the one about badrul and raya to remember...

my parents with their seven out of 15 grandchildren...

i guess it was not the same to celebrate raya without my grandmother... no traveling back to kampung kat rumah grandma yang penuh dengan pokok rambutan... dah lama i tak balik pun... tapi i remember clearly the whole layout of her house... and kita orang masih lagih pakai air telaga, tapi sekarang it was pumped masuk paip lah... tak payah pakai timba lagih though sometimes i sajer jer guna nak rasa kenangan silam... my arwah grandma akan buat sendiri nasi impit, bukan beli yang dah ready made macam sekarang nih... she will lenyek the nasi lembik, letak dalam periuk, alas dengan daun pisang, tindih dengan lesung... it was elaborate i tell you... and she will make kuah kacang with bits and pieces of daging inside it... she will also make sambal ikan... and of course ketupat pulut daun palas... she will make it special for my mom yang suka ketupat pulut manis so all of us ada dua choices ketupat pulut... we were not big on lemang so we hardly makan lemang on hari raya except kalau ada orang bawak balik kampung or jiran tetangga yang bagi... i miss all of it so much...

but on the other hand, this year was one of the raya to remember... adik beradik hampir semua berkumpul... on the first day of raya my mom buat nasi dagang... my sister bought some lemang so i cooked daging goreng to eat with it... of course ada sate yang one of my sisters order plus some sate daging yang my dad buat, kuah kacang my second last sister buatkan tapi instead of letak pieces of daging, she put pieces of chicken, and of course nasi impit segera... still... it was a great occasion... ramai jugak saudara mara especially my cousins yang datang rumah... meriah jugak... i can see how happy my parents were tengok muka cucu-cucu semua... there were seven grandchildren out of fifteen yang ada kat rumah... and my parents dah ada cicit dah sekarang... memang riuh rendah...

i helped to cook some food as well... rasa macam buat catering pulak bila masak banyak-banyak... i've made kung pao chicken *my mom's favourite now* fried udang, goreng loh see fun and other stuff... banyak jugak kuih muih raya yang i dapat from hot fm, shaliza, hezz and my friend cheng... happy jugaklah sebab tahun nih i tak order satu kuih pun... budget sikit... of course walaupun ikat perut, duit raya yang i bagi to my parents and anak-anak saudara semua tetap sama... takpalah, raya bukan setiap bulan... sekali setahun... nanti kalau tak cukup duit, pinjamlah dengan my parents... muhahaha... this year pun at least i bergeraklah jugak... takdalah duduk kat rumah my parents kejap than terus balik... this year sempat jugak melawat my cousin's house and other friends yang jemput beraya... tuh pun lepas raya pertama and kedua...

anyway, itulah serba sedikit cerita my raya... i'm sure all of you yang balik kampung having more fun and lebih meriah...