SELAMAT BERPOSA .... AND THAT KARTIKA THING

I think its not too late too wish all of you readers Selamat Berposa.

Its been my routine to send out sms's to friends a day before Ramadhan begins. You just have to love this sms thing. Its an easy and cheap way to keep in touch. A simple sms wish inform the other person that we are thinking of them, especially during meaningful events.

I love to receive sms wishes too, although some complained to me that since now I am in Geneva, its a little bit expensive for them to send sms to me. Mahal la siut! Hang tak pe la dapat swiss franc, a friend replied. Which I understood very well. But no matter, its my thought that counts.

We break our fast in Geneva at around 8.30 pm. My daughters Along (9) and Angah (7) are fasting and are doing remarkably well to cope with the longer fasting time compared to when we were in Malaysia. I really admire their will to go through with it. Especially in this hot summer weather. Hopefully they will complete Ramadhan successfully.

I am still exercising although now since I am fasting, I slowed down a little bit. Just once a day for about 40 minutes. I think that should be enough to stay fit and maintain my current weight.

One of the interesting discussion that I had with my Swiss friends here is about that caning sentence of Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, the part time model who were found guilty for drinking alcohol by the Syariah Court.

Their views are what as I expected. They labeled it as a barbaric and an inhuman act. Personally, I felt that Kartika should be given a chance to redeem herself and perhaps counseling is the best way to deal with the situation before any drastic penalty were to be taken against her. I really think that our authorities back home are projecting the wrong image of Islam, which provides for compassion and repenting for mistakes and wrongdoings.

I also detest the seemingly selective prosecutions and double standards practiced by the Islamic authorities. I mean, Kartika is not the only Malay Muslim who drinks alcohol in Malaysia. What about those VIPs and public figures? Its a true fact that these guys also indulge in the same thing. Why not go for them too. I for one would love to see them caned in public. If an example has to be made, they are the most suitable candidate for their well known popularity and wide reach influences. Perhaps when their bare VIP asses got whipped, people will then take note.

But as I mentioned earlier, its the wrong message sent to the world. On one hand the Government spend millions to project Malaysia as a moderate Islamic country. On the other, these kind of publicity stunts, killed off any serious efforts by the Government of doing that prematurely.

Don't get me wrong, this is not about Kartika drinking problems. This is about the way we do things in Malaysia. Which I found truly questionable.

After all, if our authorities are serious in curbing alcohol and its related problem, the root cause should be addressed. In other countries, campaigns and rally were organized to educate the public and highlight the serious consequences of alcohol consumptions. Why not spend millions on that? For sure it could save somebody's life. And for example, if the authorities could impose the need to paste horrific pictures of smoking related diseases on every pack of cigarettes, why not take the same line and paste that on alcohol drinks too. This is definitely not a problem of one half of the community. This problem transcends above and beyond religious boundaries as well.

People will not remember the Islam Hadhari or whatever good deeds that we did. Rather, what will linger in their minds will be the horrid visual imagination of Kartika being caned.

And I am sure we dont want that to cloud their senses and judgment.

I DID IT!

I FINALLY did it!

Hit my target weight last Thursday. Well its a bit over actually, at 79.9 kg.

As promised, and not at all bragging, the before and after pic.

10 months ago, 104 kg, sagging breast, over expanded belly, with all the glory.

No more perut terjuih.

THE SPEECH. ( You always have to have a speech la.)

I would like to thank my love one, who always believe that I could do it, even if sometimes she did not say it out loud. Thank you for your encouragement and patience with a hot headed, stressful, trying to loose weight husband. I love you!

Thank you to my daughters.

Along, who always asked me how much do I weight every week to check my progress.
Angah, who always said I can do it.
Chacha (the youngest one) , who always encouraged me with her own "You can do it, Abah!. You have to be healthy!"

To my friends.

Haji Z, Azizul, Man Kucing (my biking buddy) and the rest of my office colleagues and superiors in Malaysia.

E43St for the walk around PLCC.

Mr M and for giving a solid advice ' If you have it, use it!' and Mrs A for believing in me.

The NZ, Wangsa Maju, Teh Tarik Session mates. Bros, thanks for the encouragement.

My next door neighbour, the single girls who always scampered running into their house, whenever I came back with a serious a face from my exercise in the evening. (I was actually very tired girls, thats why the serious face. Hehe)

Dr. Guna who said `The choice is yours to make, either start exercise or risk all that coming to you'.

Those interesting people I met while doing my daily exercise routine.

The ex big biker (and also an ex smoker).
The lady with the family in front of PLCC whom I met every Sunday morning.
The Indonesian worker who never fail to say hello in PLCC whenever he saw me.
The polite salesgirl and salesman at Fitness Concept, Alamanda, Putrajaya.
The nice PLCC guards who I am sure, were wondering who is that crazy guy, walking around PLCC three times twice daily, wearing windbreaker even under the hot and shimmering sun.

The sponsors (I wish!)

GT Bicycles
Anakku Diapers
Apple Ipod Nano
Nike
Asics
Pagoda T shirts
Puma
Pro-Form
100 Plus

Those who were encouraged and inspired and started to exercise on their own, I am glad and forever humbled.

Special thanks for the Nasi Lemak And Nescafe Tarik readers and those who drop by here in this new blog.

And lastly, to those who doubted my intention, throwed insults and sniggered negative remarks and said I can't do it.

You can f**k the hell off!

FIREWORKS!

There was a fireworks show in Geneva lakefront last weekend in conjunction with Fetes de Geneve.

As mentioned in my previous posting, Fetes de Geneve makes it appearance once a year. Lots of funfair things like carousels (for kids and adults alike), rollercoasters, stalls and what not. Really need to spend a lot of swiss franc to enjoy all that though. Not that I am very frugal about money. My principle, some things are worth spending money on, some not so.

Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself here.

I did not bring my old dinosaur Nikon D70s, so this is the best that a compact Canon Ixus 90 IS can do. Which is a dinosaur too.

At night time.

Enjoy the pics.

FLOORED!

Sometimes its the odd and bizarre things that inspires us, or make us realize something that we should or should not do.

Like that song You Keep Me Hanging On by Kim Wilde did to me.

The thing is, I have been struggling to achieve my desired weight. Its been 2 weeks since I scaled 80.7 kg.

At that time I just need to shed another 0.7 kg to meet my goal. I dont know what happened since usually, loosing that much amount of body weight should not be a problem to me, since I did manage to loose about 20 kg since last November.

Its really a frustrating situation for me. And I was really in a foul mood for the last 2 weeks.

A friend told me that its always the last leg which is the hardest.

I have to admit that its getting really difficult to go out and exercise. And thats not because of lack of stamina either. Its really getting harder to put on the running shoes. I think I am at that point where since I know I can afford not to exercise for a day or two, I can take it easy.

Which in a way, hampered my overall progress.

Just now, I was running as usual when I heard that Kim Wilde song. Well, its just another 80s love song and I know its not one of my favourite since I dont remember it. But it made me think that I should also probably refocus and hang on to my goal. It made me realize that I am now preaching my yet to achieve success to everybody who asked me how I lost my weight, instead of concentrating to achieving it.

Which makes me feel really bad since I did not achieve anything yet. I think I am too busy getting proud of myself.

Riak.

That Kim Wilde song reminds me why I am doing this in the first place.

I need to wake up from that proud of myself shit and just humbly focus on my target.

THE THING ABOUT GENEVA - Part 1

How do I describe, Geneva?

For starters, its a small town, with narrow streets. Thats my first impression. Secondly, its really, really clean. No doubt about that. I have seen (during my morning jog) that small vehicle with big brushes underneath sweeping street garbages and what not into its belly. And there is that cleaning vehicle which sprays powerful streams of water on to the streets, cleaning it. But thats not all, I have also seen their cleaning crews vacuuming the streets. No, its not a joke. I do mean vacuum, like what we did our carpets and rugs in the house. The only different is that they vacuum their streets here, everyday! And yet we wonder how they keep their streets clean?

Being a UN city, there's a lot of diplomats around. Apart from that, there are also a lot of other International Organisations which made their base in Geneva.

What I notice here in the summer, Arab tourists comes flocking to the city by the thousands. Its not difficult to get halal food since I suppose the restaurants here are very familliar with the halal concept. The hotel I stayed when I first came here serves halal food (with the familiar HALAL sign to indicate that it is okay for Muslim to eat) in their breakfast buffet. The price though is very, very expensive. Not a surprised since according to the Mercer report Geneva is currently ranked as the 4th most expensive city in the whole wide world. KL by comparison is placed at number 96th. It is my humble opinion that the huge number of these wealthy Arab tourists is one of the factors that drove and keep the prices on the higher side.

To give you an idea how expensive things are in Geneva, for example, lunch for 4 person at this one Lebanese restaurant I frequented cost more than 100 franc, which translate to around RM 320.00 plus. And before you guys make any unwarranted assumptions, no, its not the nightly bellydancing performance that attracts me there.

Its the food.

Honest. Thats why I said I went there for lunch.

It actually reminds me of that Nasi Arab served by Saba' Restaurant in Cyberjaya. Anyway, in Geneva, its the closest resemblance that one could get to that mouth watering Middle Eastern cuisine like I use to have back home.

Genevans are friendly lot, I should say. They will happily greet and generously said hello to strangers with a smile on their faces. My typical greeting conversation with a Genevan usually goes like this.

Genevan : Bonjour.
Akula : Bonjour.
Genevan : Ca va?
Akula : Ca va.
Genevan : Au voir.
Akula : Au voir.

As you could see, its not that difficult to engage in a conversation with a Genevan. You could never go wrong if you just repeat what they said to you!

Summer also is great for people watching. I don't need to say this, but it is a fact that theres a lot of half naked women who casually do their sunbathing ritual at the lakeside which is definitely a feast to my eyes. You cannot escape and pretend not seeing it, since they are everywhere. The only bad thing about that is when I unwittingly caught the sight of those hairy, balding, pot bellied men doing the same thing. (Suey satu badan!).

Right now, there is this Fetes de Geneve, being held at the lakeshore. And who else in big numbers flocked there? Again, its the rich Arab tourists. I brought my children to enjoy the variety of rides they set up there one day. And in the bumper car game stall, my 3 children and their 2 friends had to wait for a long, long time to have their turn. Why? Well, those rich tourists kids packed their tokens by plastic bags! My miniscule 10 francs for three tokens are really like a grain of sand in the desert. Really can't compete with them. Even the bumper car stall operator look bored when I went to him to change money for the tokens.

Theres not a lot of new building in Geneva. Its building are hundred of years old. Like the pre war building in Malaysia. They dominated Geneva skyline and gave me the impression of some wise old men watching over the city with stony faces expression.

Public transportation is both efficient and clean. Some of the Genevans I met told me that you could even tell time by the buses departure and arrival at bus stops. Its that efficient. Trams, trains and buses runs on electricity. It does keep the pollution to a minimum.

Traffic lights and street lanes caters for every vehicles. Beside the normal traffic lights and lanes for the usual vehicles on the road, they have a different set of both for public transportation which is for trams, buses and taxis. And get this, they have another set of traffic lights and lanes for bicycles too.

I love to write more about my impression on Geneva, but I really need to go ride my bicycle.

Oh......

Aren't the Arab tourist supposed to visit Malaysia? You know, with all the Visit Malaysia campaign in the Middle Eastern countries going on. Didn't our authorities change a Jalan Berangan somewhere in Bukit Bintang, to Arab Street or something?

SKETSA SEBUAH CINTA

Remember this piece by MAY?



Call me sentimental, or romantic even, but I think this song is one of the best rock kapak ballad ever.

HAPPY 11TH ANNIVERSARY!