The Fasting Month ...

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my Muslim readers a very Happy Fasting Month. And as a sign of respect and solidarity with all Muslim friends, I'm gonna fast right along with you guys :D (well, I'll try to anyway ... LOL!). Just so you guys know I'm serious, I haven't taken breakfast yet and I'm not having lunch :D

During this holy month of Ramadhan my Muslim friends throughout the country would fast from early morning till late evening, round dinner time. They would diligently wake up around (urmmm, correct me if I'm wrong, k?) 4am for the start of the fast and would go all day till late evening without food or water. This is something which I utmost respect as even in my religion, there are times when I'm supposed to fast (Good Friday, etc) and that's only for one day and I have trouble just sticking to it, yet these guys fast almost the entire day and they do it on a daily basis at that! Now that takes some doing.

The wife and me simply love this time of the year, especially during the fasting month cos there will be loads of goodies available to everyone during the breaking of the fast in the evenings. I think everyone here, irrespective of race or religion happily joins in during this time.

There would be countless Ramadhan bazaars sprouting up all over selling great tasting traditional Malay goodies. I'm lucky cos near my place they have this huge Ramadhan bazaar set up and it's like food paradise. You can practically start smelling the food they're whipping up as early as 2-3pm!

And trust me, the food spread that's available at these bazaars are so diverse and tasty, that everytime the wife and me go there, we wanna buy everything on hand ... LOL! She's already 'booked' me for this evening to go get some goodies from the bazaar cos she ain't cooking dinner tonight she says ... LOL! Actually I'm seriously looking forward to it myself. In fact I think I'm gonna be putting on a little added weight by the time the festival is over .... groannn ... looks like I'm gonna have to step up the miles on my running.

These are the times when I find that it's great to be living here in Malaysia. (I'll tell you about the times when I don't find it great to be living here one fine day). We're a multi racial country and we get the chance to celebrate at least 4 festivals a year, which is the Chinese New Year (for the Chinese, duh, Nick!), Hari Raya (for the Muslims), Deepavali (for the Indians) and my all time favourite Christmas (for the Christians). Of cos there are many more festivals (like the Harvest festival, Hari Gawai, etc), but these four are basically the more prominent ones. And the good thing about all these festivals are that everyone joins in the festivities together. There are loads of open houses during this time and it really is a great feeling getting the chance to visit your friends and neighbours.

My neighbour two doors away from me, who celebrates Hari Raya would every year without fail send a nice tray of cookies and stuff to my house on the first day of Hari Raya and would always invite us for their open house, which so far I have not gone (my mom goes though) but this year I'm definitely going to make it a point to go (if I'm invited again that is ... LOL!). Remember, I'm being more neighbourly nowadays, well, except with my Neanderthal neighbour that is, him I HATE! :D

So, once again, Happy Fasting guys :)