I know I promised to lessen food photo during this Holy month, but everytime I, found myself browsing food blog day in and day out, it gave me idea of what to cook that day. We, domestic goddess, dun just got blank during blogging ehh...Even during cooking too, so those food blog kinda helped me, which I hope by posting photo of what we had for Iftar can help others too.

{ Not for Iftar yesterday but to celebrate forthcoming Ramadhan, our dinner on the Eve of Ramadhan. Sup tulang}

{ No PARAM ( Pasar Ramadhan, for those who didn't know) here obviously, so I had to make my own kueh if I feel like eating. Cik Mek Molek "before" pic }

{ Keria "before" pic }

{ Cik Mek Molek and Keria "after" photo. I cheated a bit since Keria originally was supposed to coat with sugar flake but I'm too lazy to dilute the sugar, hence I just roll it on raw sugar. Heheh sama jek rasa de, gula gak, although it surely taste nicer with sugar flake }

{ En Muddy requested for Ayam percik. Miss PARAM ke pakcik ??? heheh }

{ Sawi goreng Ikan Masin }

Moving to more serious note, my focus today was not about what we have for Iftar but differences celebrating Ramadhan in country with different culture and different practice but yet stillholding on the same beliefs.

Here in Q8, Ramadhan was not as merrier as Malaysia. In terms of food, it's getting less festive to be truth. All food stalls, bakala, restaurant be it small or big closed their operation during day to respect Ramadhan. This rules and practice, includes all fast food restaurant like Pizza Hut, KFC and such. They will resume their business say around 4-5 pm, and some will only open at Maghrib time, which means they will start serve food only during break fast and onwards. So it's no joke here for non-Muslim. Even they bring their own food, eating in public are serious offensive act, you can get caught for it, even for non-muslim and I heard, kids.

However, there's silver line after all behind this rules. Less food on the street during the day, practically none, will be rewarded of course. This is the month where all rich Kuwaitis raced to get the pahala of sadaqah. They'll send foods, mostly tamar ( kurma), beriyani, Qubs

( pronounced Qubus- Arab bread) to mosque everyday. It's like a race to earn most pahala among them. So if anyone doesn't feel like cooking, you can just headed to mosque nearby home, sure there'll be something for you there. Just make sure your nawaitu was to "beribadah" instead of beriyani based.

Yesterday, my husband went for his 1st Terawih prayer at nearby mosque. He missed 1st terawih though coz we didn't know whether it's fasting or not. Sure there's announcement on TV, in Arabic of course. No subtitle though. We had our eyes super-glued on TV, not wanting to miss a single word but to no avail, we didn't have a clue till the end. I only understand 1 word of all the words the guy utter which is RAMADHAN hehehe. Not helping much I can say. We even made a call to Rasheed, hubby's egyptian friend, but he also still heard no news. Finally we opened KSA 2 channel, where they broad casted 24*7 activities from Masjidil Haram and Mecca, live telecast. It's showing all the jemaah in the midst of performing Isya' prayer and Terawih prayer. So yeayyy.. Ramadhan has arrived. We were bombarded with a phone call after phone call after that, to relay the good news.

Back to terawih, he came back home after 1 hour plus, so I asked him, how many rakaat they did it here, considering the longer time, which he replied 8 rakaat and he continue with his story. The great thing is, Imam here read the whole Juzuk ( chapter of Quran. There's 30 chapter altogether) through out 8 rakaat and more greater is, every time the Imam stuttered, or stammered or wrongly uttered the super long surah, there will always jemaah corrected and continue the surah on his behalf. Once the jemaah done correcting him, or done phrasing the paragraph, the Imam will continue and take lead. How wonderful is that? It looks to me like almost all jemaah actually memorized the surah, and maybe the whole Holy Quran. Make me felt embarrassed and humble to my deepest core. If me, among the jemaah, I tell you I wont' even know the Imam read wrongly, left alone correcting him. I would think he have sore throat or something. Sighhh.... This is why hubby's Egyptian friend kept saying what kind of muslim are we ( in a good way of course) coz we can't speak Arabic, the language of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w and the language of Quran. To our defense, we told him, we had tafseer back home, but both of us knew that it is a weak defense to begin with. He also insisted us to make sure Alis and Erin learn the language, which already in my future plan actually. Insya allah..

Another few things I would like to share here, based on my personal observations is their way of performing solat and wudhu'. En Muddy shared with me his observations too.

He once told me, he was in the midst of taking his wudhu at office when one Arabic friends came by his side and joined him. Like what we was taught, during taking wudhu, water must reached all compulsory body parts like your legs, arms, ear, inner ear and all, but he witnessed his Arabic friends taking his wudhu with his shoes on. When the feet part came, he just patted small amount of water on his shoes. Mind-boggling to us but we didn't understand their "mazhab" here so it's whole new experience, good one to learn actually. They even have different mosque here for different "mazhab", differentiate with colours on the Kubah. Green for syiah if I'm not mistaken. I'll take some photo later on with more elaboration on the topic.

He also told me during prayer in the mosque, after we utter Allahu Akbar, mostly we stood still or at least try our best to. In here, he said it's norm for congregaters ( is there such word? ) to check handphones during prayer, or scolded his kids and shhhhhh-ed to them, straighten their robes, or corrected their guthra.. u know some out-of-norm movements. I have very limited knowledge to their practice here, so I just have no comments to this.

Me on the other hand, have had the opportunity to experience something new in " ladies department " . There's one time during outing, we went to toilet in the mall. For info, toilet here normally twinning with surau. There will be one caretaker at every toilet, whose job is taking care of toilets of course and surau altogether. She also will be giving out wet/dry tissue to every person using the toilet, all day long and normally get tip for it.

Well, when I was in the toilet, I saw one Arabic lady taking wudhu.. with q-tack ( nail coloring) on her fingernails , red color somemore heheh.. I meant, it couldn't be waterproof ain't it, coz if it did, it should be washed away during wudhu.

I also saw a lady coming through the surau, sipping a cup of coffee bean, put all her belonging on the rack and perform prayer, without renewing her wudhu. There's one time when I was in the cab, heading somewhere, and it's Maghrib time. I saw one lady in abaya, with hijab and purdah on.. strolling and pushing her baby in pram. Hearing adzan, she stopped, put her kids aside, and perform prayer there, in the middle of the park, on the green grass.. with no sajadah, or any cover. So she basically sujud on the bare green grass. How faithful is that ? Such a remarkable experience for me. For me, I would, if possible, trying to find a clean and suitable place to pray, anywhere but in the middle of runner and jogger track. I know me too well. I would have doubt like what if there's a stray cat doing it's business in the park? I never saw dogs here but there is a stray cat everywhere. I would also will have doubt if my wudhu is still valid? Do i need to renew it.. What if there's dirt from other people's shoes? U know.. things like that... things I get used to, things we taught to. I am not saying all the ladies above did any wrongdoing. Please dun take me wrongly. I am just saying it's different practice back here, it's good exposure for me. Their simplicity was something I keen to adore. Something for me to think and ponder, I am so blessed to be able to experience that.

So, that's all for now.. Will come back with more. Wishing all of you nice Ramadhan this year. Do think of us during your daily visits to PARAM ehhh :)..

{ Sudah bulan puasa mehh?? Silamat berpuasa pada kamu semua orang ! Makan sidap sidap jangan lupe sama kami mahhh.. }