#PrayForMH370

March 8 2014, morning. You know, one thing that is good about Twitter is it tells you what actually is happening in your "tweeps neighborhood". So when suddenly I received a notification saying everybody I know on twitter is talking about one same particular matter, I knew at once, something bad, worse, a tragic incident is happening. The same case occurred masa I dapat berita pasal arwah hari tu. Sebab tiba-tiba semua orang RT tweet Safwan (kalau tak silap) bagitau pasal berita pemergian arwah Azem. That's why, yesterday morning I was somehow, traumatized.

Turned out, a Malaysian Airlines' flight MH370 was reported missing, tak dapat dikesan, langsung. And what breaks my heart is the pictures of family members who're patiently waiting for the news, you know deep down inside they're chanting prayers non stop. It is tough enough to hold back tears, because you know once you're bursting out, you could never stop crying. And what is more heartbreaking rather than seeing a mother crying, a daughter crying, a brother crying, a husband crying, waiting for their loved ones, hoping for their loved ones to be back home, safe and soundly?

I think the hardest part is "not knowing" ; ditinggalkan dalam tanda tanya. Apa yang terjadi? Hidupkah? Matikah? Di daratkah? Di lautkah? Makan kah? Cukup minum kah? Kesejukan kah?

A few days ago I went to a talk from Brother Nouman Ali Khan in Manchester. Satu point yang terkesan dalam hati ialah "Anything, everything, is possible with Allah's will. Against all odds, everything could happen." This kind of incident could be happening to any flight, any airlines, anybody, any time. It could be happening to somebody's father today. It also can be happening to yours any time. Wallahu'alam. Indeed He is the most powerful. Indeed He knows what we don't know. Indeed we can always plan but He is always always always the best planner.

Suddenly it hits me, what if it happens to me? What if something bad happens to me before I have the chance to tell my loved ones how much I love them, how much they meant the world to me? I always know that I didn't say "I LOVE YOU" enough to anybody, be it my family members, or my special friends. I always say to myself "Taknak lah cakap, malu." or "They'll know eventhough I don't say it, I showed enough sign." or "I'll just say it tomorrow. They surely can wait.". Yes. SURELY. As if I am sure that there will be tomorrow, or I'm still alive tomorrow. It hits me. I don't cherish people. I don't cherish the moment. I, Hanis Hafizah, take things for granted. It hits me. Hard. Astaghfirullah!

Enough with the rant. Let's just pray for the crews and passengers' safety for now. InsyaAllah tembakan doa diberikan oleh seluruh rakyat Malaysia walau di mana kami berada. Majlis-majlis solat hajat di seluruh negara. Everybody is now uniting, tak kira bangsa, agama, negara, atau fahaman politik.

To everybody on the aircraft, we're here patiently waiting for you guys. Where ever you are, please be safe, have your jacket on, don't stay in cold, please do eat, you have to keep energized, please keep have faith, and don't lose hope. We here will keep praying insyaAllah and hoping for a miracle, because anything could happen against all odds. Please, come back and give your loved ones a warm hug.

And to those who are desperately trying to be popular, making countless of shameless speculations and fake news, making bad jokes and being insensitive regarding this matter, SHAME ON YOU.


live streaming Astro Awani here

Back on my flight from Dublin to Germany during winter break

OLJ Part 1 : Dublin - Munich - Salzburg

OLJ (Our Little Jaulah) is actually a series of travel note I jotted down in my little pink travel book during our winter trip to Austria and Germany, transferred into blog posts form.

Day 1  (Actually rambled on 18 December 2013)

now playing : Opick - Dealova

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

What can i say? It was quite a day today. Now it is exactly 08:45pm and everybody already drifted into the dreamland. Except for me. Oh actually I had a (power) nap before so that I can stay awake to plan the Salzburg trip for these few days coming.

My so called trip planning on the bed *wink*. Each bed has personal lamp, it comes very handy in a shared room so you don't have to kacau orang lain tido with a bright room light.

 Oh, silly me. Aneh Apijah, introduction mana? Tak bagi salam terus masuk rumah orang tumpang toilet. *metafora tetibe*

As the title suggests, this is our little jaulah. (bagi nama jaulah la, islamic sikit ecchehh).

As early as it an gets, our day starts at 01:15am when we took a cab to the New Galway Coach Station, hopped onto a shuttle bus to the Dublin International Airport, meet up with Afiqah from Cork, checked in, bumped into the Galway boys (Hazel boys and the gang) who turned out having a same flight with us four (Nisa, Nadiah, Afiqah, and I) to Munich, Germany; yada yada, early spicy pasta breakfast yada yada off we got onto the plane. It was around 07:15am when the flight took off. So we pretty much didn't really sleep that night (or morning?).

I think I did a pretty well job on packing my cabin (and only) luggage. Kali ni dah tak payah minta tolong Ayah via Skype dah. Imma grown up now! :P

Pengalaman solat Subuh and watching sunrise afterwards. Subhanallah. :')

Good morning Munich. Alhamdulillah selalu dapat seat tepi tingkap. Boleh berangan lari-lari atas Negara Awan selalu. Doraemon sangat. ;)

And of course, adventure usually starts as soon as possible. Eewah, adventure ke? But seriously, macam-macam dugaan datang. Nasib baik kami chillax aje hehe. I will tell more by the end of this entry okayss lovelies? =)

We arrived a Munich Airport around twenty to eleven then immediately bought Germay Railway Passes which cost us each 196 Euros and the pass can be used "unlimited-ly" for six days in one month. Valid in all over Germany and neighboring countries, as for our case, Salzburg, Austria.....which marks our first vacation-adventure location ehehs.

Waiting for our Munich-Salzburg train and I'm holding my phone (gotta appreciate the free airport wifi while it is still available!).

Loving our coach. Very Harry-Potter-Hogwarts-Express-like.

By 04:30pm dan dan masuk Maghrib we safely arrived at the hostel and checked in, then we prepared to solat, bersihkan diri and all, terus terbongkang semua. Haha. Penat semuanya. Makan pun tak proper, we relied on bananas and breads and chocolates to alas perut, and oh, spicy pasta untuk early breakfast tadi pun ada lagi, survive sampai the next day nampak gayanya insyaAllah. :)

A few highlights of the day:

1) There were two boys in the flight, the pissed everybody off, like literally every person in the plane, from the stewards to the other passengers. It was a total discomfort-ness throughout the journey; they were so loud, like they were high or drunk or something, even little children behaved better. *sigh*

Those boys were too noisy we couldn't sleep we posed for the camera instead. Heheh.

2) Our first experience on the regional train was kinda shitty. Haha. Nobody spoke English to top it off; so we ended up confused and depressed, as all the announcements were not in English, we don't know whether it was our station next or whatsoever and we cannot ask people around. There were a few kind people however, who tried their best to use their minimum knowledge in the language, which did help us a lot, but there were also quite a number of people who doesn't even try to help - it was annoying.

Despite the hardship, we were blessed with a wonderful view Alhamdulillah. My very first time seeing snowy alps! (They should clean the window I guess.)

3) In Salzburg (or as they pronounced it "Zalzburgg" qolqolah sikit Q tu) nobody speaks English except the ones in the information center. The people were really nice though, despite the language barrier, which is something good, kan? :)

Those are actually cables for trams in Salzburg. Kinda cool, huh? :)

4) Dankee (I'm not sure with the spellings but it means "Thanks") 

Ausgang = Exit

Eingang = Entrance

Basic local store shopping knowledge hehe.

5) The nice receptionist boy named Christopher (which apparently is also the barista) accidentally gave us a key to an all boys room. We went into the room (we booked a shared female dorm in a hostel) trusting it was ours, providing it has four empty-untouched beds in the room (and there was no one inside). Our first thought was "The room smells like guys". And we found a few 'evidences' that we ummmmmm pretty sure belong to a man, and oooopps, we better wait outside. Our 'actual' room was actually two doors away. Wrong key, wrong room number. Haha! What an experience. -.-'

Zotter Trinkschokolade. If you've seen my video on Instagram, these are the choice of chocolate bar flavors available for my hot chocolate. Christopher was being very nice to patiently translate 'em all to us.

6) Afiqah woke me up from a nap, just to hear me calling her "Uswah". Hahaha. Yup. You better not seeing me when I'm mamai. Budak paling teruk mamai, yang inilah, Hanis Hafizah yang inilah. Hahaha.

7) Nisa slept after Isya' and woke up after a few hours; asked about the time. It was 08.30pm. And she asked again, "Kita nak keluar pukul berapa?". Everybody has blurred face on. Then Nisa came to her sense, "Jap, 08:30 pagi ke malam ni?!" Hahaha. Yup, 08:30 in the morning is still dark back in Galway.

8) There are LOADS of choice of mineral water in store and for such a cheap price, but of course, nobody cares to help this not so little tourist understanding what written on the bottle so I ended up buying sparkling mineral water. The only good news is, it costs only 22 cents! Woohoo! Yup you read me right. ;)

Our tired faces. Waiting for our last transport of the day to the hostel. Cool gila ada bench tempat sandar beg ni, at least you don't have to stand hurting your shoulder carrying your bag after a looooong day! Genius siapa cipta benda ni.

That's it for now. What a day right? Hahaha. Should go to sleep now. A long and great day (hopefully) awaits tomorrow. Wassalam. 

now playing Radiohead - Creep

Lovely Turkish Ladies

We are currently in Berlin city. There is a lot of Muslims in Berlin and most of them are Turkish. Later this evening we walked from Siegessäule (Victory Column) to the famous Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gate). The road is closed for vehicles as they are preparing the street for New Year's Eve celebration, and many stalls were put up; mostly selling food, candies, games and whatnot.

We then saw a food stall with four ladies in hijab cooking inside. We  were so excited to see a halal food stall and we really wanted to try the food sold which seem like a German-Turkish food I don't really recall the name (it was quite long and tricky teehee).

They were two old ladies and two young ladies inside. The elders were cooking and the yongsters were more to entertain and serve the customers. Only one of them can speak a little English; the young and most beautiful one. So she was the one who explained us what their food basically are.

Suddenly the elders speak something to that young beautiful English speaker sister, something we could not understand (obviously) and they were pointing at me. And I was just being me, being all blurred and confused. Hahaa.

Her: Where are you from?
Us: Malaysia. Errr, Malizi (Malaysia in Arabic).
Them: MasyaAllah MasyaAllah. Eyes eyes.
Her: They said your eyes are so beautiful. So nice. MasyaAllah.
Me: Ohh. Urmm. Ohh. Err thank you. *insert awkwardness here*
Us: These are just contact lenses.
Me: These are basically not my real eyes. Hehe.
Her: Contact lenses? Really?

The elders didn't believe me. They even come closer to look directly into my eyes. Hahahaha. I had to held my eyes wide open for a few seconds until they take my words. Still, they went "MasyaAllah MasyaAllah".

They were like so amazed and amused with my 'eyes' which I have grey contacts on at this moment. And inside I was taking to myself,

"Aiyoo Auntie aiyoo Kakak, you are so much much much more beautiful than me lah. Your eyes your eyebrows your nose your tudung your face your make up your everything. DON'T YOU REALIZE YOU ARE FAR MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN ME?"

No joke. These lovely Turkish ladies are far prettier than me. Even the elders, they look beautiful. I hope these Turkish and Arab ladies aware that they were blessed with beautiful figures. :)

Ps: Something we noticed about these Turkish people, they use "MasyaAllah" very regularly. Like they ask one question, you answer, and they went all "MasyaAllah" with your reply. Which I think is something good. It somehow alarms me that I need to zikir and remember Allah more often. :)

My attempt to wear a scarf "Turkish style" *wink*

Our Journey to Home Starts Here! :)

Writing at the departure gates, Dublin Airport. :)


Spending less than 24 hours in Dublin City, met a lot of lovely and helpful people though. But urrmmm, people here are just a little tiny mini micro bit less friendly than people I met in Galway, as maybe, because it's a bit busier here in Dublin (Galway ftw :P). But still, we feel so blessed to meet new kind of people, with new kind of kindness (four hopeless girls traveling with eight luggage sounds hectic you know *wink*) . :)

Thank you Dublin. May He eases our journey. Bismillah.

Perihal Tandas Awam.

Setiap kali keluar rumah, perasan tak, kita mesti akan cari tandas awam. Tak kiralah tandas shopping mall, tandas stesen minyak, tandas bayar, tandas free, hatta tumpang tandas KFC TAPI TAK BELI. Eh ter caps lock pula. Haha. Nature orang Malaysia, khususnya Muslim, kalau pergi tandas, kena make sure ada paip air, barulah boleh ber-bisnes dengan selesa. Kan? Lepas tu, paling suka kalau jumpa tandas (free) yang serba moden, wangi, cantik berkilat, ada make up booth, siap ada sofa haa, tapi paling benci kalau tandas cantik tapi takde paip air, betul tak? Hahaa.

Saya nak ceritalah sikit pengalaman saya dengan tandas ni. Saya setuju sangat dengan apa yang saya sendiri tulis kat atas tu. (Eh, apebende aku ni?).

Bermula dari masa nak pergi Ireland dari Malaysia hari tu, (first time pergi obersi, sila bagi can) barulah saya jumpa dengan cabaran tandas takde paip air dengan sebenar-benarnya. Kiranya dah dekat tujuh bulan lah masuk toilet yang ada toilet bowl dengan tissue roll je. Tissue roll pun kadang2 takde, habis. Naya betul. Haha. Toilet bowl pula, memang takde lah yang cangkung tu. Disebabkan takde paip air dalam tandas, boleh lah ye masing2 bayangkan apa jadi kalau flush rosak. Hahaaaa meraung. Lagi satu, selalu je jumpa tandas awam unisex. Bayar 30 sen, masuk, beraturlah lelaki campur perempuan.  Biasanya ada dekat stesen bas atau stesen kereta api.

Yang tak bestnya bila takde paip air ni, kita rasa macam semua orang yang kat luar tu dengar je semua jenis bisnes apa yang kita tengah buat kat dalam tu. Geli pulak rasanya tulis benda2 macam ni. Eh. Haha. Tapi benda yang betul kan? Memanglah dulu belajar dalam Feqah kat kafa, istinjak tu tak semestinya guna air, boleh guna kertas, tisu, waima batu. Tengok, betapa Islam ni memudahkan. Dalam bab menyucikan diri pun tak terkecuali. Gituu. Tapi agaknya sebab dah biasa dari kecil, nak menyucikan diri tu, bila guna air (secukupnya) barulah rasa bersih. Sebab tu rasa resah gelisah je kalau masuk toilet takde paip air.

Solution nya, ramai yang bawa botol kosong ke mana-mana. Supaya senang kalau nak ke tandas. Sumbat je dalam handbag. Bila nak ke tandas, isi air sinki ke dalam botol, guna lah air dengan bahagianya. Ada juga yang terlupa bawa botol sendiri atas tersengaja lupa, masa dah kritikal tu mulalah tanya semua orang, "Eh kau ada bawak botol toilet tak? Nak pinjam" Hahaaa. Eh macam cakap kat diri sendiri.

Okay. Dilema. Nak bawak botol besar, semak dalam beg. Nak bawa botol kecik sangat, takut nanti tak cukup. Lepas tu saya terjumpa satu botol ni. Bukan lah botol tapi fungsinya sama. Yang bestnya, boleh dileperkan, digulung, bla bla bla tanpa menyemakkan beg anda, semua saiz beg pun boleh masuk. Kecuali beg duit. Eh tapi kalau gulung botol kecik2 lagi mungkin boleh masuk beg duit juga. Cari di Euro Giant je (kedai 2 ringgit versi ireland), harganya 1 euro kalau tak silap.

Untunglah, dekat Ireland ada Euro Giant~

Mesti ada yang nak cakap macam ni. Haha. Kalau di Malaysia mungkin boleh cuba cari di kedai2 dua ringgit atau Daiso. Rasanya ada insyaAllah.

Saya rasa lah kan, benda ni applicable je untuk semua orang. Tak semestinya untuk orang yang nak ke luar negara je. Sebab sekarang ni kat Malaysia pun  makin banyak je tandas awam yang tak ada kepala paip, kalau nak air kena tekan butang pastu dia pancutkan air dari mana2 entah. Sengsara betul. Penyelesaiannya, bawalah botol boleh gulung ke mana2 sahaja. Letak dalam beg, dia takkan mengganggu hidup anda.

Minah saleh pun ada je yang masuk tandas awam bawa botol kosong. Siapa kata orang putih weewee tak cuci pakai air? ;)