freedom of speech?

sometimes when I'm really bored. I blog-walk. I love to read what people write about their lives. especially those with kids. it gives me ideas what to do with my kids. for the present or even for the future - thank god for pinterest since I'm so forgetful these days.

anyways, once in a while, I stumble across some negative writings/post .. like people writing about ketidakpuahatian towards a certain individual in their lives.. intentionally or not.. I frown.. I get it, its your own personal blog. some say "this is my personal space..you dont like it..butt out.."

the thing about blogging or the internet mostly is that it is public. for everyone to see and read. you want to write something bad about someone. write it in your own diary - offline! where no one can read it, no one can talk bad or make bad assumptions about the person you're talking about.. 

some also defend themselves and say something like that its not wrong and mumble the word freedom of speech.

of course, if theres any truth to the story, legally, its not wrong.

but I believe, growing up, we were taught not to intentionally hurt people's feeling, right.. and for a muslim, its sinful. intentionally writing something to hurt someone. you have issues, work it out with the other person.. if you write bad things, other people will talk, then other people will dislike the person. kira mcm menghasut jugak laa kan.. thats like double triple your sin already... 

but well, we are human. we make mistakes. a reminder to myself also.. lets all spread love and not hate, yes?

gambar tiada kene mengena dengan post. :)

Love,

Aisyah Samsudin

short family vacay

hubs been working like crazy a lot lately. coming back at 5am. not sleeping. so I forced him to take leave and bought a voucher from Streetdeal.my for a 1 night stay at Gold Coast Morib Resort plus 2 tickets to the waterpark. it was actually my uni friend, Elyn who asked us to join them, they bought the voucher a few month back, and since the deal was still on (and still is! check it out here) I said why not. Hubs really needs some family time, and it would be fun to go with friends anyways :)

it was said that the journey to Morib from KL would only take an hour, but it was more like 2 hours for us + sesat lagi.. the kids both slept throughout the journey since both of them slept at 2 am the night before (I know! kids nowdays huh?!!) so it was a tantrum free journey for us.. :) alhamdulillah..

when we arrived, it was already 1.30 pm, checkin time was at 3pm, so we decided to have lunch and wait till we checked in and solat first before we went in the waterpark. 

the food at the cafe, are priced as a normal hotel would price their food (nothing below rm15) but the food were surprisingly good and in a huge portion, so if you decide to have lunch there, you could share a plate of mee goreng with your partner no problem :)

due to the huge crowd (even on a sunday) the checking in took longer than we expected. the system was kinda weird too, you check-in at the reception counter, but you have to collect your keys at another area, which was ridiculous coz they had to find our names manually... but well..whatever..

then we went to the waterpark and spent like 30 minutes there coz turns out my kids both not a huge fan of water or maybe waterparks, im not sure... aqil took one ride on the water slide and called it quits, alya cried the moment i put her in the water (she could have been sleepy also hence the crying) .. i convinced aqil to go in the water, but he end-up almost drowning (he slipped while he was in the water, and panicked and could not get up) it happened in a split second and lucky hubs realized, and quickly grabbed him... he cried and cried and cried and of course after that he was totally scared of going back in..

so we ended up playing - flying the kite at the beach.. 

or more like - ba was playing, 

mama and alya were looking

and aqil was posing @____@ anak sape ntah...

the next day, we tried another round at the waterpark.. but before that...

had some mother-daughter time in the jazuki 

(kerana ba and abg aqil tak bangun tdo lagi)

a buffet breakfast was included in the package deal. the food were good.. and variety.. go early tho..

alya was so bored. she slept!

 @________@

he stayed far away from the pool...

friends. as you can see. aqil stayed away from the pool. did get him to change into his swimwear but no way into the pool :(

then it was time to go home..

it was his birthday that day, but since we already had cake 2 days before, so no cake for the birthday boy.. kesian.. maybe tunggu Tok Wan Zek balik eh sayang..

If your kids love the water, this is an OK place to go.. but dont go on weekends...crowded, and the place is kinda small, and there's also a private Jacuzzi in every room so you could also get some romantic time with your partner when the kids are asleep.. its a win win situation here :)

If you buy through Streetdeal.my its only rm168 for 1 night stay and 2 adult tickets valid for the 2 days stay :) thats really cheap kan? the deal is on till December 2013 so u have plenty of time to plan your trip.. :)

Love,

Aisyah Samsudin

Cheshire Oak and Manchester City

UK/Paris trip take 3.

(read previous post here and here)

after the damage we did in Bicester Village (see here) , you think we would have at least insaf a bit and put shopping on a hold for atleast a day or two. you thought wrong, the next day, we went straight to Cheshire Oak, well it was a 3-4 hours drive from Cardiff to Ellesmere Port so we did get a good rest before we started our next shopping spree.. :)

Actually we went to our hotel first - stayed in Holiday Inn Ellesmere Port (highly recommended!!) .. solat and whatnot before we went to Cheshire Oak, which was just only 5 minutes drive from the hotel.

Cheshire Oak is another Outlet paradise, where I actually prefer more than Bicester Village coz there's a lot more choices and brands in Cheshire Oak, given the place is like triple the size of Bicester Village (maybe bigger!) .. check out the brands here... I swear if it wasnt because we had another 8 days in the UK, i would have spent all my money there! we didnt get to go in every store coz of the limited time we had there, but I did manage to go to the ones that I aimed earlier, like Warehouse, Coast, L'Occatine, Clarks, Marks&Spencer, Mama&Papa, Fossil, Ted Baker apentahlagilupalaaplakkk..

the clarks store there was much more bigger and with a lot more choices, went to Warehouse and bought a top for only 10 pounds!! theres no way we could get that price in Malaysia kan.. got a few tshirts for bff Ayim, also a Ted Baker messenger bag for only 35 pounds!

1st day there, we only had 3 hours to shop.. mmg tak cukup masa...btw the place is a quarter million squarefeet!! giloss!!

the only picture of us shopping! was trying our best to go in every store (which was impossible)

both stuffed animals from Mama&Papa, i think 6 pounds each? got 2 pairs of Clarks shoes for hubs (20pounds each!), a pair each for the kids :) puas hati :)

the next day we got up really early and went to Cheshire Oak (again!).. this time we had more time :) and..

this is what happen when u have more time.... @___@

next stop was the Mark & Spencer Cheshire Oak Eco-Store . its the largest M&S in the world! like seriously! its huge!! besar LCCT kot.. 2 stories..if you're into M&S punya barang i think you'll go crazy.. plus it was having christmas sales so lagi laaa kan... I think we spent 2 hours + in the store because we still had a long journey ahead of us that day.. no pictures in the store coz we were busy going uhhh--ahhh...at the stuff and prices!

Our next destination was Durham which was another 4 hours journey from Ellesmere Port, but we made a pit stop at ManchesterCity Stadium coz hey..dah lalu..haruslaa singgah kan.. :) it was already 1550 when we arrived, so we only managed to take a few pictures before the sun went down

Im not even an MU fan but I still went crazy buying the stuff there..  

:)

then we had nasi arab for dinner at a place nearby, it was the most delicious nasi arab ever!!! i dont remember the name, if i could find the picture of the food I will update this post later.. till then... toodlesss~~

Love,

Aisyah Samsudin

so I turned 29 last month

"one more year till I hit the 3 series"

honestly, that was the only thing I was thinking about on my birthday. No joke! I never thought about it before and never knew it was going to be a big deal. I mean, everyone is going to grow up and add years to their age right? no biggie.. but the more I thought about going to be 30, the more depressed I became. I was not in a good mood.

seriously! and this is only my 29th birthday. I dont know what mental state I will be in when the actual 30th birthday comes. I hope I dont do something stupid. Like go fake my ID or something. lol!

So what did I do on my birthday? Since I was depressed (inside. I have a good poker face you know) and the only thing that girls do that make them happy (for a while) is SHOPPING!

sent the kids to my cousin. and I went to Sunway Pyramid to shop for new clothes. Which made me even more depressed when I could fit size M anymore..ok laa...kinda exaggerating here. I could fit M but since my new years resolution is to wear more loose clothing. M is out of the picture. but I did bought that Forever 21 top in M..hmm..cutting kot..

I also had..

Zanmai Sushi!!!!

This is my absolute favorite!! like nothing can beat Zanmai Sushi, whenever hubs and I want to indulge ourselves with expensive food. this is our go-to place! 

and here's the story how I end up getting to eat free Sushi on my birthday

there I was, queuing up to dine at Zanmai Sunway, and I realized, I was the only person alone, everyone else were with a friend, or a group of friends. really didnt help with my depression at the time, so I sms-ed my good friend Ayim (also a good friend of my hubs) who worked nearby asked him if he had gone out for lunch already.. I told him where I was, and being the great friend that he is, he came to my rescue and blanjer me sushi for my birthday..!! Ayim, if you're reading this!! thanks!! :) I would say I love you but thats gonna be kinda weird coz we dont say that stuff to each other despite how close we are. haha..

later that night when I reached home. was staying at moms that week (cant remember why~ well I always am there pun) , mom and dad surprised me with a cake!!! yesss!! I am 29, married with 2 kids still mommy and daddy bought me a cake! gosh! I have the best parents I tell you!

the next day, hubs blanjer me sushi Zanmai (again! I know!) also we went for karaoke just the 2 of us :) I've been wanting to go karaoke since I was pregnant with Alya, but didnt get the chance..so this time I wanted to sing puas2..

but he ended conquering the mic! haihhh!! no laa..joke joke... (marah die satgi hahaha)

despite being depressed about the age and all, I am still thankful. Thankful that Allah has given me 29 wonderful years. Thankful for the family I grew up in. Thankful for the husband I am blessed with. Thankful for the two children who are now my heart and soul. Thankful for all the rezeki Allah has given me. Thankful for the hardship Allah put me through to make me a better person.

Also thankful for the brain and the beautiful skin.. hey I'm not kidding... everyone is blessed with different things, good hair, great body even though these people eat like there is no tomorrow!, good health and wealth, and for me, great skin :) I didnt really ever had any acne problem. and I dont even really need to have a good beauty routine or buy any expensive facial wash or whatnot, I could go to the store and buy any brand and it will suit me, heck, I can use a cheap body soap bar and still alhamdulillah my skin is OK... and tell you what, I have never done a facial. EVER. 

this is not be bragging about my skin. this is me just giving facts and being grateful for being blessed with good skin.. I have other issues you know, bad-dry-frizzy hair, a yo-yo weight problem, no butt! but whatever. lets celebrate the good we have :)

out with a date with hubs- keeping the makeup to a minimum coz hubs dont like me in those heavy makeup.. i think this was like compact powder, eyeliner, mascara and lip balm only.

but having said that, having good skin or not still you can never be able to fight the law of gravity... or the law of aging.. I may not have obvious wrinkles yet, but hey there are still there..and I do feel like my skin is not as bouncy as before...if you know what I mean.. so I guess, the time has come to at least try put some effort to care about the skin right.. I was not about to go for the night cream, masque, peeling anything like that, just something simple, like a serum..so I got this

La Praise Vitalift Serum

and even though it has only been a while since I used it, I can feel the difference... I would do a before and after shot but I dont think you can really see it coz of the not so obvious skin problem..i think for my case, its more like a feel kind of thing, which is perfectly fine for me :) 

Its water based, and very light, it absorbs pretty quick and you can really feel the difference after using it, like the feeling you get after wearing a mask, but you dont wear masque everyday right?! there's just no time for that! this one is easy peasy, twice a day (i wear it just once tho-i am that lazy!) after washing your face.. and ur done!

Its main ingredients are stem cells from fruits and plants (I'm not big on scientific names, but if you want to know you could drop me an email and i'll tell you) and the serum is suppose to make ur skin more bouncy and tight, helps inactive skin cells to activate again, balance ur skin PH, make ur skin youthful.. all those things that a serum are suppose to do laa senang citer...

and for a price of RM108, I think its affordable.. I mean serum are usually expensive kan (jeling mom punya estee lauder) .. and the most important thing that it works! I think you can read a lot of great testimonials out there about this serum... but if you are anyhow interested with the product you can just drop me an email at escallonia08@yahoo.com or watssap me at 0132221175.. and i'll assist you the best way I can :)

Love,

Aisyah Samsudin  

Everyone said Bicester Village is a must

Our next itinerary after Paris was the UK Tour. Pelik eh? normally people will go for Europe tour but Mom wanted to show us the place where we grew up, where atif was born, where I went to school hence, the UK tour. It was a 5 days tour up north of the UK. We went to Oxford, Cardiff, Chester/Cheshire Oak, Manchester and Durham. but I will write it in a few posts if not I dont think there'll be enough space..

So first stop, Oxford. Oxford is just one hour drive from London. we kinda reached Oxford pretty late coz of the drama we had with the car rental (which I will write about later) so we didnt get to do nothing much that night coz all the shops closed early in winter pun.

In Oxford we stayed in a cozy BnB called the Adam Guess House. The rooms were quite small, but the breakfast was gooddd...or maybe because it was our first english breakfast during the trip, I guess I registered it in my head as SEDAPNYA. lol!

the room interior

the breakfast - come to think about it ~ biasa jer laa.. haha

after breakfast we went straight to Bicester Village coz everyone say klu pergi UK we must go to this place.. untuk ape lagi kan...shoppingg.... I would say the place is just slightly bigger from JPO, but the brands are more interesting then JPO .. there's Prada, Mulberry, Tods, Celine, Burberry, Gucci, DVF, YSL, Dior, Fendi if you're looking for some high brand.. or the normal Clarks, Pandora, Cath Kidsons, Ralph Lauren, Ted Baker... ok there's no way I can list all the brands here, you can check it out youself here if you're planning to go..

The prices? Cheap! not dirt cheap like you can go buy 10 prada bags, but its like maybe 40% less than malaysia? I didnt really go to every butique and check the prices but lebih kurang laa..I saw one Prada wallet which I know retails RM1800 in Malaysia, for only 180pound.. which is like RM900 jer after convert..thank god it wasnt in the color I liked.. huh

So I know when anyone talks about shopping place..they want pictures! but coz we were so busy shopping (or more like window shopping for me) we didnt really took that many pictures..but here are the ones we took..

]

syiqin was mostly my babysitter for the day :)

2 floors - super packed! I guess because it was Christmas sales kan. Prices? Ok laa.. less than 100 for a shirt?

Erin also helped babysit when the momma so busy looking at things

ok here's the story of this kid at Bicester village. Aqil was passed from one to another. like if I was holding Alya, someone else would help with Aqil, and when I pass Alya to Atif or mom, Aqil would be with me, but I dont know how, at one time when he should be with me, I was so confident he was with Atif (Erin and Syiqin were in Cath Kidson) but when I met atif, Aqil was not with him... I kinda went frantic for a bit... looking for him..and guess what... mom found him sitting on a chair... ALONE!! he saw my mom and said.. " tok wan zek, mama mana?" 

OMG!! I feel like I wanted to kick myself in the butt for being so reckless.. but lesson learned... after that, thruout the trip, I always made sure who he is with before I take my eyes off him and go looking at anything....

Cath Kidsons window display

We actually planned to only spend 2 hours in Bicester because our next destination was 3 hours away and sunset was really early during winter at 4pm but how can you spend 2 hours when we wanted to go in every single shop!! we end up spending 4 hours there.. I only bought Clarks for the kids tho coz I was saving my money for the next outlet shopping in Cheshire Oak.

btw, Clarks there is pretty cheap..I got a 7pound shoes for Alya and 12pound for Aqil there...puas hati :) you have to go to Bicester if you go to London, I think you can take the train or taxi there from London :) Or just rent a car :)

till the next post.. bye!

** you can read about our Paris trip HERE

Love,

Aisyah Samsudin

Babywearing in Paris/UK

theres a lot of pictures me carrying alya. but these are among my favorites...

I carried her almost all the time. everywhere. mainly because she was uncomfortable in the stroller plus it was easier and more mobile for me to carry her. also to feed her. NIP (nursing in public) was easy! that picture of me at Eiffel Tower. I was breastfeeding her! Its that easy. Alhamdulillah.. it was undoubtedly tiring but I wouldnt do it any other way. The bond you have when carrying your child. priceless :)

and I super love this picture Atif carrying Aqil when he refused to walk...

Babywearing is the way to go! Anytime. Anywhere. Always.

Love,

Aisyah Samsudin

Bonjour Le France :)

So our family trip. Where do I start?

If I were to write how we decided to have a family trip in UK/Paris. it will take ages. to cut the story short. for me, it started when Mom said "you want to go to London with the kids? I'll pay for the return tickets.." and the rest was history, 3 month of planning. and there we were.

Paris.

What can I say.

City of Love?

City of Lights.

Well, whatever it is called. I fell in love with it the moment we arrived. 

The beautiful people. 

The beautiful clothes.

The beautiful handbags. I must say, being in Paris for only 3 days somehow made me fall in love with handbags. Like I must have all those lovely handbags I see. No joke. I really want them. 

but lets not talk about handbags. It will take forever. and you will see no ending to it.

Lets talk about the crazy adventure we had getting on the train to go to Paris. So we arrived at Heatrow at 7am like that, and we took the subway to atif's (my lil bro who is studying there) place to deposit the stuff we didnt want to bring to Paris - it was only 3 days in Paris so we figured backpacking made more sense then carrying all our huge luggage. anyways, the plan was to deposit our stuff and straight to Kings Cross where we would take the train to Paris. but well, us being us, plus having 2 kids in the bunch, we kinda lepak first and changed and whatnot. mom wanted to take the cab to the train station but atif insisted on taking the subway and we barely made it on the train! we didnt know we had to take everything off at security checking and at the end of it I was coat-less running with Alya in my arms getting to the train which by the way started moving as soon as we were on it! drama #1 there.

arrived in Gare Du Nord. everything was in French! it took us a while to get to the taxi stand. got on the cab straight to the place we stayed. Hotels in Paris? CRAZY EXPENSIVE. so we turned to airbnb and rented an apartment instead. Corresponded with the owner via email, he gave us his number but bijak, no one had international roaming.. so drama #2 obviously, how to get in touch with the owner? Nadia (my SIL) was the bravest of us all asked the taxi driver if we could borrow his cell, so problem solved, or so we thought. we managed to call the person, saying we were going to arrive in like 10 minutes time, and he asked us to wait downstairs and he will be there when we arrived. so we waited..and waited.. and nope..no one to greet us, it was dark. and cold. and we didnt know how to reach him, and suddenly, a lady was opening the door and Nadia went running into the building before the door closed and asked the lady to call the owner for us... I swear Nadia is just... brave..and I love her for that!! haha.. or it might be her survival mode kicked in coz we were freezing and tired and she was 5 month pregnant at the time.. so anyway we got in - The apartment was super huge, the deco was modern and i wished it was mine! it was in the 2nd arr. which was considered in the town area. anyways it was walking distance to Notre Dame, so basically, everything was near, bus stand, taxi stand, supermarket, metro.. atif, mom and nadia went to get dinner after we settled in, Alya and I immediately dozzed off once we hit the bed. 

omg - just realized mcm karangan sudah. ok..i'll try to make it short.

next day - woke up early (jet lagged - i was jetlagged the whole week!) - had my dinner/supper at 2am, skyped with ayah, ate again, watched TV, slept, woke up again and it was finally morning!

we walked towards Gare Du Nord coz the nearest checkpoint for the Big Bus Tour was there it just made sense to find breakfast in the area and the place didnt dissapoint us, there were so many cafes to choose from till we had to let our nose decide for us :)

by walking I mean with stopping taking pictures along the way.. :)

had parisian breakfast which was yummy..but because we were so hungry tak sempat nak amek gambar :)

then we got on the bus and started our big bus tour in Paris

I wish I could post all the pictures we took in Paris, but that will be just crazy..

The Big Bus Tour, there were 11 stops all together (eh yeker? tak ingat) but we didnt get off all coz there was not much time, I think we only got off Eiffel Tower jer kot..oh and that street where we saw the Laduree shop..

tamak much? lol! anyways, the weather on the 2nd day there was actually pretty nice. It didnt rain. well atleast not until we were done with the tour but it was still cold freezing for us so it was hot chocolate and coffee at every stop.

of course started with a skema shot first

then the awkward I-dont-know-how-to-pose shots 

and the I-Love-My-Kids-To-death shots

the cheeky boy!!

love you to bits boy!

then ending with the all in family shots

one of my many fav shots there.

 we then headed to Laduree for the oh-so-famous macaroons..

oh! oh! before that, we were looking for toilets and I swear I think these french people dont go to the loo when they're shopping coz it was so hard to find one! and when we did, there was only one of them! and not to mention no baby room so I ended changing alya's diapers at the back of some shop.. drama #3!

there were a lot of places we didnt get to go coz of the time restrain, I wish we had time to go to these places

Galeries LaFayette, the largest LV store in the world, also the christmas market - was really looking forward to the handmade soaps :) but nvm, insyaAllah klu ade rezeki pergi lagi :)

the last day there, it started pouring since morning so it was so hard for us to walk anywhere.. we spent the whole morning in a souvenir shop where we got halau-ed from the first shop for asking discounts (hey! we did want to buy a lot!) - drama #4! the next shop we went to the owner was from Penang so he kinda layan-ed us very nicely and gave a lot of discount :) but already he untung a lot coz we really shopped! hehe..

then we went to The Louvre, but nobody was really in the mood to take pictures because it was raining and crazy cold..

see muka aqil how? whyyyy are you torturinggg me mama!?!?!!!

but we had to right? bila lagi nak g kannn... :)

then we headed to Gare Du Nord to catch the train back to London, which by the way we barely made the train! again!

but this time we did reach the station early, so here comes drama #5 - we wanted to have coffee before we got on the train and went into this cafe, we wanted to order but nobody served us so we taught maybe it was self service and we bought coffee at the stall right outside the cafe coz it looked like its a part of the cafe, when the servers realized it was not their coffee...they asked us to leave very rudely! we tried to explain that no one served us, they didnt even gave us the freaking menu! and we kinda got into an argument and things got really heated up - but one thing mmg i noticed the whole time we were in france, French people are rude!! the only people who were nice were the cafe we had breakfast the 2nd day, and the bus driver (who was not even french!) lain ~~ hampeh!!! mom said never again would she go to Paris ~~ T__T

so another coat-less run with alya on my arms to catch the train - full of drama I tell you! but atleast it wasnt a boring trip no? 

these were what I got for myself from Paris coz we didnt really had time to shop there.. but alhamdulillah... I always wanted to taste the macaroons and get the keychain :) isnt it pretty :) the price is 29euro if you're wondering - please dont convert it into MYR..i know its kinda ridiculous for a keychain! (I saw it was selling for rm209 in ebay ke? CRAZY!) but well, at least I got something nice from Paris right :) no regrets there.

so thats it.. our adventurous trip to Paris :)

will blog about the other places we went slowly, editing pictures and writing posts are really time consuming .. it took me 3 hours for this post alone! 

hope you enjoyed the pictures. if you're in my friend list in FB you could check the rest of the pictures HERE

I didnt make the pictures open to public, i'm sorry!

Love,

Aisyah Samsudin