but didn't bother to sit on it, and the area is filled with umm...shit. Yeah.



Not a terribly good view but what can you do. You just need to convince yourself that it is at the very least, fascinating. Which was what I'm trying to do right now. T_T


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Disciplining Yourself

There are quite a lot of things that I find odd in this world (because well, I am normal and all of you are odd HAHAHA T_T).

And one of those is, doing something to improve your condition. By that I mean swallowing medicine.

Not sure if I’m just brought up this way with doctors and medicines and supplements and yucky things but whenever someone complains that they’re sick, but refuse to take their medicine, I felt the urge to sigh and shake my head.

How are you going to get better if you can’t even do that? I can’t help you if you can’t even discipline yourself. T_T

Same goes to those who want to be great at cooking or be a good Muslim but too lazy to go to the kitchen or study deeper into religion wait I can relate to that oh.

Disciplining yourself is hard, though. I’ve tried to memorize the Quran for years but I can never get really far. But I’m thinking that, if I myself couldn’t help myself, who will? It is for your own sake after all.

I won’t be an amazing cooker if I didn’t try to cook a proper meal all by myself.

I won’t be a good Muslim if I succumb to the whispers of the devils.

I won’t be good at the Arabic language if I stop studying. When you are your own teacher, things can get really tough, and the only way you can do it is to convince yourself that it is for your own good. So far I think myself is listening to me.

Another thing that’s odd is how good it felt to hear people speaking Arabic in Saudi dialect. I was in the plane yesterday and all those conversations around me is making me feel warm inside and I can’t really understand why. o.O

But all is well, you see I’ve made a goal last year, to understand completely what’s being said on TV by the third year.

Well, this year is the third year, and I must say I can’t really understand completely what was being said, but I think to understand about 70% of it is good enough.

It just means that I need to try harder, isn't it? T_T

Another good thing about learning Arabic (aside from understanding the Quran by its words and not by the translation) is hearing various religious talks by the Arab sheikhs. It is a feeling that I can’t quite describe, and well, not that I need to, but here’s a video by Meshari Al-Kharraz, one of my favorite sheikhs, complete with English subtitles. Happy watching. :D

Goodbye!

Leaving is always hard, especially when you have nothing as a force drive to make you flee the country.

To be honest, I have those. I have tons of those, but it still is hard to leave. As I sat here packing my things up, for the first time ever I’m not that thrilled to leave. Give me another week then maybe I’ll be more prepared, but now, it just feels so sudden, even though it’s not.

I have nothing in this house to fiddle with either. So why am I feeling this way? I’m going to be alone every day all the same, minding my own business.

It’s just that at least here, I know, even though I’m all alone, those who are close to me are still close enough to be stumbled upon, whereas over there, the percentage of that happening is actually very little.

But if I didn’t make a little sacrifice, I wouldn’t have a story to tell, would I? If you’re not brave enough, you won’t get anywhere, would you? Although I often wonder why do I always have to make the first move and not them, but at least I’ve made my goal. At least I created an impact, or something. I hope so.

So for the sake of our future, let’s man up, swallow the uneasiness and move forward for a better us. Everything will be okay, Insha Allah.

Goodbye Johor, goodbye Malaysia.

Hello Rabigh, hello Saudi Arabia.

I look forward to meeting you, no matter how dusty you’ve probably made my room into. :D

dot dot dot

So I’ve been thinking, why do we always try to take their feelings into consideration, but they never return it quite the same? Why do we always watch what we say, but they easily talk trash about us in front of our face? And if we voice our discontentment? Another friendship ruined. Which would be fine, but what if they’re your family, no matter how distant they are?

The world would be a better place if people aren’t as selfish, would it?

I think that, everyone strives to be the best in what they do. I for one, don’t want people to take me the wrong way, I don’t want anyone to feel offended by my attitude. No need for the cold shoulders, just voice it right away. The sad part is that knowing we’ve done the nicest thing we could do, but there are still those tiny things that people are offended about, and you have no idea what it is.

I don’t think keeping it inside will save the problem. The colder you are, the more anxious we’ll be, because we thought we’ve done nothing wrong, but apparently not.

I’m not sure what to say about these people, those who judge and criticize. Just because someone isn’t as educated as you then it’s fine to take their opinions for granted. Just because you’ve tried everything in the world then people’s suggestions are automatically useless. At least take a look at their suggestions, take their feelings into considerations, heck, they are nice enough to suggest it to you in the first place then why do you have to turn them down? How would you know it won’t be suitable for you if you don’t actually take time to look at it in the first place?

But of course, there are tons of people in this world. Tons of people with different attitudes. You can’t expect them all to be the same, can you? Just because your mindset is like this, doesn’t mean that they share the same perspective.

But my greatest problem is that…please, just be nice. Don’t judge. Don’t freaking judge, okay? Fine, talk to others with greater education than yours truly, talk down on me, I don’t mind. It’s your lost, anyway.

Oh art, where art thou- uhh. o.O

Lame title aside, I'll be completely honest and say that I'd rather look at a block of text than a block of...paint. There's just something enticing about the way authors expressing their mind with their colorful vocabulary, words strewn together, provoking various imaginations from person to person, which you could also probably do that with strokes and sketches in paintings. But my appreciation for art is so terribly low that it is nearly impossible to do so...kind of. Hence my lack of pictures in this blog. But I'm going to change that...soon. Not sure how soon is soon, but hopefully soon.

But I must admit that drawings has a much bigger appeal than boring little font. It's such an in-your-face thing - it grabs you on the spot and you don't even need to take your time reading through the long paragraph to have a grasp of the message. You can just glance over it and pass your judgment right here and there, which means that it's easier to get criticism right away; if it's interesting, it's interesting, if it's not, it's not.

Too bad my hands are so stiff they can't even draw a proper match man. Mr. Matchman can probably draw himself better. But I'm willing to change that! Soon. Umm yes soon.

As for now, though, I'm trying to get used to coloring, because supposedly I have a good sense of color (says my sister the animator) due to my grooming background (or something something).

Bear in mind I have zero experience coloring on paper, complete with shadings and whatnot. I've only painted people's faces, which is kind of different, maybe.

So this is my first attempt. I thought I'll draw...no I can't draw. I just let my hand carries me away (harhar), then I just colored it in.

And this is the finished product!







It's a...

It's a umm...

I think it's a turnip. Hey it kinda looks like a turnip! Yup yup it's a turnip.

(halfway through I thought I was drawing a potted plant...not sure how it turned into a turnip...or something)

Woot! I can't wait for my next nonsense drawing, can you? Next year I'm going to surprise my siblings by presenting my ultra-skillful masterpiece of a painting. Yup yup. And then they'll probably let me color their artwork. Yup yup. Yes I've always been pretty ambitious. I even wanted to be a tailor at some point. And pretty sure I thought it'll be nice if my profession is a personal shopper.

I really am easily distracted. Now to learn php so that another career path can open itself before me. :D You see, you really need to do everything you could to survive in this cruel world, so as you can see, I'm doing it! I'm doing it! :D



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Selamat Hari Raya, Selamat Pengantin Baru

Hard to believe that all my brothers are married now, but there you go.

But of course, I didn’t appear in a lot of photos that day, since I don’t feel so good anyway (which is like, 90% of the time).

Then again, I appear in zero photos at my eldest brother’s wedding (or one, can’t recall it exactly) because I feel kind of bad (which is like, 5% of the time?).

Anyhow, it’s that time again when you look back at those pictures and couldn’t see yourself that you started thinking where on earth were you and if you were actually standing on earth in the first place.

Well maybe I wasn't. 8D

I’ll update this post with pictures once those are ready, but for the mean time, I’ll tell you why it’s a pretty interesting wedding.

Martial arts, yay! Haven’t seen it in a wedding reception for ages, most of the time it’s just little kids dancing the traditional dance here in Johor, which I like very very very much, mind you.

Live traditional music! Here it’s usually just a live band with keyboards and guitars playing evergreen songs that I kind of dislike very very very much, mind you.

Funny thing (to me, to them, maybe it’s annoying) is that the makeup artist ran away from the reception to groom another client elsewhere, leaving the bride with clothes and tiara and smudged makeup that she expected her to be able to tend to it herself. What a load of cheese. The good thing is that I can be in charge and help her with the wedding apparels, which I’ve been missing doing it for ages! I’ve forgotten how fun it is to touch up a person’s face and help them with their tiaras. ^__^

And this is it. Nothing will be the same anymore. They have their own families now, and I have my own, and they’ll be exactly like my parents, and I’ll be on my own. It’s the never-ending cycle of life.

But that’s how it is. Soon enough they’ll feel what my parents always feel about them, and slowly, but certainly, I see it now, my parents are experiencing what their parents had experienced and talked about them (because I like to hear what people talk instead of talking myself).

It’s interesting to see how the young generation talks about the elder generation that way, about them becoming senile, about them and their swaying moods, about them and their spontaneous attitude, when they’ll become exactly like them one day.

Then they’ll understand, but they couldn’t now, not when they haven’t experienced it yet, could they?

Oh well.

I have no Eid pictures this year. Because I feel terrible (5% of the time).

And when I feel terrible, everyone will feel terrible. Because my mood (or rather, condition) is infectious. 8D

What makes it even more terrible is that I have to pretend that I’m actually just feeling not so good that day, which requires a lot more effort than you can imagine.

But I think I have a great Eid this year. Compared to last year, which I spent at McDonalds. And the year before that, which I spent in my room, like any other day (but it’s my first in Saudi so it pawns everything) and the one before that, which was at The Curve (a shopping mall). o.O

I have no idea what kind of post this is but I thought I should blog again.

Time to learn php and coloring for the sake of my future (or lack of). See you later. 8D

sakura for you~!

I really, really want to blog, but I don't have enough time nowadays. That's so weird.

I couldn't even catch up with people's blogs anymore, but once all these works are over, I'll blog properly.

For the time being, I present to you the song that I've often sang to myself during orientation week when I was sixteen because sitting in the hall doing nothing was boring. Kind of. Oh, and I'm an obsessed fangirl. Can't you tell? :D



This is one of the prettiest songs in the whole wide world, in my absolutely honest opinion.

Okay now I'm going to resume my work, have a good day~ :D

ah sakura mankai~ nee sakura mankai~ *sigh*

should I cry?

I’ve been quite busy these last few days, thinking of worldly matters.

And by worldly matters, I actually mean the world in my head.

Definitely hard work, that, and my head’s began to hurt a little bit. I’ve had it all planned out but to see it in action is another thing to consider.

But I’ll do my best. It is my hobby after all, fiddling with the world in my head. :)

I’ll write about it if my head’s world actually goes somewhere. lol

On another note, my heart’s kind of aching as well.

See, my heart wasn’t broken by a person or anything, but I was watching a drama, and I thought, “Oh that’s so sad.”

I’m not the type who’ll cry while watching a sad movie either, in fact, I don’t understand those who prepare boxes of tissues prior to watching a movie and actually finished every single sheet of them.

But I guess I was too absorbed in this particular story and characters, and I found myself continuously wondering, “Oh he is…oh she is…oh that is just so sad. Why is it so sad?”

It’s like there’s a huge lump in my throat, and I always feel sad for some reason, and my heart aches terribly, and the soundtrack keeps playing in my head, and I can’t take the characters off my mind.

What, should I cry or something?

Oh wai argh gah I NEVER CRY WATCHING A FICTION STORY. D: JUST BECAUSE IT’S NOT REAL. D:

if only...everyday...is a happy day.

A picture tells a thousand words, and I figure I shouldn’t write more than a couple words.

This picture affected me greatly, and watching the news has never been so unpleasant.

Not that news in general is usually pleasant but what’s with the situation in Libya, Bahrain and Japan to name a few, don’t you feel like basking in some sunshine and happiness?

But even if we’re not being haunted with traumatizing dilemma in our lives, none of us are excluded from minor problems here and there.

And if we’re not careful, the problem could ruin our lives, like the wreckage you saw in that picture above, the difference being that it’s invisible and could only be felt by the bearer of the problem.

No one can see the shattered pieces in your heart as clearly as the wrecked buildings above. No one will lend you any help because they didn’t know, they wouldn’t know unless you tell them so, but then what?

I just think that, even if the invisible wreckage is too much for us to bear, we still have everything necessary to keep on living. Our land is still peaceful, our food and water is still easily available and safe to be consumed, the air is still clean from dangerous particles, our shelters are always here whenever we crave for it desperately.

To me, even if we’re dying inside a little day by day, physically we are far from that. And I am highly grateful for that.

To them, even if everything seems to have flown away from their grasp, at least they still have their lives. But you know, I’ve never experienced anything similar to what they’ve been through, and I can’t comment on that. I don’t know how they really feel at this moment, to see gunshots in front of their eyes, the remains of their houses scattering on earth, corpses lying on the road…I really don’t. And that’s what makes it more depressing.

I’ll just say this – cherish whatever you have before they slip away from your hands. If earthquake and hurricane victims could rebuild their lives from scratch, what does that say about us?

Let’s look forward and find the solution to our problems. No matter how long it’ll take, let’s keep on trying. No matter how sad or dull a day is, let's find something that'll improve the day, making it become better. Let’s untangle the knots in our head. Let’s be frank to each other, so that we can have a bit of peace in our mind, no misunderstanding anymore, okay? Okay.

I’ll do that Insya Allah.

P/S: Seems like I did write more than necessary. But I’ve always been a fan of words, even though my words are not that beautiful most of the time. :D

And to be honest this post doesn't make any sense. I'm not even sure anymore, but. Umm. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

Scents of the Middle East #2

(Previous rambling can be found here)

I love to lurk/stalk people’s blogs/forums/other places.

In fact, I’ve been lurking this particular forum for the past six years, every single day without fail, and I’ve only regularly commented there a few months ago.

I wonder how it’ll be six years later. Will I continue my six year streak of continuous lurking, or will I forget about it altogether? Hmm.

I lurked the forum again just now. I JUST LOVE THE FORUM.

(I shall not tell you what that forum is because then you’ll know which member is me)

(I’m not creative enough in the art of nickname creations six years ago GAH x.x)

Anyway...MIDDLE EAST’S SCENTS!

I like to lurk Hawaa World for that purpose. From there, I've learned that,

1. They like to burn incense for their houses.
2. They have their own special blends.
3. They have their own special methods of applying perfume.
4. They like perfumes. They probably couldn’t live without perfumes. And they have all kinds of perfume. Perfumes in super duper pretty lovely gorgeous beautiful bottles.

Yes they are THAT pretty. :D

I’d often find myself, gawking at the perfume bottles in this store…





But then I’d hop to Centerpoint and look at these empty bottles instead.







Cute things weaken my knees.

You can definitely buy a whole lot of perfumes and incenses from stores such as Arabian Oud, but surprisingly, most of the people in Hawaa World prefer to use the cheap yet reliable incense from their local market instead. You can get all of those in all kind of brands for under SR20 in markets, whereas in nice stores like above, the average price for their incenses is SR200 (or so I’ve been told. Or maybe they showed me the most expensive ones, I wouldn’t know).

Anyhow, I was at Medina’s market, pestered by merchants, like always, when they sprayed tons of cheap perfumes on me that I thought I was going to pass out right there right then. So I tried to divert their attentions by pointing at a bowl of coals, and that was then they introduced me to bokhoor/bo5or/بخور aka incense.

They then began to smear a whole lot of mukhallat/mu5ala6/مخلط aka mixtures on my hands. Mu5ala6 are those that you should keep an eye on if you wanted to buy nice perfumes in gorgeous bottles as souvenirs.

Here's how they look like in the pamphlet.







They are prettier in real life, though.

Unfortunately, those people must’ve sprayed me with tons of perfume already, and those smeared fragrant oils made my hands sticky, and not to mention my nose was kind of stuffy, so when I tried to smell the mu5ala6, those mu5ala6 in gorgeous bottles…

I can’t smell a thing.

*pissed pissed*

I only smelt something icky and that was me.

*annoyed annoyed*

In the end, I didn’t buy any of those mixtures, but truthfully, I’m lemming for it. Seriously lemming for it.

The average prices for those mixtures are SR50. Keep that in mind, and if you’re highly skilled in the art of haggling I’m sure you can get it at a much lower price.

But now let’s talk about bo5oor.


I use bo5oor efra7. It's REALLY nice.

I encourage you to watch this first! In this video, he demonstrated how to wear the fragrance. I'll supply the minutes below, and you just have to fast-forward the clip according to the time. :D



Here’s Ustath Tareq, explaining about the magical world of perfume and incense. Apparently (and PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong) if you want to make sure your fragrance smells the best and lasts all day, you can;

Mix it with dehen oud. Dehen oud (oud oil?) is an extract from the oud’s branch. There are all kinds of dehen ouds, if it’s from an Indian store then its extract is from the Indian’s oud. If it’s from a Malaysian store then it is extracted from Malaysia’s oud. You can mix it with mu5ala6 or your Parisian perfumes. It’ll smell special, and nothing will smell like it.

…we have oud in Malaysia? I thought those are imported from the middle east lololol :P

And in Malaysia, people associate incense with witches, no? :P

1:40 How they’d wear the dehen oud (and mu5alla6 too I suppose). Aside from putting it on your pulse and behind your ears, you can also put a small amount of water on your palms, mix it with the dehen oud and apply it on your hair. Or for guys, on your 3’etra/shma3’.

Would it stain? It wouldn’t, he said, because we’ve mixed it with water. It’s fine for shma3’ but for clothes, that’s a different story.

2:38 Now he’s spraying the perfume. He might’ve used half of the bottle for all I know. o.O

5:16 Now he’s burning the incense and letting it seep into his clothes. His advice; you should put on your perfume first, after showering and wearing your clothes, then burn the bo5oor. Some people wear their perfume before wearing their clothes, or the clothes themselves aren’t clean, and those are some of the reasons why the fragrance doesn't smell as lovely. Clean clothes are important to make sure that the perfume smells good, and it shouldn’t be applied on the clothes that you’ve worn this morning either. And remember, apply perfume first, then burn the incense.

But according to a novel I read, the character burned the incense, put it under her clothes, while perfuming at the same time.

And another person in the forum said that to make sure that the clothes will smell great all day, you need to;

1. Smoke out the clothes
2. Spray some perfume on it
3. Hang it in the closet
4. Let the burner rests under it
5. Put a fresh batch of oud/bo5oor on the burner
6. Close the closet, and poof! Foolproof clothes that will certain to tickle people’s nostrils all day.

All kinds of method, to each of their own, I suppose. I didn't follow their methods, though.



This is my burner! I use the electric one so you only need to plug it in and you wouldn’t need candles or matches or stuff like that.



Put some of the incense in, and wait for it to burn.



Tada! Whoa. And no, it doesn’t smell as pretty yet. It smells like regular smoke. Can you see me coughing?



Come on, scents! Get into my shaila! lol No I don't think you're supposed to do it like this.

What I did is, I hung my clothes in the room, let the incense burned for a couple of minutes, took of the plug, closed the door…

And after a while, the smoky smell will magically transform into something so earthly sweet.

And your clothes will smell exactly like it. It wouldn’t be as strong if you follow my method though. In fact, you can barely smell it unless you put your nose close to it, but that’s good enough for me. After all, I just did that for a hint of scent, for a bit of freshness, and this is exactly what I wanted.

The incense – if you’re using it solely to fragrance the house – will only last for one day. Then again, I use the cheap one from the market, and from what I heard, if you buy the more expensive one, the Arabian Oud for example, it’ll last for days.

You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. That's probably true.

But it’s okay. The effect on the clothes lasts for weeks so I’m greatly satisfied by it.

*sniff my shaila* Aaaah…

*sniff sniff* Aaaah…

Thank you for reading, now let me hug myself. :D

Scents of the Middle East #1

(photo courtesy from here)

I live in an apartment.

Sometimes, I'll sit in the living room watching TV, and then my neighbor would pass by my house and his PERFUME WILL FILL IN THE ROOM. O.O

And then another neighbor will leave his house and again my house will be intoxicated by his perfume.

The strange thing is that, I might not know for sure how my neighbors look like (I'M SORRY but it's hard to recognize people when they're wearing the same thing ;__; Not to mention they cover their head too so it's hard to see their faces), but I recognize their perfumes anywhere.

(caution: this post is leaning towards creepiness…you’ve been warned)

It happened! I saw this person and said, “Hey he smells like this neighbor.”

And then my father will say, “He is that neighbor.”

See what I mean by ‘recognizing the smell’? (creepy alert)

But it does seem as if Arab people in general like to drench themselves, their families, and even their homes, in perfume.

Whenever I go to their houses, there’ll be this certain fragrance wafting around the air, relaxing my senses. It wasn’t cloying, nor was it headache-inducing – it was far from that, it was simply, refreshing and uplifting. And plain awesome if I may add.

Though I don’t think I need to fragrance my house anyway, since my neighbors with their ultra strong perfume have already done such a great job at it already.

But the odd thing is, even if they’ve been working outside for hours, they'll still smell fresh and clean. No matter the time, broad daylight or the darkest hour of the night, the perfume still stays strong. Even when they were buying fish, they’d still smell as if they’ve just returned from a wedding reception.

Or maybe they did. But every single night? And every single one of them? Orz

My father would go to the mosque and came back smelling as if he’d gone to the perfume store instead. And then the entire house will smell like a perfume factory, and we’ll be like, “What is that smell?!”

Okay maybe I was exaggerating a bit. Maybe not the entire house, just the places that my father has graced his presence with.

But there was this time, when a student of my father gave him a shmagh/shma3’/ghetra/3’etra, this thing by the way,


(picture stolen from here)

which smelt like OH MY GOD YA ALLAH MASHA2 ALLAH WHAT IS THIS SMELL??!

I wouldn’t be surprised if the 3’etra was drenched in perfume oil for 100 days. It just smelt too strong. TOO strong. TOO STRONG!

I’m not kidding, the fragrance even found its way towards my room, seeping into my furniture and we were all like, “Okay the head’s kind of aching right now.”

Insane. We kept the 3’etra inside our closet and the rest of our clothes smelt like it. It was really phenomenal.

Because I’d spray some Parisian perfume on myself and it didn’t last as long as that at all.

Weird, weird, weird. And I’ve only talked about the men’s side of perfume, how about the women?

Generally women – though there are a few who don’t follow the rules, and they usually wear Parisian perfume if my nose’s not mistaken, and Parisian perfumes are kind of cloying if applied too much – don’t wear perfume as loud as the men. They might occasionally smell just as lovely as their other half, but in public, where you’ll be meeting tons of strangers and have to mix with men, they’ll make sure their fragrance wouldn’t stand out as much. Just a tiny bit to freshen up, and that’s it.

Of course you’d know that if you wear a strong perfume, it’ll attract unnecessary attention, and unnecessary attention is not something we’d terribly need in our lives.

That, and women aren’t allowed to wear such strong perfume outdoors anyway.

Indoors, now that’s a different story. I’d meet my Arab friends and they’d give me a greeting hug and pecks on the cheeks and all I’d think of is, “Aaaaah. Oooooh. Ah please keep on embracing me.”

CREEPY ALERT CREEPY ALERT!

I was almost tempted to ask about their fragrance but I just can’t bring myself to do that. Maybe I don’t think it’s appropriate? Maybe I’m too shy? Malu bertanya sesat jalan? Too shy to ask? Then prepare to be lost! Muahahaha yeah that’s the meaning of that sentence. Minus the laughing part of course.

Perhaps the reason that the question never seems to be able to see the light of the day is because I’ve asked a gazillion questions to them before, like where did you buy your abaya oh and what eyeliner are you using and how to bake these cookies and how do you wrap your shaila and where’s your favorite coffee shop and OH NO YOUR HUSBAND’S GIVING YOU THE EYE HE WANTS TO GO NOW ok then BYE BYE. ;___;

People and their early marriage. /rant

Anyhow, in the end, I did find the answer. I'll talk about it in another post. :D

(read the continuation here)

When Spring Comes

When Spring Comes is one of the Korean dramas that my father strangely adores. If he likes something, he will extremely like it, and when he completely likes it, he likes to annoy me with it, and when he annoys me like that, I’ll be extremely annoyed, because he completely likes it. I don’t know.

“What are you watching? When Spring Comes?”

“No…”

“Is that the actor in When Spring Comes?!”

“No.”

“He looks like that actor in When Spring Comes.”

“…no.”

“When Spring Comes is better than this thing.”

*refrain from saying no*

Do you know what comes when spring comes?

The wind. And in a way, my father was acting like a wind. The wind won’t go easy on you, and won’t let you watch walk in peace.

I will try my best to walk towards the wind but it will always push me back. No matter, I won’t let this pesky wind blow me away HAIYAAAACK!!!

Most of the time, I OWNED THE CRUEL WIND. OH YEAH.

But there were times when the wind couldn’t handle my cockiness and decided to overthrow me with its power. I’d walk and I couldn’t. I’d walk and if I’m not careful, I will be blown away for real. The only solution is to walk backwards.

Dear wind, you are so cruel to me the humankind.

And the wind was not particularly cooperative yesterday.

We were in the car when the wind pushed it so hard I was momentarily scared. Any stronger and it’ll topple the car over, I’m sure of that.

But first, let’s look at these cute goats!



Okay forget the cute white and black goats. Look at the road!



This moment made me realize how lucky/blessed I am to be riding a car and not a camel. Can you imagine people back then journeying with their camels, across the mountains while struggling with the sandy wind?



I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Well I suppose I was. You won’t see anything but sand and mountains and random animals and a whole lot of sun throughout the way, and you’ll only see a bit of technology when you’ve arrived at the city. But it is an interesting view to be honest; the nothingness certainly calms the mind. And to see people stopping their cars and praying on the sandy ground since there are no buildings whatsoever (there’s an occasional mosque or two, but most of the time, you won’t find any, let alone a toilet) is an amusing sight to be held.



Lonely trees, how depressing. If you’re wondering why the picture is so blurry, well don’t point your fingers at my camera, it’s because there was a sandstorm occurring right at that moment!



Exactly. Sandstorm, and for some reason, the blown sands resemble ocean’s waves.



The sandstorm wouldn’t be as extreme whenever the mountains were on its path. Probably because their role as the earth’s defense team intimidated those sands a bit.

“We won’t let you through, wind,” said the mountains. *cue in evil laughter*



It was a bizarre experience to be sitting in your car and watching the sand coming at you like wild snakes ocean’s wave. It almost felt as if I was in a ferry and looking at the deep sea. The only difference is that there were no jellyfish.

Jellyfish, jellyfish! I saw them a lot whenever I rode a ferry so I kind of got sick of them. And kind of scared. What if I were to fall into the sea and those jellyfish-



The camera failed to capture the waves properly but if you squint really hard then you’ll see a trace of sand snake creepily slithering towards you.



Long story short, sandstorm is kind of scary. So let’s cleanse your sandy eyes with a photo of the beach!



Don’t let this serene view of nature fool you, though. The scenery might look peaceful and all but I was currently battling with the wind in order to capture just one picture.

*ran towards the wind*

*wind pushed me back*

*yaaaaah!!!*

*pushed me back easily*

I’m a weak human being.



And no, the wind wasn’t being unfair to just the human beings. Even the birds, who worked hard to go across the sea, failed to fly anywhere beyond this point. Poor bird, they’ll fly towards the sun, and the wind will push them over. Fly again, and push them over.

I can relate to them, because the wind did exactly the same thing to me! lol



But the thing that worries most of the people here isn’t the wind, it’s the cloud. Look how thick it is? Yeah, you’ll rarely see such a cloudy sky like this here. Everyone is preparing now, preparing for the rain, for the flood, for their houses to be drowned. Everything’s been postponed. Fieldtrips, any trips, trips to the park. You better stay at home than being lost in the rain and stuck in a place and can’t go home because of the flood like many people did months ago.

So yes, rain, more or less, is a sensitive issue over here. A desert that never experiences rain more than once a year is faced with constant raining every few weeks. There’s definitely something weird going on with the world right now, isn’t it? Being patient is the only thing we could do right now, and it’s not as if waving a white flag will prove useful to us or anything.

The weather looks nice today though, so I’ll be going out now. Until next time, bye bye :)

Food in KSA - Mahalabiya

Have you ever been to a store, saw a weird-looking/sounding food and thought, “I MUST TRY THIS! WHOA!”

Only to come back home and realize that it was just a simple vanilla pudding.

Or, you went to Saudi Arabia, specifically Mecca and Medina, and saw a pair of elderly looking at the food while muttering, “Ape kejadahnye mahalabiya ni?”

I’m almost tempted to translate that to “What the hell is mahalabiya?” Oh wait I just did.

“Haram jadah!” And then they’ll laugh. “Orang ingat kita sebut haram jadah nak gi Haram Jeddah.”

Haram jadah – some sort of playful curse words, usually used by the elderly. Maybe. The direct meaning of that is, hmm…bastard?

7aram and Jeddah – Mecca and Jeddah (cities in KSA)

I used to see a lot of taxis in the cities back then (not so much nowadays), yelling the places they’ll drive you to, for example, “El-7aram! Jeddah! El-7aram! Jeddah!”

(I just have to write the ‘h’ in 7aram as 7 because Haram actually means pyramid, and I don’t want other people to be confused, you see)

And those elders will snicker and say, “Haram jadah. Haha haram jadah.”

It was weird, indeed it was. 8D

Where was I? Oh yeah food! Why did I talk about taxis all of a sudden?

Anyway, usually I would pop in and say, “Tu dadih je kot makcik…”

Oh yeah, that’s just a normal pudding, auntie.

“Dadih? Haram jadah betullah.”

:D

It's great to actually know what to eat and what you probably don't want to eat, isn't it? Oh and don't thank me, just remember me in your prayer, I'm sure you will.

(HARHARHAR)

Mahalabiya – مهلبية – pudding


(I can’t find a photo of a store-made mahalabiya (!!!) so I nicked the photo from here)
(I’ll update this if I bought another one of these, of course)

How does it taste like?

It’s a milk and rice pudding. You can expect it to be quite tasteless (strictly my opinion) but the one that I ate was vanilla flavored so it wasn’t too bad. There are tons of better puddings on the market, though. And it won’t fill your stomach. Of course, it’s just a dessert after all. Don’t expect it to be something awesome and will completely satisfy your stomach though because it really won’t. You’ll be extremely disappointed like this certain person. You’re looking at one. Yeah the one who types this yeah there she is.

“JUST A PUDDING WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…” wailed endlessly.

Should you try it?

Depends on you really but it’s not that special to be honest.

I don’t know what to say anymore. This thing is really plain.

But give it a go, sometimes your mouth would crave something soft and fresh after constantly being shoved with sugary and spicy stuff. I’d rather think it’ll be nice on a hot day. And it’s hot in this part of the world every single day (okay it might rain once in a while but that’s rare.)

The next food might be a bit more interesting, so look forward to that. :)

The Adventure of an Abaya-tripping Kid in a Supermarket

You know how odd of a day it'll be if your mother suddenly decided to treat you to an ice cream;

(this reminds me…I HAVEN’T TAKEN THE ICE CREAM PIC FROM MY DAD YET! I’ll update this when I’ve got the pic haha :P)

TADA~!








Please tilt your screen 360 degrees if you want to discover the name of the ice-cream shop. Ooh exciting!

Okay fine I'll save you trouble of troubling yourself due to me not wanting to trouble myself by fixing the photo properly by telling you the name myself.

Mini Melts! Honestly I’ve never eaten this before. Then again I haven’t eaten a lot of things in my life.

Yup not even the meat of a camel. Although that could sound a tad disturbing to some people, I suppose. But the only question that people often ask me when I returned to Malaysia was, "Have you eaten camel's meat?" Too bad the answer always sounded like this, "...hey I've drank camel's milk!"

Anyhow, the mini melts must’ve cracked/frozen my brain or something, or perhaps triggered the weird side of me, because out of a sudden, I felt like dancing and overreacting and jumping and speaking Malay without restrictions in a shopping mall, in true Malaysian fashion. Yup.

Not that I know any Malaysian who acts like me. Not that I know a lot of Malaysians either. Have you perhaps, acted like me before? No? Okay.

It’s just my luck though that that day, that particular day, out of all the days in the calendar, that day is the day where I almost always consistently nearly (sorry for the extreme excessiveness, but feel my pain!) tripped on my new-too-long abaya and accidentally clicked the low resolution on my camera phone.



Boo at least I have the pictures.

So indeed, the pictures are small. Indeed, the pictures are awful. But still, better than nothing!

(My digital camera kinda sucks and attracts too many unwanted attention due to its attractive icy blue color *seductive isn’t it?* so I resorted to using the camera phone instead)

(But I do love my camera phone better than the digital camera anyway)

The victim for that day was;



(Look the trolley is made in France! I’m excited already.)

Al-Danube Supermarket, located in Red Sea Mall – which, in my opinion, is one of the most high-class malls in Jeddah – is an unbelievably large supermarket that sells loads of stuff, ranging from beautiful jewelry (too bad I don’t have a picture of the jewelry section, but this is how one of the jewelries looks like;



Pretty. It's a bangle by the way. I could have taken this picture with my digicam but it probably was mad at my blunt confession that I love camphone than 'it', so it wouldn't switch on for me. In short, the battery's flat. Oh! I haven’t closed the bracket yet! Okay wait) to scrumptious breads, hot from their bakery, filled completely with foreigners and Arabs who look like they’re loaded with cash.

But meh…I don’t know.



I don’t know. You see, this mirror is perhaps a couple inches shorter than me. But the mirror is TINY. Ironic how I capitalized that word. But the mirror is TINY I can barely see my pores. (lies) Okay I can barely see the edges of my hijab.





But these are cute, don’t you think? I kind of wish I was actually in a Willy Wonka store and you can actually eat these cups/plates/thingies.



And I love these Arabic cups! Whenever I went to my Arab friends’ house I’ll study their cups and they’ll give me weird looks (mostly their younger sisters/brothers) which makes me want to give them an equally weird look but I digress.



I said to my mother, “WE NEED TO BUY THIS. AT LEAST ONCE. I MEAN ONE. MUST. LAAZEM. MESTI. MUST.”

And then I think we went to the second hand shop and saw a lot of these but they all smelt so strongly of qahwa – Arabic coffee.

I love qahwa. My family don’t. Okay my father kind of does.



I get giddy just by staring at the smooth, glossy surface. Yeah I don’t get this fascination either.



I went to this store with an aunt’s son once, he’s four, and he was eating cotton candy, and I said, “LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE! I’VE TOLD YOU NOT TO BE MESSY!” And then he was like, “THAT’S NOT ME!!!”

Umm…lol?



They have an entire aisle of shampoos, it’s insane! But they didn’t have Asience nor Ba-Wang, unfortunately. :P



A whole section dedicated to tissues! Okay not that surprising fine.



Toothpastessssssssssssss! Surprised now? :P



Rice…I love rice. Don’t we all? You don’t? Okay I don’t like basmati rice either. Jasmine rice all the way.



BUT I LOVE ME SOME OLIVE OIL! It’s my staple in life.



All kind of cooking oils too, but none of those are palm oils. Compare it to Malaysia…excuse me I need to giggle.

Things that you need to know about shopping in Saudi Arabia – the stores will close whenever it’s prayer time. If it’s a normal store, you’ll be chased out from the store like a cat. If you’re in the midst of paying, yeah you’ll need to continue your paying AFTER praying.

If you’re in a supermarket?



YOU’LL BE LOCKED IN FOREVER MUAHAHAHA. Yeah. If you feel the need to use the ladies room, well, you can’t.

I was there in another supermarket that one day (Panda is Hyper Market, no I mean HyperPanda Market, you know, the one with the apple logo. Where’s the panda anyway?), waiting for the door to open, and when it did, do you know what happened?

Tons of people were at the other side, waiting to ambush into the store. Felt like I was in an airport, and a whole lot of people were waiting for people’s arrival.

And I can’t get out because all of them wanted to get it! Wah lau need to use the toilet some more. (grumbling in Manglish)

Okay, enough reminiscing.

Who am I kidding? This entire post consists of reminiscing! :P Anyway, back to the supermarket.



Healthy drinks for a healthy you. Can’t say it’s THAT healthy for your pocket.



All kinds of teas yet the only type that we drink are…



These yellow Lipton teas. Why can’t we drink Twinning for a change? x.x



An entire section dedicated to pasta…but it tastes just the same, anywhere, everywhere, anytime.



But I must say their frankfurters (as well as burgers and nuggets) taste a whole lot better than the ones we have in Malaysia. You can actually taste the meat, it’s more satisfying, and how come Malaysia got the short end of the stick in everything? I CAN’T EVEN-



CHOCOLATES! Even their chocolates taste better than ours. You can ACTUALLY taste the chocolate, ours tasted like sugar and some artificial flavor, how is that even possible I CAN’T EVEN-



This is their bakery! Isn’t it pretty? Yeah bad camera phone, it doesn’t capture the beauty of the bakery properly. *smacks phone*



One of the great things about this country. The juices. The thirst-quenching juices. Endless supply of juices. Fresh, all kind of fruits juices. Juices, I’ll miss you a lot FOR SURE.



Oh hello there, fruits.



WHOA! What are you? This is – if I’m not mistaken – the fruit of the cactus. I’ve never eaten that before but some of my friends had. Apparently it’s good.



And these are…these. What are these again? Oh yeah, packed vegetables. I think.



All kind of CEREALS. I’m going insane. Can I take all of them? No? Okay.

Can I just take a box? Yes? Yay!

What? You want to pay NOW? I need to be fast? Okay, I’ll choose one, FAST!

…

Do you know what cereal I took back home in the end?

Frosties. FREAKING FROSTIES.

…

At least I still have food. Think of those who don’t even know how cereals tasted like. Okay, okay, I’m very grateful that I can even eat Frosties.

Still…

I like rice better.



I really do, okay? :D