Istanbul Aku Datang

Assalamualaikum

Sebelum pulang ke Malaysia (back for good) pada bulan November tahun lepas, kami telah membuat keputusan untuk transit di Istanbul, Turki terlebih dahulu selama dua malam. Alhamdulillah, tercapai juga hajat saya nak tengok Blue Mosque dan solat didalamnya. Masya Allah..:)

Since it was an impromptu decision I didn't have much time to do enough research on Istanbul. Lagipon, kami semua tidak berapa sihat pada minggu terakhir di London dan terlalu sibuk dengan urusan serta mengemas barang sebelum dimasukkan ke dalam kontena.

Anyway, Istanbul is a very interesting city! And based on our experience, two days is not enough to cover places in there. Budaya dan tempat mereka mempunyai keunikan dan daya tarikan tersendiri. Orang Turki baik tua mahupun muda bukan sahaja cantik dan tampan tapi mereka sangat baik, sopan, murah dengan senyuman dan peramah walaupun kebanyakannya tidak boleh bertutur dalam bahasa Inggeris. Respect!

Semasa tunggu tram, Mak cik ni tegur tapi kami macam ayam dgn itik haha. beliau sangat baik hati bagi Iris bracelet dan duit pada Zahin dan Zafri. :)

Makanan halal juga murah dan senang didapati di mana-mana sahaja. Untuk saya yang kuat pedas dan lidah melayu memang tidak sesuai dengan makanan di sana. Huhu! Tapi bagi penggemar kebab dan lamb macam my hubby, Istanbul memang heaven! Hehe

nice gourmet in Sultanahmet area

Istanbul Attaturk airport..

Dalam city kami sempat merasa naik tram. Tramline map Istanbul agak mudah untuk difahami. Tiada masalah, tiket boleh dibeli di mesin yang disediakan di setiap tram station.

But most of the time we just walked because we got two strollers. Tapi jalan kaki sambil tolak stroller di Istanbul sungguh memenatkan kerana struktur muka buminya agak berbukit. It was adventurous indeed! ;)

Hop on Hop off (HOHO) Istanbul City sightseeing bus were also everyday in service. But surely the ticket is  more expensive. ;)

Di Istanbul kami menyewa sebuah apartment di Sur Hotel dalam kawasan Sultanahmet. Harganya ialah RM100 per night kalau tak silap. Agak murah kan! Our apartment was clean and cosy, We also got free complementary breakfast dan room service everyday. Awesome! ;)

Rata-rata memang ramai yang cadangkan supaya duduk di kawasan Sultanahmet sebab ia berdekatan dengan kebanyakan tourist attraction seperti Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia, Topkapi Palace, Grand Bazaar dan banyak lagi. Within walking distance! But as i mentioned earlier, we did not manage to visit all the places. Kesihatan tidak begitu mengizinkan dan kami semua masih dalam kesedihan setelah meninggalkan London. :P

sunny and beautiful Friday but ssejuk...brrr!

Turki mengunakan matawang Lira. Seingat saya masa tue masih nisbah 1:2 dengan duit RM. 1Lira dalam lebih kurang RM2. Kami tukar siap2 duit pound sterlings ke Lira dan juga euro. Biasanya sukar nak tukar apabila sudah berada di sana.

kami tukar di Marks & Spencer Money Changer, di Exchange Mall, Ilford. Kadar tukaran matawang situ lebih murah berbanding di tempat lain. Kadar tukaran bergantung pada money changer ye so kene cari yang paling murah. Ketidak nanti kita yang rugi. :D

Most of the time and place kami bayar menggunakan Lira. euro digunakan semasa membeli souveniers berdekatan dengan Grand Bazaar.

different angle of the Blue Mosque. Magnificent!

Blue Mosque

Ok kalau google, boleh nampak banyak tempat untuk dilawati. Antara yang top ialah Blue mosque atau Sultan Ahmet Camii (in Turkiye). Memang wajib visit this mosque. Kenapa dipanggil masjid biru? Sebab didalam masjid biru, tiles yang digunakan untuk dindingnya adalah berwarna biru. Interior design blue mosque sememangnya sangat cantik dan senibinanya sangat halus. Very impressive! Sila check jadual waktu lawatan di dalam website. Masjid ditutup seketika pada waktu solat Subuh, Zuhur, Asar, Maghrib, Isyak dan Solat Jumaat bagi menghormati  dan memberi ruang kepada jemaah untuk bersolat.

Hari jumaat merupakan ialah hari yang paling sibuk di Istanbul terutama sekitar Sultahahmet area. So crowded especially time Solat Jumaat. Peminta sedekah juga ramaaaaiiii...agak tak selesa dan tak aman nak sighseeing that day. Quite scary but controllable though. Polis ada di mana-mana sahaja. Ada beberapa peminta sedekah yang ditangkap polis di Blue Mosque di depan mata kami sendiri. Poor them..:(

Since kami punyai satu hari sahaja iaitu Jumaat maka terpaksa juga pergi. But i like, nampak meriah sangat. :D Untung my hubby sebab beliau berpeluang solat Jumaat di dalam Blue Mosque. Kids and i just sat on the bench at the square right side of the mosque while waiting hubby. Alhamdulillah rezeki..dapat tengok Turkish men and women rushing to the mosque for Friday prayer. At the same time, jamu mata melihat sekeliling. Ada yang berniaga jual sahlep (turkish drink) dan buah delima. Some kids were feeding pigeons, my kids pon enjoy dan leka tengok, mummy enjoy ambil gambar! hehe. 

Pada sebelah petangnya, giliran saya pula dapat menunaikan solat jamak zuhur dan asar dan solat sunat di dalam Blue Mosque. Ada ruang khas untuk jemaah wanita di belakang sekali. Mula-mula nak masuk kene tanggalkan kasut dan simpan di dalam plastik kemudian letakkan di rak yang disediakan berdekatan dengan pintu masuk.

 as soon as i enter the mosque, terpegun sejenak dengan suasana didalamnya. Semuanya cantik belaka daripanda interior design nya sampaila ke permaidaninya yang mewah. hehe..Lepas tu bila ternampak pengawal yang bertugas, barulah cepat-cepat saya masuk ke ruang solat wanita. Risau kalau2 pengawal ingat saya non muslim visitor plak, bukan nak solat. :D (sorry no pics inside the mosque, tak igt plak kt dlm file iphone yg mana satu. Banyak sgt huhu)

Alhamdulillah atas peluang yang diberikan. Cuma sedikit terkilan sebab my kids tak berpeluang untuk masuk langsung ke dalam masjid Biru..tapi takpa tetap bersyukur kerana setidaknya mereka bertiga masih ada ikut bersama-sama dan sangat behave duduk diperkarangan masjid. :D

From Blue Mosque with love

Hagia Sofia

Merupakan sebuah church suatu ketika dahulu dan kini dijadikan sebagai muzium. Hagia Sofia atau Aya Sofia terletak berhadapan dengan Blue Mosque. Saiz binaannya juga lebih kurang sama dengan Blue Mosque dan kelihatan berwarna peach.

Kami cuma melawat di luar perkarangannya sahaja. Landskapnya agak cantik dan mempunyai sebuah fountain. My kids really enjoyed watching the fountain and had a good time there. Waktu malam air pancut bertukar-tukar warna, lagi bertambah cantik!:)

Tapi jika dapat masuk ke dalam Hagia Sofia sudah tentu lagi memuaskan hati. Huhu. Kat Hagia Sofia ni pon ramai sangat orang. Susah betul nak ambil gambar satu family, ada aje yang photobomb. Huhu. But at least ada juga satu gambar yang ok...:D

the only family photo yg tak kene photobomb.. kids pon dah boring masa ni tp kene paksa...:D

beautiful fountain in front of Hagia Sofia

In shaa Allah to be continued..:D

Inipon dah lebih setengah tahun baru dapat update kat blog. Tapi takpalah 'better late than never' rite. Kalau nak diikutkan banyak lagi cerita yang lagi lama daripada cerita Istanbul yang tak ber update lagi. Huhu. Hopefully, i will share them next time. In shaa Allah. :)

Z.A.F.R.I

Assalamualaikum

It is the fifth day of Ramadhan. Alhamdulillah so far, so good. Hope all of you are doing well too! :)

I am having a quiet time to myself. I just shut myself from all the social network at the moment. I just have to do some pondering and replanning on alot of things. But i can't help to share things in this blog. :D

This morning, Zafri woke up wanting his strawberry milk. After having two cups of it he went back to our bedroom. I lied down and joined beside him.

Suddenly, he said " Your first name is Mummy, right? Your second name is aunty Izu and then Mak Long".

Hehe i can't help to giggle. And i said "Yes and i have a real name too remember? What is my real name?" I asked him.

Unfortunately he forgot. He thought Izu is my name. So i told him my real name and he finally remembered it and instantly said "you have many names, Mummy!" LoL

Then he proudly told me that he only got two names. He spontaneously said "my first name is Zafri and my second name is Izzafri Hisham!" LoL

This boy is always cheeky! And he always make our day! :)

Afterwards he joined a pretend play with Iris. Iris brought her favourite red blanket that she got from Emirates airlines. She asked me to tie it around her neck and make it hooded as she wanted to be like a red riding hood. Fine.

But the funny was Zafri also asked me to do the same and brought his green blanket that he also got from Emirates airlines. And slumberly said i wanna be a GREEN RIDING HOOD!"

Hahaha clever boy, masya Allah! :D

This lil boy is not only cheeky but funny too! Sometimes its hard to get mad at..but sometimes only laa. :D

Lastly i love watching when the other half always loves to kiss and cuddle him who is still sleeping every morning before he off to work. He still called him 'Baby' too. L.O.V.E and All Praise be to Allah..

Ok enuff said. Happy fasting, darlings wherever you are! :)

June Updates!

Assalamualaikum..

How time flies! It feels only yesterday my daughter sit for her first PKSR examination. Suddenly, there goes already two weeks of school holiday. Huhu..

I could not find time to share in here. Too bad huh.

But today i'm gonna update few things.

Starting on the 1st June, i was being accepted as one of the food vendor at a boutique cafe, @shafirascollection. (Do check them and follow them at instagram :)) so far i only supply them with Beef Lasagnas..hihi saja mencuba nasib. Alhamdulillah nampak menggalakkan, do pray for me yea friends! :)

For Zahin's result in the PKSR examination, were received informally from her before the school holiday. Not all subjects she got A but we were still being greatful. All praise to Allah!

As expected BM was tough. It uses Kemahiran Berfikir Aras Tinggi (KBAT)..meaning high-level questions and syllabus now. Even mummy and babah also want to surrender. Pray for us, please! :D

Many suggests us to send her to tuition class but we are still considering. Perhaps next year we'll get her a tuition class. In shaa Allah!

Moral of the story, we need to work together, smarter and constantly. And don't ever give up and hope she would try her best again next time. ;D

Then during the past two weeks break, we just let her relax and do what she wants with Iris and Zafri since she got least homework. We stayed home most of the time too since babah worked and was being extremely busy writing his PhD thesis.

Anyway in shaa Allah babah will submit his thesis on this coming thursday. May Allah always guide and ease him as well as bestow him with patience and preserverence to finish his thesis with flying colours. Ameen. :)

Oh yea we also took kids to Taman Mini Malaysia and Bayou Lagoon water park in Malacca. Of course the kids love more the later. Main air sampai lebam dan legam! At least they said that it was totally fun. Sorry for not sharing the pics! :D

Last but not least, we will welcome and celebrate Ramadhan Kareem again on this thursday in shaa Allah!
Allahumma balighna ramadhan..ameen!

Here on behalf of Ishamizu n Co. I would like to seek an apology if i had wronged anyone or hurted anybody's feeling either directly or indirectly. Hopefully all of us will make full of this Ramadhan Kareem. Ameen! :)

Ahlan Wasahlan Ya Ramadhan !

Zahin's School Progress

Assalamualaikum

At the beginning, it's very hard for Zahin to embrace the new school orientation and environment.
It's totally different from her previous school. So we think she definitely takes time to adapt herself.

Even until now it is still challenging to wake her up. 6am is considered too early for her. before this she used to get up at 7.30am since school time in the UK only starts at 9am and ends at 3pm.

Here everybody must bring books and their own stationery to school everyday. Many books that makes heavy school bag! Poor Zahin on this issue as she had never been in the situation before. so the first week she complained ache all over her body.

Also she has alot of homeworks everyday! Huhu kt UK homework hanya seminggu sekali and itupon on the paper sheets only..:D

So The first two weeks she cried and said how she missed her school in London. It's sad to see..but we cannot do anything..sigh.

But as time goes by, i hear no more cries and complaints. She is very committed and efficient doing all her homeworks.

Now she could read Jawi writing better. She does her Pendidikan Agama homeworks without my supervision. I was surprised but deep down in my heart i am so greatful and proud of her.

Alhamdulillah she seems to catch Jawi quickly. and She also even scored 92 for Pendidikan Agama in Ujian Selaras 1. fyi Pendidikan Agama are among the killer subjects for her.

Anyhow she's still struggling with Bahasa Malaysia and Arabic language. Yes she can speak BM and in fact she speaks in BM alot these days. Tapi Bahasa pasar la, kan. Hee.

it is just that she still does not grasp and familiar yet with the whole subjects. she always get confused on 'Perkataan seerti and perkataan berlawanan'. Also has trouble in Bina ayat. Huhu same goes to Arabic. we need to find an arabic-BM dictionary for her in shaa Allah..

All this while in the UK English has been her first language and as we know English sentence is more simple and straight-forward compared to BM. So surely it's quite challenging for her to do in BM. but we told her it's not a day process to master both language. She needs to work harder and practise.

One more thing, there is no such test or examination in the primary school in the UK like we do have here. But on the other hand, Zahin already took her first test in March and the PKSR examination has just started today until Friday.

Luckily we decided not to register her yet to the religious school this year. We were afraid that it could be a burden and culture shock for her. Let her just take in what she already has on her plate slowly first. :)

Last but not least, we really pray that Zahin will do her very best in the PKSR examination. At least she has an improvement and gets better marks than the previous test. May Allah always bless her.


Ameen..!

Iqra' Class

Assalamualaikum

In London, we used to teach kids Iqra' by ourselves. We could always find time to teach though the reality was it's not easy teaching your own kids.

Now we have surrendered. We are very busy during day time and by the time night comes we just want to sleep. We feel like Malaysia's night time seems shorter than UK's. Hihi :D

Hence to solve the problem is to send the kids to iqra' class! ;)

Last week on wednesday, we had registered the kids at Intelligent Quranic Kids. Yes, Zafri too! He was doing fine on the first time. But on the next day, he cried so the teacher called us up to take him home. :D

The reason he cried was because the teacher took away and kept his toy cars. hihi. We already told him that any toys are not allowed to bring but he insisted to take with him. ayoo this boy is definitely cannot separate with his cars at all. To cut short, he's learnt. ;)

So he did not bring his toy cars on the third day..and he's doing fine for the whole 1 hour and half class. Masya Allah! After all, her sisters are there too so he's not that scared.

actually on the first day, we came a little bit earlier to fetch them. Suddenly Zafri saw us! Guess what?? "Ha, Mummy dah datang!' He said outloud! Hihihi He's praying with everybody else at that time! Huhu I was like 'alamak..kantoi!' And i'd heard that the ustaz said 'ok..Zafri habiskan solat dulu ye'. :D

What i heard, the teacher aka the founder referred as nenek to the kids and mak cik to the parents is so motherly. I instantly like her when we met first time :). The two ustazs are also nice and patient according to the kids. Zahin kata tak marah pon klu Zafri main2 kt class hihi.

after the iqra' session, all the kids will perform Isya' prayer first under ustaz's supervision before going home. Also sometimes the ustaz will give an usrah about our Prophets' life which is a bonus.

By the way it takes only 2 minutes driving from our house to the class. The fee is only RM20 per kid per month and the class is held 3x in a week which are on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night from 8pm to 930pm. Not bad! Mummy and Babah can go dating now yay! ;P

Alhamdulillah we have finally solved the problem. Though Iris had to start with Iqra' 1 again (kes lupa) same with Zafri but she's fine with it. Zahin is at Iqra' 5 now. Hopefully, they will be steadfast and finish Iqra' soon. Ameen!