Raya!!

Selamat Hari Raya Folks...

Yeah, yeah...I know. Raya was last Wednesday but the selfish Japanese government wouldn't make it a National Holiday, so us Nagaoka folks celebrated it today.

Raya in Japan have always meant celebrating it at the embassy....but after the food poisoning scare last year, embassy didn't make any open-house celebration this year. They made it instead at the Malaysian staff houses. If you ask me, they should have made it at the embassy...if anything go wrong we can always blame China for it...ha ha.

But lucky I'm studying in a University with many Malaysian folks...so, the atmosphere here is still great and full of festive air. Plus, folks here are pretty good cooks.


It's always a custom to pray and thank the lord for the food....
Living in Japan for so long,which means taking god for granted...I forgot that and I almost reach out for a cookie while they were praying. Lucky I stopped just in time...


Satay guys...the most blessed beings of the day...


A few of my close friends, namely Farhan, Nabilah, Umi, made these and I'm eternally grateful for them....

See that lonely fork in the Tupperware? I think they prepared it for the Chinese guest to use as everyone else seems to ignore it and just use their hands. I....I used my hands though. No reason to not behave like a real Malaysian here...


As if to remind ourselves that we're still in Japan, someone tried to be funny by making onigiri or rice balls...Oi! It's Raya-lah...it's ok if it's wrapped with daun pisang, but why the onigiri??

Gathered at a hall, we had a lot of food....satay, rendang, nasi kunyit, murtabak, and a variety of cookies which names are a mystery to me. After we had our fill, we had a long photo shoot session...everybody had their cameras with them, so one picture actually means 3 or 4 pictures. Photo sharing not part of Malaysian culture huh?
And I realized that, they like to take many picture with the same group of people. I helped a group of girls take pictures facing North, East, South, and West....and when I thought they were done, they started facing North East, South East....never ending, never fulfilled desire of having Randy take a picture of them. But it was a fun day, so I didn't mind indulging their needs...

Not long after photo session ended(finally), some started handing out plastic bags. Oh, time to leave....end of celebration.


Here's a picture of Calvin "Ta Pau" some rendang for dinner....always a heart-warming sight to see fellow Malaysians do that, just reminds you of home...

So that's it folks.....hope you had a nice Raya too...

Selamat Hari Raya!!