Thanks, friends, for all your well wishes :)

Hi Friends, thanks so much for your comforting words and well wishes. I truly appreciate them. I'm ok. No worries.

Moving on, let's get back to where we left off. Ah... yesterday... Sunday...

It was a loooooooooooong day... basically, I started the day at 6:00am. (WHAT??? On a Sunday???) Woke up to get ready to drive 213km to the northern part of Malaysia - Ipoh. Gave a talk on lutein to nurses at 9:40am. Finished about an hour later, exceeding my allocated time of 45 minutes... ooppss :P and immediately after I finished, I drove another 213km back to the Taman Jaya LRT to take the LRT to the Kampung Baru Station to go to Dato' Seri Anwar's Hari Raya Open House.

When I reached the station, it was only 2:40pm.

There you go... me standing in front of the sign of Kg. Baru Station with my new Batik shirt.

So I thought that the station would be full of people, making their way to the sports club, but guess what? The entire station looked like it's been quarantined due to viral outbreak. Absolutely empty. Huh? Seems like nobody took LRT... And then when I went out to the front of the station, there were no Nasi Lemak Antarabangsa nearby. The station looks like it's situated in the middle of Timbaktu, surrounded by overgrowth and bushes. There were only one road in front of the station that goes to the left or right. In front, was a small hill.

Since I conveniently forgot to bring the map, I decided to do some adventuring. Besides, it was only like what, 250 metres away??? Piece of cake. Shouldn't take more than 5 minutes.

After walking like what seems to be 2500 metres, with a lot of asking for directions in between, I finally agreed with myself that I was lost... LOL

It was a left, and then a right, and then a right again, then another person down the road pointed me in the direction of where I just came from! LOL... I was lost in the middle of Kuala Lumpur City, in the sub-urban housing area, predominantly consisting of Malay dwellers.

FINALLY, after God knows how much distance I had covered, I found someone who REALLY KNEW where the sports club was! He was enjoying durian with his mom, I presumed, and he gave me the directions, which sounded like my destination was quite a distance away. Before I shot off in the directions he just gave to me, he managed to ask me if I was driving. I said no, walking. You should see this funny expression on his face while he said, OH, that place is just there, take that small alley, go a short distance, and you'll see the place. WHAT??? So simple and I walked like almost the whole of KL??? Dang!

So like around 3:15pm, I finally found the place. Woohoo! More than 30 minutes of brisk walking, dressed up in a nice Malaysian cultural costume, with long pants and black leather shoes.

I managed to arrive just in time to see Dato' Seri Anwar, the host, entering the media area. Ok, sorry for the poor quality camera, but can you see him? He's wearing a light green baju melayu, standing facing us, in between the two plants with their leaves pointing upwards, at the top of the stairs. See him? Ok, I know this is not a good shot at all. But that's the closest I could get to him!

Check out the crowd... easily a few thousand. People from all races... Chinese, Malay, Indian were still streaming in from the sidewalks, to the sports club's football field, while some were leaving, since the event (and the food) started at two. The number of visitors for the whole session (2-5pm) could be around 5,000?

Here's another shot of the media area, where at least 20 cameras were busy snapping away at Dato' Seri Anwar and his beautiful daughter, Nurul Izzah. She looks so different in real person. Hmmm... I shall not comment on whether it was positively different or the opposite... Go and see for yourself :P

And here I was, standing in the queue for the FOOD. Yum yum... Raya food...

And then, WHAT'S THIS? ROTI CANAI??? WHAT THE? I was expecting the usual stuffs like lemang, ketupat, kuih Raya... but ROTI CANAI??? And there were a few more irrelevant food, like Char Kueh Tiau, Penang Tom Yam, Adrian Yong Tau Foo... T_________T What is this? No lemang or ketupat?

Anyways, the "jostling" that Jamie predicted was pretty minimal. I managed to get a huge serving of Yong Tau FOOOOOOO!!! Yeah babe...

Anyways, besides the food, there were presentations, Malay musical instrument performances, and YASIN!

There were barbequed chicken as well! Heh heh heh...

Here's me waiting for more food... Eh, wait? Why am I waiting for food?

Ah... here are my two new found friends... Aunty Jamilah and Aunty Rosnah. Both of them were so nice to me. They just knew how to get the food within a short period of time, in spite of the queue! And Aunt Jamilah and me had quite a nice chat too, while waiting for Aunt Rosnah going about getting all the difficult to reach delicacies. We talked about the event, about Anwar, and about the day before where they had another Raya Open House at a Chinese doctor's house, Dr Loo, or something like that.

Anyways, I reached back home sweet home at close to 6pm, a day well spent.

Thanks Dato' Seri Anwar for the Open House!

Selamat Hari Raya!