Malaysia

     Hello. How're things? I'm back. I'm back in blogging and I'm back in Ireland. Took a few weeks off going back to home country, the land of the free, the place where 40 degrees temperature is the normal temperature, Malaysia! I went back home to see my family and celebrate Eid as well. Everything's fine, my family are fine both, my family and my in laws. It was the most busiet weeks in that time. Went back home and straight to clean my house, preparing for Eid. Bought some stuff for my bedroom that we left a year and half ago. Cleaning up my room. Fixing stuff. Celebrating Eid in Malaysia is different from here. The feeling is different. Also, that was the first time I've celebrated Eid Fitr with my in laws, same goes to my wife.

    Ramadhan. Let me tell you the differences between Ramadhan in Malaysia and in Ireland. I tell you my routine but during the weekends or holidays, not working days. In Ireland, my routine is that wake up 5am in the morning (4am or 5am depends on daylight savings) and sahoor. Go to bed to continue sleep and wake up around 12 in the noon or so. Then, go out buy some groceries to cook to break our fast. After breaking my fast, watch Netflix, gaming or reading comic books, go to bed. That's it. In Malaysia, wake up around same time, 5am, have our sahoor, and continue sleep. Wakes up around 10am or 11am and go out to buy some stuff for Eid preparation. Around 5pm, go to Ramadhan bazaar near my house and buy drinks and foods for breaking fast. Break our fast, then rest a bit and go out around 10pm to search for snacks or bites, we call them 'moreh'. Around 12 midnight, we search around for coffee and tea. Then, go back home watch some Netflix a bit and went to bed. You can't get the Ramadhan bazaar or coffee and tea at 12 midnight in Ireland. Towns and cities in Malaysia is still alive after 12 midnight still whereas in Ireland everything closes around 6pm and only bars and pubs are open at night. Muslims can't drink. Everything is quite in Ireland after 6pm.

    Eid Fitr. Man! I got to tell you, Eid in Malaysia was a blast! Literally and figuratively! On the night of Eid eve, people would just blasting fireworks in the sky. We could see fireworks everywhere near my house. When we drove around and we could see houses with colourful lights dangling outside of the their house, decorated. As if almost, they're battling with each other to show who's got the best decoration. We decorated our houses as well but it was a last minute kind of decoration so we couldn't beat any of our neighbours. Eid came and I got to meet all the family members. My siblings, uncles and aunts, cousins. Couldn't say all of them but I would say most of them. Some of them couldn't travel back to Kedah. It's all good. We went to a lot of open houses and enjoyed some Eid oriented food. When I say Eid oriented food is that food you usually find during Eid season. I gained weight when we went back. Now I'm trying to reduce the weight back by a bit. Just enough to remove this belly fat of mine. Back to the Eid stuff, we went to my in laws hometown in Taiping which is in Perak, which is in somewhere in the border between the North and South of Malaysia, I'd say. I haven't met most of the family members there. They're a huge family and I felt welcomed there. I don't felt like an outsider that much. Well, to be fair, most of the people would talk to me to just ask how's life in Ireland that sort of questions but some of them would just talk about different stuff which I very much appreciated rather than to just give the same reply over and over such as, "Ireland is okay.", "Weather is shitty but cold kind of shitty.", "Irish lads are nice lads and friendly." that sorts of replies. Then I brought my wife to visit my grandfather who lives in Langkawi Island. She've been to Langkawi Ireland, I think once or twice there. So she was excited at the time, until we're there and it was 40+ degree celcius outside but she enjoyed them, I presume. After visiting my grandfather, we went back to Sungai Petani (our hometown). A few days later, I brought my in laws to Cameron Highlands for short vacation. It was a blast. We had fun and we bought loads of souvenirs for the lads in Ireland. Already gave them the souvenirs past few days, they love them, which is good cause that means I can go back home again to buy some more later.

    After Eid school holidays ended, it was slow days. Like laundries, continue to clean up my room, spent few days with my family, my in laws, visiting old friends. Got some good news from all my friends. Different kinds of good news. It was fairly slow days. We would just drove around, buy stuff, go to restaurants that we normally wouldn't go to but thanks to Euro and currency exchange. My wife asked me do I want to get any fast foods and I quickly turned the options down. No fast foods. All Malaysian foods. We didn't do any food hunting when we were there. I thought that food hunting is just something that we're not going to do when we're there but we did coffee hunting instead. My eldest sister gets a free coffee everytime we did coffee hunting and my sister in law as well. Here, in Ireland, we can't do coffee hunting at night. Everything would be close except the pubs and bars. Also it's kind of dangerous to walk around at night in the city. Drunkards are one problem but the junkies, fuck man, junkies everywhere. At night it's kind of dangerous to walk outside, even in pairs. It's either you walk in a larger groups or you're a huge freaking Irish man, then you're safe. If not, then just stay in doors, lock your doors and just drink the coffee you make by yourself.

    These little things that made me know to myself that I don't want to settle in Ireland for good. Yes everything is cheaper here, groceries are cheaper here, the comics, the computer components, the branded stuff, the chocolates but luxury alone can't keep me here for good. The surroundings, the feeling, the family that is what keeps me driving myself to work and save up money to buy a house in Malaysia and live there again. Before this, when we were newly married, me and my wife, we don't have a lot of money, we just had enough. Just enough to enjoy a bit of luxury and enough to pay for our commitments, but that enough is something. That enough is something that I've cherished till this day. We're have a saying in malay which is, "Hujan emas di negeri orang, hujan batu di negeri sendiri, lebih baik di negeri sendiri.". This roughly means, no matter how bad my country is comparing to other countries, it's better to be in my country rather than others. Not saying that I hate Ireland, no. It's saying that no amount of good stuff in other countries can outweigh the small amount of good stuff in Malaysia.