Langkawi 2018

Summing up my #traveldiaries of 2018 - here's a short (and at the risk of blowing my own horn, one of my favourite vlogs cause I think it's one of the sweetest trips I've been on) vlog of our "adventures" in Langkawi! 

The trip was a birthday celebration for fellow le pest (Pisang's sister - Dada) but as they've been doing for the last 25 years of their lives - we co-celebrated their birthdays as it was just one after another. Our adventures consisted of getting massages and lounging around the pool/ beach & the villa #wild :p

Some of my favourite snaps of the trip:

Bali 2018

So one night, while we were chilling at Chawan (#tempatlepakstandard..), we were talking about how we desperately need a holiday - it was that time of the year you know where Q1 just finished, you're halfway in Q2 and you're feeling the blues.. 

Me: You know what.. I really just wanna go to Bali and get massages each day! 

And the next thing I knew, everyone was on board with this plan and in the midst of planning the charity drive, we were booking our flights and villas for Bali.. #perform

With a couple of new addition later, we were #Frinally on our way to Bali on the 13th of July, and I couldn't be more excited! 

Even before the trip started I've decided to vlog because I am not doing a 4-parts write up like how I did for Spain..., so enjoyyyyy~ :) 

p/s: I apologise if for the amateur-ness of this vlog, but I'll try to improve for the next one! 

My personal highlight of the trip: Kelingking Beach. 

I mean just look at that! Here I am a girl who refuses to hike like every other person around my age group back in KL, and just because I saw people playing at the beach down below I immediately went "I WANT TO GO DOWN!!!" without thinking of the consequences (of coming back up..)..

400m (to put things into perspective, the Eiffel Tower is only about 324m tall and the Petronas Twin Towers are about 452m... #whatfearofheights) downward vertical height later, we were greeted with one of the most breath taking view (quite almost literally)!

Raya 2018

It is about a week+ away from Raya Haji so I suppose it is not too late to recap about my Raya Aidilfitri and puasa this year. 

Highlight of my Fasting Month

The RefKayu (unfortunately, this is what we call ourselves - as per our Whatsapp group name) group has been talking about doing some charity work instead of our usual lepak session for quite sometime. It started with the idea of going to help out at a soup kitchen, but when Ramadhan came Anis & Suhaib thought of instead donating to an orphanage/ tahfiz school. 

This small idea was initially to include us and a few of our small friends, but one day Anis got a genius plan of creating a "poster" about it so we can post about it on our social media and get others onboard too so we got Ain to design in and the rest is history.. 

From 7 contributors we ended up with 70 contributors! And this was excluding those who contributed clothes, food, etc. We managed to collect RM19,164 and alhamdulillah got to donate 62% of it in cash to the school/ orphanage.. 

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Berlalu lah sudah Ramadhan, sebulan berpuasa

Bila Syawal tiba kita rayakan, dengan rasa gembira

As usual, Raya has always been my favourite month of the year and for the past few years I have been lucky enough to have Raya so near to my birthday (in 31 years time Raya will fall on my birthday insyaAllah :D - I have been counting for this day since I was in Primary School.. #aisyaissues) so Jun-July has been quite festive for quite sometime in the past few years.

As usual also, since my mum is an orphan, we always go back to Daddy's side for Raya. This year we went back the night before the last day of puasa (sampai just in time for sahur #asalways) and then throughout the entire day of fasting the next day we were prepping all the Raya food for break fast and the next day. 

#CikKentangTurns26

So here I am sitting in my room trying to write about my birthday/ turning 26 and feeling uninspired to write long lengthy posts about it..

Instead I shall do it in "bullet points" form..

26 Things about Turning 26

UK 2018

I am so sorry for the delay for the last part of my UK-Spain travelogs but I'll save that for another post (about what I've been up to in the last 1.5 months..). 

Anyways! 

On the 5th of January, we made our way back to England. And we were quite happy to leave because Seville was getting rather gloomy.. We arrived back in Brighton about late evening and after a slight unpacking (we just grabbed our toiletries) we proceeded to doing what we do best - watch Friends while waiting for dinner to be delivered to us. We had Japanese and for a moment there a I was reminded of the usual E11 Japanese dinner ritual.. #rindu 

After dinner, we continue to laze around and eventually fell asleep, note: Best. Sleep. Ever!! 

Not for Zoe however as she had to wake up early to fetch Faiz from the train station, and he was arriving at 8am-ish. Zoe tried her best to convince me to follow so we can all go for breakfast afterwards but I am me, I don't wake up before 8, ever - especially on holidays.. 

Once I did wake up however (some time pass 8ish) I decided to do some light unpacking and repacking while waiting for them to come back (cause they did eventually go went to grab some light breakfast - they came back with like croissants and some other pastries #beggarscantbechoosers) 

Ever since Zoe showed me one of her specs casing that she said she got from a museum, I've been obsessed in finding pretty casings like these and when I found them almost at every touristy spot in Seville & Granda - I just had to get them.. I know 4 seems a little bit extreme, but trust me, within minutes of arriving home and unpacking, I lost half of it to mother.. (and this was on top of the Kindle cover, some coasters, and lipsticks that I got for her.. #birthdaypresentsettle)

Once I heard voices I made my way downstairs and we had our breakfast together with our mug of Milo each, courtesy of Ms. Chia hehe.

Spain 2018 (Pt. 4) - Hidden Gems of Seville

Considering the adventures we've been having the past couple of days, our 4th day in Spain consisted of "waking up naturally with no alarms".. And finally after what felt like weeks (probably is), I woke up at normal human hours like 9AM around there.. AAAAAAHHHH! Lega man!

The agenda of the day was just to shop, have lunch and just lounge around see where the day takes us. 

First stop of the day was of course, ZARA. To be fair, it wasn't like I needed to shop for myself much (surprisingly ZARA Spain wasn't having their sale, so it didn't much different whether I buy it in UK or in Spain) but Anis wanted a pair of heels that she claimed could only be found in Spain. So I literally made a point to find nearest ZARA within whatever area I was in just to look for her shoes. Found her shoes, but unfortunately wasn't in her size and I felt so bad cause I texted her saying I found it!! Only to realise it wasn't her size -.- 

But still, Aisya & ZARA, we have a special bond, so of course I still found some stuff for myself despite how many times I've walked in the store before this hehehe. 

Also next to the ZARA near our hotel was Amorino, so you know I don't say no to ice cream....

ZARA & ice cream, always... ;) 

Spain 2018 (Pt. 3) - A Day in Granada

About 10 years back, my parents took our family to Spain. I remember falling in love with the Alhambra so much, that I made it a point inside me that I'd come back and visit it again. 

When Zoe & I decided that we'd go to Spain I thought we could squeeze in a trip to Granada as well, but given that we only had 5 days it was rather hard to cover two cities. But after much spamming of Alhambra pictures by me (thanks to @spain.vacations on Instagram, they have some really nice photos of Spanish cities and its attractions guys!) and a well thought-out itinerary based on what we want to cover and how convenient it was to get to those places from our hotel in Seville, we found a full-day where we can spend visiting Alhambra in Granada instead (which was 3 hours away from Seville by bus/ train). 

Since we only have a day, we really should maximise all our time and so one fine day I decided to check for Alhambra entrance tickets (previous experience reminded me that we had to buy tickets) and to my dismay, THEY WERE ALL SOLD OUT! 

-__________________- 

And mind you this was after I bought our bus tickets (because I read online that the bus were rather comfortable too and since it was half the price of a train ticket but the same amount of time spent travelling, I thought why not) so I'm like "What are we going to do in Granada?!" (based on my deteriorating memory, I didn't have much to do in Granada other than Alhambra). Thankfully the tickets were returnable because based on the travel tips I got online, Alhambra tickets should be booked 6 months in advance of your trip to avoid disappointment as they do limit the number of visitors per day to the Nasrid's Palace as it's an old wooden structure and when this happened it was just slightly above a month before our trip... 

But what I was even more thankful is this little voice in my head (it could be gut feel, or it could be a guardian angel - I prefer to believe in the latter) told me; "Aisya, before you return the tickets, make one last check and see if you can find any more tickets".

So I actually Googled "Alhambra tickets sold out, what do I do?" and to my surprise there are many more other people like me and there were actually a lot of articles suggesting on what to do! Lol, guess I'm not the only one who plans a random trip to Alhambra last minutely.. 

The article told me to book this other Granada history sites tour (Dobla de Oro) that would also include entrance tickets to Alhambra and thank the lord some of these tours are based on allotment basis rather than live integration with the main ticketing system cause otherwise I wouldn't have tickets to Alhambra! 

Even though the tour tickets are slightly more expensive that the Alhambra tickets only (as it includes tickets to other sites too obviously), but given we have saved so much more on our transportation tickets the extra EUR 4 is negligible.

After seeing the Alcazar and on the way to Plaza Espana Zoe & I were having this conversation about what's the most beautiful monument I've seen. Safe to say Alhambra was one of them (Kaabah isn't beautiful structurally but looking at it will give you a feeling that no other other structure can't compare) for me and upon hearing this Zoe was even more excited to see the Alhambra the next day to see if it lives up to the expectation. 

That morning we both had to wake up rather early as our train to Granada was at 8.15AM and it takes about 20 minutes walk from our Hotel to the train station (pagi-pagi, sejuk-sejuk this girl wants to walk to the station.. Sabo jer lah...). 

As Granada was slightly chiller than Seville, a thicker coat was required (and thankfully both Zoe & I found the perfect one in ZARA on the day we arrived #sempatlagi) 

Spain 2018 (Pt. 2) - Exploration in Seville

- brace yourself for 112 photos in this post.. here we go! -

Despite the tiredness, I still found myself awake 5 hours after falling asleep x.x While I was scrolling through Instagram, playing Gardenscapes etc to keep myself occupied, Zoe was snoring away like a baby #jealousssssss

Spain 2018 (Pt. 1) - Arriving in Seville

3 hours snooze fest on the flight later, we left gloomy land and landed in sunny Seville! I mean just look at that and do the comparison yourself..  

UK 2017

Okay! I have decided that I shall do this in 2 parts - one post for UK (London, Brighton & Hastings), and one (maybe two - depending on how long it gets) for Spain (Seville & Granada). 

So brace yourself for super long posts!

London
28 December - 30 December 2017

After running errands all day (it was really like a week of errands), I finally had time to properly pack for my flight that night late that evening. Years of last minute packing has prepared me for this moment and I'm happy to announce the only thing I forgot to bring was a pack of vitamin C (I told you, once you turn 25 your body is no longer as strong as it was.. #weakling!) which I must say is not bad. Got my vitamin C at the airport and I was all ready to just pop it in my drink and snooze all the way to Heathrow, but God clearly had other plans for me.. 

My flight got delayed from 11.30PM to 2.30AM - they had to switch aircraft and all.. But thankfully my flight turned out to be empty so I had an "economy flatbed" all to myself :p I didn't even bothered waiting for the "wear your seat belt" sign to turn off, I just snoozed immediately after take-off until mid-flight (cause the seat belt was starting to get uncomfortable..). 

Also, back to the whole your-body-is-just-not-the-same-after-25 thing, I have lost my ability to sleep throughout the entire flight. About 4 hours before landing I was WIDE awake (and mind you this was probably about 4am UK time x.x). Thankfully I had a book with me (usually books that go on flights with me are just a waste of space in my handbag/ hand-carry), so I managed to catch up on HP6. (At the point of me writing this, I'm very sure I haven't pick up where I left off with it. But I'm currently reading another book #defensive)

Upon landing, I managed to clear immigration and pick up my luggage within 30mins of landing - I forgot how efficient things are in UK. Hopped into a cab (because Heathrow Express was under maintenance -___-) and started bugging Zayana: 

At 9.15AM: "I'm in the cab now to the hotel, probably would reach your place about 1030AM"

At 9.17AM: "Btw, SELAMAT PAGI!!!"

At 10.00AM: "Hrmm, she hasn't reply my texts.. I should call her" *2 minutes later* "Pisang what doing?"

Zayana:"Trying to ignore you"

At 10.10AM: "My soul is ready!"

At 10.15AM: "Map says it's 5 minutes walk to your place.."

At 10.20AM: "I'm hereeeeeeeeeeeee"

Zayana: Of all times you want to be on time -_________________- *once she tagged me in* Ma, look, I found a pest downstairs..

Aunty (Zayana's Mum) fed me spaghetti goreng before we left cause knowing me I missed all my meals in flight (sleep > flight meals). At least Mummy was pleased that I had proper breakfast instead of my bag of chips (though I did have a bag of chips in the taxi cause I was really hungry!)

First stop of the day was to pick up the Harry Potter & the Cursed Child tickets I got for later that evening (and the evening after). When we got to the ticketing office, we found the main entrance empty as in without any humans at all. Pisang were all excited to take a photo there and thankfully we met another Potter fan who wanted his photo taken too (he was travelling alone) and I swear he's a trained insta boyfriend cause the pictures he took were so straight! *claps*

Return of The Princess (Poopyhead)

Hellooooooooooo - I am back! 

I was supposed to take some time off to clear my blog (because seriously who needs to be reading the musings of a 15 y/o when you're 25..) and one thing led to another, suddenly I do not know what happened to my 2017! It just flew by so fast and the next thing I knew, I was on a plane ready to usher in the new year with (one of) my bestfriend(s) in a (not so) foreign country!

Which actually is the reason why I decided to blog again - solely because I want to document the trip somewhere and well it is >2 months since the trip ended but I will try my best to recall everything as if it happened yesterday.. 

But as that would require quite sometime to finish (still haven't truly decided on how to best write it down really) - so I shall leave my 2017 highlights here as a "catch-up" :) 

 Went to London with Mummy end-Jan as some aspects of #kulilife is beyond my credit limit.. 

Living in the Wilderness

Right, so I mentioned before that last Thursday my IKEA delivery got cancelled as I was rushing other things?

Well the other things was a birthday dinner & then a sleepover with the girls.

Towards the end of dinner, I texted the girls:

Me: Im coming with food, you guys better be hungry!
Zoe: LOL! My dad bought a box of fried chicken for you
Me: Damn... Anybody wanna go workout?

Anyways once I got to Zoe's, her sisters were still awake and I swear one of her sisters has a bottomless pit of a stomach or something, so guess who ended up finishing majority of the leftovers? Hehe #beatenbya6yearold

Anyways, in typical us fashion, the sleepover consist of binging, clingy talk and raiding each other's closet.

Zoe (while showering with us in the same room): Can you see my butt?
Min & I: No
Zoe: What about now?
Min & I: Ahaha, still nope
Zoe: Now?
Me: Noooooo! Do you want us to see your butt?
Zoe: I'm just testing my limit

Midway while talking, Zoe said something that caught both of our attention (it's pretty normal for us to zone out of the conversations we have with each other cause we are damn talkative anyways) and out of reflex I guess, Min went to stick her head out and let's just say boundaries were crossed. (for them at least) LOL!

Zoe (while still showering): Who am I talking to? You guys sound similar
Me: Me. I think Min's asleep already
Zoe: NO YASMIN. YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO SLEEP!
Me: Yeah Min, I swear I'm gonna take pictures of you if you sleep here
Zoe: Yeah and then we're gonna post it to social media!
Min: I'm awake!
Me: Hahaahahahahahahah! She terus got up and checked her phone!
Zoe: Yeahp, got her. "Social Media" = "Is my hair okay?" for her.

Min (while walking downstairs to the kitchen at midnight to makan): ARGH! Spider!!!
Me (a minute later trying to open the tudung saji): OMG THERE'S A CICAK!!!!! I am not eating that chicken anymore!
Zoe: Cicaks don't eat chicken, it's safe!
Me (about three minutes later while drinking water): Omg there's even a semut in my plain water -__- I swear I feel like I'm living in the wilderness now

Min (while raiding Zoe's closet for stuff to "pinjam"): Sya why aren't you taking any clothes?!
Me: After my last 48 hours, I don't deserve new clothes. I feel sic

k just thinking about it..
Zoe: Ahahahaha! She's having a retail nightmare

Here's what our midnight "Workout" was like: 

Happy Tree Friends

When I was a student I'd come home almost every breaks and my friends (mainly Zoe & Min - Zayana & Raema was as much as a homebird as I am) would always ask "Why don't you go travel instead?" and I get it, everybody has different preferences, mine was to come home for those 1-3 months break. 

Now that Zoe is studying abroad, she doesn't come home as often as I do but at least I get to see her during summer and this year she decided to make a trip back for her 2-weeks-short winter break! So that means very short time spent with each other (i.e. cramping as much time as possible) as she's also was travelling to Japan with her family. 

We had brunch at Brycg @ Greenhouse by Muir on the second day she's back (thankfully I was already on leave!). Initially it was supposed to be the 3 of us but Faiz decided to join too as she's about to leave for Japan and Faiz is leaving for London. 

We gathered at my place before making our way to Brycg and met Faiz there. Initial plan was to reach Brycg at 11.30AM but as usual when are we ever on time? Thankfully though we didn't get there that early as just so happen Brycg wasn't opened til 12PM on that day due to their kitchen being serviced. #blessingindisguise 

While waiting for Brycg to open, we had pastries downstairs.

"I came back from England and you guys want me to have pastries?! Ahh wth, I'm hungry anyways" - Zoe. 

We were seated as soon as we finished our pastries and Faiz (who's notorious to always being late due to his many many meetings) made it right before we were heading up. 

Upstairs, we took like another 15 minutes just to decide on what to order for ourselves and what to share (our motto was "It's okay, Faiz is here to finish our food if we can't"). 

Faiz: So have you guys decided on what to share?
Me & Zoe: No.
Me: This is why friends should never be running businesses together.
Zoe: Yeah nobody will be able to decide on anything! She wants it this way, I want it that way and then Min just "Urmmmm, I'm okay with anything".. 

When we were finally ready to order, the waitress said whatever Zoe wanted to order initially was not available (as the brunch menu is only available on weekends).. So that took us another 10 minutes!

"So we took additional 30 minutes to order after they sat us down.. Yeahp, that sounds like us" - Zoe. 

Thankfully the service was faster than us :p 

This was only half of the food on the table on that day (read: What an impending food comma looks like)

Origami Frogs & Friends

________11 December 2016________

So our dearest Shrimpy turns a year older every 5th December and this year due to her birthday falling on a weekday, we decided to celebrate with her on the weekend.

We initially were planning for dinner but then while thinking about the birthday cake, since Shrimpy isn't really a cake person, we thought of giving her a "pancake-cake" (she used to always make us pancakes when we're feeling down or whenever we want :p) and decided to do brunch instead (cause pancakes are easier to find during brunches than dinner). 

We then needed a theme and decided to throw her a Japanese themed brunch as she loves anime and she's also travelling to Japan a couple of days later after the brunch. So I started Googling for "Japanese themed brunch deco" and saw that there's lots of origami/ paper lanterns elements associated to it.

I've not done origami for quite some time (last memory of it that I can recall was when I was still in primary school) and had to watch multiple youtube videos to convince myself that I can do this.. #longliveYoutube! After work one day, I made a quick trip to Daiso and got myself two packs of origami papers (clearly I'm the kind that likes to over prepare for stuff).

So yeah, the next day, there I was making origami during lunch at work, but it was so therapeutic that sometimes I just take out one paper and started folding out of stress..

Pisang was all "Are you not at work?" when I sent her the photo.

 After setting all the necessary arrangements, on the day itself I took a wrong turning to get to Greenhouse by Muir and was late.. Just so happened Shrimpy arrived exactly on time (i.e. the same time I arrived)! -______-' So I immediately texted Pisang: "Shrimpy is here and I just arrived.. Help!" and saw her running outside to greet Shrimpy while I quickly dashed in and set up the table.

Pisang then escorted Shrimpy up and even though the surprise slightly failed, but there was still the "OMG!" and classic Shrimpy's happy/awed giggle that followed not long after. #phew!

All smiles from the birthday girl! 

We then ordered our food and talked-ate-talked-ate-talked all the way through about 3.30pm? - Basically late enough for us to have tea even lol. 

Yeahp, that's Shrimpy's bouquet of cupcake half eaten :p

All in all, it was such a good day filled with good company and food!

Our "Christmas card" photo

Le minions.

p/s: The origami frogs were part of the self entertainment for the day and afterwards (for Shrimpy to troll her family), lol. Who would have thought that a frog race can be a party game..

Pocayana's Party in the Woods

This is way long overdue, so let's jump into the time machine and go back to August/ September.

____________________________________________________________________________

Cik P finally decided to on what she wanted to do for her birthday like 2-3 weeks prior to her birthday. She wanted a full blown party, solely because she wanted a chalked-out backdrop.

This was actually quite funny also, because initially Emilia (Cik P's friend) and I were planning on throwing her a surprise (I still remember going over the list of "If I was Zayana, who would I invite to my birthday dinner?" with Emilia) and we even got her Cik P's sister (Dada) onboard to help us spy on Cik P.

One day, while I was out I got a text from Dada: "Aisya, I thought this was supposed to be a surprise? Why is Zayana going over a list of party planner with Kak Ya?"

I immediately made my way to Cik P's and from just looking at party planners, we ended up confirming a date and even went to recce a few potential venues for the dinner. By the end of the day Cik P not only had a (self-appointed) party manager (me!), she also had a confirmed venue (as suggested by her awesome party manager of course)!

This was of course done after sorting it out with Emilia where we decided to let Zayana be as involved as possible with the planning (we don't want her to not like her own party), and we would throw our own surprise elements in there.

So as her PM, I was the middle person dealing with the party planner/ decorator and her and this ladies and gentlemen is when my pesting skills is very useful!

Exhibit A:

The event was <14 days, and we still haven't book the decorator because we're still waiting for the price quote and payment details.. So,

And this is after I messaged her in the morning (previous day): "Hi <insert name>, I think you forgot about me :("

Obviously status reporting is essential in project party management.. She's thankful but Kak Ya thinks Im nuts cause I Bitmoji-ed her, lol. But see that time stamp! It worked!!

Lesson learnt: Always use Bitmoji guys - it'll get their attention and you'll get a reply :p

I've never been more appreciate for pesting skills before this whole entire party management thing, I swear. This is why God placed me in Zayana's life, lol.

Anyways besides managing her party planning, I always was planning on getting her birthday cake - that was something that I told her to leave it up to me. Emilia, Zayana's other friends, and Raema also decided to chip in to the cake and we entrusted KekandCo (love them!) with the cake - and it turned out so beautiful!!

And we also decided to add one "centrepiece" balloon with the cutest name on it (courtesy of Aizat): Pocayana.

I was supposed to pick up the cake during the event day itself, straight from work - which btw I might add wearing all white full day and keeping it clean is a damn challenge (which I barely passed). About 5.30PM sharp I left office and made my way to TTDI to pick up the cake and then drove like a turtle to BSC - which was easy to do anyways cause it's peak hour. However getting to BSC on time during peak hour while driving like a turtle (Milo must've been very shocked at the speed I was driving it) was a challenge!

I needed to get to BSC by 6.15PM as the balloons we ordered were scheduled to arrive during that time. Thankfully I'm quite familiar with shortcuts around Bangsar so I managed to reach BSC by 6.17PM and parked my car, delivered the cake safely to the restaurant all before the balloons arrived!

The balloons arrived with a bang (because one of the balloons popped) and Zayana was in proximity when I collected it (one person you can't expect to come late -.-).. But somehow she didn't really realise what was on the balloons til much later, phew!

All in all the birthday dinner was so perfect - the deco, the kek and more importantly Zayana looked amazing that night. She looked like what Pocahontas should've looked like when Pocahontas went to the ball. 

Isn't it gorgeous?!?! 

The decorator was so worth the money she's paid for because look at the happy face:

What I didn't manage properly for the night was however the servers/ waiters -.- Which quite honestly I thought this wouldn't be something I'm supposed to handle cause well we've been in communication with the restaurant manager, he should've known better..

But I had fun making sure everyone got the food they ordered correctly - I swear I forgot how much I love the rush of event management..

After that chaos was settled, we all enjoyed our food - I enjoyed my lychee watermelon cooler, "cooler" was aptly included in its name - cut the cake, and took lots and lots of pictures!

Some of the pictures from the night:

Clearly not one used to having all the love on her..

In case it wasn't obvious, the theme of the dinner was "Pocahontas" because that's Cik P's favourite Disney princess, so all the guests came as characters from Pocahontas.

Zayana's sister's-boyfriend's-sister made the little playcards/ props of all the characters that people were coming as.

Once a year we do the "Zayana pose" - other times we go back to me always showing the love and she pushing me away.. *rolls eyes*