My first day in UK

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After a long 12 hours flight from Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam, 3 hours in transit, Mr Amin and I finally arrived in Manchester at around 8.30 am.

Soon after we're done with the immigration, I saw Wayne, the taxi driver, was waiting for us at WH Smiths shop. Everything seemed to be going exactly to plan, alhamdulillah. He immediately took us to Belmont Hotel in Wrexham, Wales, almost 60 km away from Manchester. I like the country side, the view was just fantastic.

In front Belmont Hotel

Cool weather and windy, love it! Temperature ranges between 8 and 13 degrees Celsius, but can fall below 8 degrees at night. To be continued...

Metal spoon degrades honey's nutrients: Just another pseudoscience

"Son, don't use use metal spoon with honey", that's what my mom told me. Some of my colleges tell me the same thing. They say metal spoon will leach out honey's nutrients. But how? To me this kind of ruling is interesting but without scientific evidence, one like me will definitely have a hard time to believe.

When I browsed the internet (I googled in English and Malay), this kind of belief is more prominent in Malay internet discussions rather than English. Having read those, I could not find any scientific evidence mentioned.


To me some of the 'pesanan orang tua-tua' (old wives' tales) are highly arguable. But it doesn't mean that I disregard them totally. I still have faith on some particularly those proven by science. Unfortunately this honey-metal spoon thing is far from fact. A trusted website considers this a myth. Test your knowledge about honey in this website:

[BENEFITS OF HONEY.com]

If you feel the above website doesn't favour you, no need to argue. Believe what you believe. For me, until I observe scientific evidence, I may consider this honey-metal spoon thing as another pseudoscience, nothing more...

Bachelor Iftar at Taman Mutiara

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Yesterday was a great day for me and my housemates, Khairuldin and Shams, when eight of our colleges came and broke their fast at our rental house. We prepared fried noodle (courtesy of Shams al-Thani), water melon, cold drinks (courtesy of Tengku Kudin), wet and fried popia, satey and karipap (curry-puffs). This was the second after the first closed iftar we did last year.

The spirit of iftar was further realized when my colleges brought plenty of food with them, even though we expect them to bring only their mind and body.

Enjoying our meal before prayer congregation

The weather was so hot that evening but no one was complaining, alhamdulellah. Really, this was the spirit of iftar.

Among all the food I ate, I enjoyed fried noodle the most. Cooked by the creative hands of Shams, I think he cooks far better than the girl next door. By the way, I can cook too, but of course not more than the famous instant noodles, hehe...

Guys, thanks for coming. May Allah bless you people. Barakallahu feekum.

From left to right: Asri, Azmir, Firdaus, Ridhuan, Muzaffar and Jaber
(Married - 2, Bachelor - 4, Still available - 2)

Mutiara Hadis UiTM

JOYFUL NEWS to my Muslim brothers and sisters in Malaysia

Hard to find Saheeh Hadith (authentic hadith) in Malay (Bahasa Melayu)? Not anymore! If you are really looking for authentic hadiths in Malay, do not hesitate to go to this website:

Koleksi Hadis Sahih UiTM
(UiTM's Authentic Hadith Collection in Malay Language)
http://sigir.uitm.edu.my/webhadis/‎

UiTM Mutiara Hadis web portal

I have been looking for the noble Malay translation (database) for so long. In fact, there are a few Malay-Malaysian and many Malay-Indonesian translations available in book stores, however, due to some differences in the vocabularies and word structures, the Indonesian version may not be easy to comprehend, while the Malaysian translations are scarce and hard to find.

I really want to thank Fakulti Teknologi maklumat & Sains Kuantitatif (Faculty of Information Technology & Quantitative Sciences), Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) and those involve in this Mutiara Hadis authentic collection (IRDC, Pusat Pendidikan Islam UiTM, FTSM UKM, Saba Islamic Media, JAKIM, etc.). Whether you realized it or not, you guys had made such a great contribution to the society. May Allah bless you people...

New 50 ringgit note

Today at an ATM in Taiping, I was shocked when the machine dispenses out a different design of 50 ringgit notes. I wonder whether they were fake because there was no golden jubilee celebration logo (commemorating Malaysia's 50th Anniversary of Independence) on the reverse side of the notes. After successfully depositing the new notes into an ATM, I have no more hard time believing that they are real.

Obverse side (Release on January 2008)

Reverse side (Release on January 2008). Take note that the golden jubilee celebration logo is placed on the top right (This logo is no longer available in the new release)

I heard about the release somewhere last year and have seen the design of the fourth series in Wikipedia however I wasn't aware with the fresh new design which was released recently. I think the new design is interesting.

This is the press statement from Central Bank of Malaysia:

Bank Negara Malaysia Issues New Design RM50 Banknote

Bank Negara Malaysia today announces the issuance of the new design RM50 banknote from 15 July 2009. This new design of RM50 banknote is the first denomination of the Fourth Series of Malaysian currency notes which will be replacing the existing series in stages.

The earlier new design of RM50 banknote was issued in December 2007 to commemorate Malaysia's 50th Anniversary of Independence. This current series will no longer have the logo of the country's golden jubilee celebrations and will have, enhanced security features.

Source: Bank Negara Malaysia

When transboundary haze hazing our way...

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Haze in Malaysia is now an annual phenomenon. Malaysia no doubt is a new industrialized nation but factories and vehicles alone are not sufficient to generate the smokey haze. Satellite images from NASA confirm the occurrence of burning forest in many locations in Sumatra Indonesia. So it is a transboundary issue.

NASA’s earth observatory reports on the seasonal fires currently burning the forests of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. In the image above you can see hot spots detected using the infra-red heat emissions of the flames

Many entities blame individual farmers and commercial timber and plantation companies for causing the haze, rendering the search for the culprits or so-called fire starters. But the common question who starts the fire never solve this yearly problem. My question is what happened to the Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution signed by ASEAN countries in 2002? We Malaysians suffer more than any other ASEAN members. How many years more should we wait before this problem solve?

The smokey forest of Riau, Indonesia (Source: Greenpeace)

Interesting polyglots...

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I always admire those who speak more than four languages with high degree of proficiency. To me these people are amazing. I observed many European sport celebrities speak easily three-four languages. For instance, Roger Federer speaks German (mother tongue), English and French with high level of proficiency. Novak Djokovic speaks Serbian (mother tongue), English and Italian fluently and quite good German. Siblings Marat Safin and Dinara Safina speak Russian (mother tongue), Spanish and English. The question is how do they do it?

At the moment, apart from Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, I admire Luca (Italian), Stuart Jay Raj (Australian) and Abou Jad (American) for being multilingual. No hard time believing, just watch these videos:

Luca speaks fluently eight languages (Italian, English, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Swedish and Russian)



Stuart Jay speaks fluently English, Thai, Indonesian and Mandarin. He also speaks a few European languages and not least sign language



Abou Jad speaks four languages (English, Spanish, French and Lebanese Arabic)

I hope one day I can be like them. Currently I speak Malay (mother tongue) and English quite fluently. I also speak Jordanian-Palestinian Arabic and Bengali (Bangla language) but with low degree of proficiency. I used to learn French and Spanish in the end of 1990s but never practice (sadly). I hope to see improvement in my Arabic by the end of this year. I hope by Allah will I can. InshaAllah...