Open House Sakan

I've been receiving a number of Raya Open House invitations for the 27-28 Oct and was discussing with my wife how to go about attending them. After finding difficulty in deciding which house to drop, we finally decided to go to all of them instead of picking and choosing. So that was the beginning of a hectic weekend.

Early Saturday morning after a light breakfast, I went to Bangsar to meet up with a lawyer to sign some documents. Meanwhile my wife went to her friend's (of ITM days) house for a tahlil. We have earlier planned to leave the house around 11:30am so that we can reach the first open house by 12:00 noon. I returned home at 11:15 and got the kids ready but my wife only returned home at 12:20. Apparently the tahlil which involved only ladies had dragged on forever. You know ladies, once they meet it will take ages for them to get started on their program. My wife even skipped the food knowing that we are eagerly waiting at home.

So, we started on the wrong note in terms of timing. The first house on the agenda was Oon's (my staff in TARGET), located in Puncak Alam. Since this was the first house we helped ourselves to quite a bit of the healthy servings of food that was available. There was BBQ chicken and lamb besides rice, laksa and a lot more. I decided not to touch the lamb but had 4 pieces of BBQ chicken.



We left Puncak Alam at about 1:15pm, stopped at the Surau in the area for Zohor and moved to the other side of town in Taman Permata, Hulu Kelang to the house of a senior government officer whom I had many dealings in my work. The roads around Batu Caves were quite heavy with cars. This friend of mine was just awarded a "Datuk" by the Sultan of Pahang. I just has something to drink at his place as I'm still full. We stayed for about 20 minutes and left. Along the way I picked up some banners that I had made for my mosque.

It was now 3:30pm. We had spent quite a bit of time on the road. We are now heading for Haji Hamid's house in Bangi. His open house was between 2:00 to 4:00pm. Since it was almost 4:00 by the time we got to Sungai Besi toll, I called to check whether the open house is still on. We reached his house at about 4:30 and I met a few of my High School's friends. At about 5:15, we left Hj Hamid's house and headed for Hj Zahari's, another school friend who also come from my kampong. He stayed in shophouse where he conducts his curtains business. Looking at the stuff he had, he must be doing quite alright.



We left Bangi at about 6:30 and headed for Melaka. We have another open house in Air Keroh Melaka which starts at 8:00pm. We stopped in Air Keroh rest area for Maghrib prayers before proceeding to Tiara Resort. The house of Nor Ismail was full of people when we arrived. Nor is an architect, so you can expect his bungalow in Tiara Resort to be something special. Apparently, he took one and a half year off from work to supervise the building of his dream home. I pity the contractor, it must have been a nightmare building a house for an architect who does his own supervision :-). I met a few of my High School friends there, Hj. Ir A. Rahman Said, Ahmad Jamal, Zamani, KM Yaakob, A. Malek Abdullah. Jaffri came earlier and left before we arrived. We wanted to drop by Malek's house before calling it a day but the kids were too tired after a long day. We finally made our way to my sister-in-law's house in Serkam. Before going to bed I managed to catch Manchester United's game with Boro which they won 4-1. So all in all it was a glorious day capped by my team winning big.











Sunday started very early as we had planned to go to a few houses. We left Serkam around 10:30am after breakfast at my sis-in-law's. We headed towards Melaka town. I had planned to stop at 2 houses, Hj Rahman Said and Malek. First up we went to Rahman's house. I just called him to check whether he was in. I've been to his house once before with my late father for Hari Raya (must be 2 years ago). I had trouble finding his house and wasted a few precious minutes. We finally found his house and his DO wife managed to cook up mee goreng for us rather quickly. I initially thought his wife was a DO knowing Rahman is not known to joke much but he later told me his wife was a Dapur Officer.

I left Rahman's slightly after 12:00 noon. I had initially planned to be in Tampin by then. So I had to sms Malek telling him that I had to skip his house this time around. Sorry Dole, I promise I will visit you next time. We reached Tampin (Bob's house) around 12:40. Ghafar Baba (Bob) is marrying off his new daughter (another story for another time) and I thought I should be there to share his happy occasion. Slightly after 1:00pm we left Bob's house.




Nor, Bob and me



By the time we reached Simpang Ampat toll it was 1:30pm and I'm supposed to reach Bangsar (Razip's and Awie's house) by 2:00pm. An impossible task, definitely not in my Naza Ria with my wife and 4 kids, so I sms Razip that I'll be at his house around 2:30pm. Still a daunting task but at least doable, give an take a few minutes. You see, Razip had delayed his lunch invitation from 1:00pm to 2:00pm to accommodate my trip from Tampin, so I must at least make a genuine effort to be on time. Anyway, we reached Bangsar around 2:45pm. My kids had not been to Razip's and Awie's in a few years. We used to visit them for Hari Raya without fail. My daughter was looking forward to see for herself Auntie Awie's new house. We met Shariff, Syed and Umie, Maimah and of course Awie's siblings and their spouses. Sle couldn't make it as he was outstation while Ruslan Ghani was overseas.



We stayed for a while and left around 5:00pm and headed for Kota Damansara, the last house for the day although I had planned to visit my cousin in Subang Jaya later in the night. The last house was Azlan's, my colleague from HeiTech Padu. For the last few years Azlan and wife kept inviting us for their open house and we managed to find them for them. After all his son is a school mate of my 4th son, Aizat.




When we reached home it was time for Maghrib. The whole family was spent. I managed to take a nap just after Maghrib and also woke up around 11:30 in time to see the Liverpool-Arsenal game which ended in a draw. I was hoping for Liverpool to win so that Man Utd will remain top of the table. However, considering Arsenal hit the post twice and their players missed open goals on another two occasions, I guess I should be grateful for the result.

Oh what a weekend.