2015 in Review

So here we are again, having arrived at the last day of the year. This time, I'm making it a point to blog on my year and what's happened so far. 

Here's a photoblog of my year:

Travel wise:

I've traveled to three countries this year, China, Indonesia and Singapore for various reasons. Our trip to Xi'an, China is one of our (me and hubs) attempt at spending quality time together and make memories that will hopefully enrich our relationship. The trip to Banda Aceh, Indonesia is my mum's birthday gift to my dad, he's been keen on seeing how Banda Aceh has developed after the tsunami. And for Singapore, it wasn't a leisurely trip, instead we went to Singapore just for a short weekend to attend one of Al-Maghrib seminars last January and left right after the seminar ended.

Another one of my aim is to explore as many places as I can in Peninsular Malaysia. Coming from the island of Borneo, we would have to fly to Kuala Lumpur or any other cities in the peninsular, therefore we usually do not explore much of this part of Malaysia as most of our travels/ holidays tend to focus on traveling overseas. This time I've resolved to change all that and I've kinda made a list of places that I hope to visit in the peninsular before I complete my PhD. 

Visited Xi'an, China and the famed terracotta warriors.

Us posing with the terracotta warriors. 

Alexa's growing to be a frequent traveler and she's much more comfortable on long flights and adapted well to traveling, Alhamdulillah.

Us having a stroll on our last day in Xi'an.

Visited Banda Aceh, Indonesia and got to see first hand the after effects of the tsunami.

Lampuuk Beach. Beautiful, but deadly.

Aimed to visit more local destinations in Malaysia. This is Sabah Tea Plantation, Ranau, Sabah.

Slept in a bamboo longhouse at the tea plantation.

The room came with a traditional mosquito netting. Definitely this is one of my most novel and exciting travel experiences.

Visited Sepanggar Island, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. One of the most beautiful and private beach that I've ever been to so far. You can read all about my trip to Sepanggar island [here].

Walked on a canopy walkway at Poring Hotspring, Ranau, Sabah.

I actually went up in my pyjama pants. Haha! There's always a first time for everything =)

Another local destination in Malaysia, Perhentian Islands, Terengganu.

Went snorkelling with the fishes and turtles at Perhentian Islands. [Here's] my blogpost on my trip to Perhentian Islands.

Another local destination, Cameron Highlands, Pahang. Went strawberry picking with my university mates.

And obviously, one shall not miss the Boh Tea Plantations at Cameron Highlands. The breakfast here is one of the best highlights to my year. You can read all about my trip to Cameron Highlands [here].

Another local destination, Colmar Tropicale, Bukit Tinggi, Pahang with the family. trip. [Here's] a photoblog of the trip.

Health Wise:

Like most women, every year my aim is to reduce weight. However, this year, I've stopped making that goal as part of my new year resolutions and instead concentrate on improving my fitness level. So to do that, I've made a list of activities that I want to do and focused on ticking them off my list. Among the activities that I've set out to do is conquer Broga and another hill (which later turned out to be Bukit Gasing), try out Jumpstreet and Skytrex Adventure. Besides that, I've also enrolled myself in a couple of marathons as a way to motivate myself to exercise. 

One of my aims this year is to improve on my health and fitness, so I went on several hiking trips with my friends. This one is our hike to Broga last November. [Here's] a blogpost on my hike at Broga.

And Bukit Gasing just last week. [Here's] a photoblog of the hike up Bukit Gasing.

Went for my first run after giving birth to Alexa, two years ago. This one is the 3.8 km Stroller Run at Kepong Metropolitan Park in November.

Another run just last week, 5km Garfield Run 2015.

Went to the Jumpstreet, the trampoline park in Petaling Jaya. I will definitely come again to improve on my jumping skills. And [here's] my review of Jumpstreet.

And went to Skytrex Adventure for some adrenaline rush and test our fitness levels. You can read all about Skytrex Adventure [here].

Profession Wise:

I am currently on study leave by my institution. Therefore most of my professional achievements will involve my academic performance and my ability to achieve what I've set out to do. So far I've completed all my necessary courses and the huge Comprehensive Exam (CE) this year. And I've been able to publish one of my assignments as an article in an Islamic finance bulletin/ magazine and also present in two conferences this year. Next year I hope to be able to present in a couple more conferences and be published in journals as well, inshaa Allah.



The IIBF - Inceif Student Conference.

Passed my Comprehensive Exam (CE) in November this year. The CE is one of Inceif's requirements prior to embarking on your PhD research and you can only sit for the CE once you have passed at least six out of seven courses, i.e. Islamic Economics, Islamic Banking or Islamic Capital Markets, Corporate Finance, Usul Fiqh and Qawaid Fiqhiyyah, Islamic Law of Contracts and Fiqh Muamalat. 

Completed my final course just two weeks ago. For Inceif, there are two PhD tracks that a student can embark on, PhD by Research or PhD by Coursework and Dissertation. Both tracks require students to sit for a number of courses. My PhD is the one by coursework and dissertation. We are required to sit for at least 13 courses aside from our PhD research. Alhamdulillah I've completed my final two courses this semester. So starting from next semester, I can simply focus on my research. 

Religion Wise:

Since last year, I've tried to make it a point that any improvements that I make for my career/ profession, I should at the same time improve in my religious knowledge as well. With that in mind, I've enrolled myself as a student at Al-Maghrib Institute and this year I've managed to attend three of their courses. Alhamdulillah I've managed to pass their exams as well.

The first course that I attended this year was the Fiqh of Chillin': Entertainment and Recreation in Islam by Shaykh Saad Tasleem.

The second course which I attended in Singapore was Deception: Study of Shaytaan, also by Shaykh Saad Tasleem.

The third course which I attended in October was Lost in Translation: The Art of Contemplating the Quran by Shaykh Ahsan Hanif. All of Al-Maghrib's courses are amazing, but this one is among my favourite.

Finished reading Yasmin Mogahed's book, Reclaim Your Heart and Women Around the Messenger by Muhammad 'Ali Qutb.

Finished reading a book by Fazlur Rahman entitled Major Themes of the Qur'an. Not an easy read, but it does give some pretty good insight on the Qur'an. 

All in all I would have to say it's been quite a productive year. I can't believe I was able to complete all those things but then again, life is pretty amazing, if you really bother to sit down and just make a list of what's important to you. Looking forward to an exciting year ahead, and I do think (from the looks of it) that 2016 might just be one of my most challenging year ever (I know we haven't even started the first day of 2016 yet but I do think it's going to be quite tough for me as I only have 8 more months to go to complete my research before I have to report duty back to my institution).

But then again, it's only with life's challenges that we grow as a person and one thing that I always keep close to my heart is that, "Allah tests those whom He loves." May Allah's love increase for me (and you too), Ameen. 

Happy New Year, everyone!

xoxo Mrs Fashionista

Fashionista's Travels: Perhentian Island

Last August, me and my friend Nihal went off to Perhentian Islands for a weekend getaway post our short-semester exams. I've heard so much about Perhentian Islands, my friend Imelda visits the island almost every year so I've always had a hankering to go and visit the islands myself. Perhentian Islands or Pulau Perhentian is made up of two islands, Pulau Perhentian Besar and Pulau Perhentian Kecil, located off the coast from Terengganu.

Me and Nihal

Based on Imelda's recommendation, we booked our accommodations with Mrs Mazila of Anjung Holidays and selected to stay at Coral View Island Resort. As we wanted to make the most of the trip, we booked the first flight from KL to Kota Bahru, Kelantan (Kota Bahru airport is closer to Kuala Besut, where the jetty to Pulau Perhentian is located) and flew in from Subang Airport via Malindo Air and left on the last flight two days later.

Sunrise at 30,000 feet.

The flight took roughly about an hour and it was a smooth, pleasant flight. We had booked with the same travel agency for them to pick us up from the airport and true enough, as soon as we arrived, we were whisked by the driver to Kuala Besut Jetty.

An aerial view of Kota Bahru, Kelantan as the plane was preparing to landing at the airport.

The drive from the airport to the jetty took roughly about an hour and we dozed off almost all the way to the jetty.

Kuala Besut Jetty

We arrived at the jetty at about 9 am and was welcomed by Mrs Mazila herself. She was very efficient at checking us in and allowed us a few minutes of strolling around the jetty (for souvenirs or trinkets) before calling us to say that the boat is ready.

Passenger boats leaving for various islands off the coast of Terengganu. 

We shared the boat with a group of students (by looking at the size of the crowd, I assume they must be going on a field trip) and the boat ride was rather bumpy (the speedboat was fast and the seas were slightly rough). It took about an hour or so for us to reach Perhentian Besar.

Teluk Dalam

The driver made a short stop at Teluk Dalam to dispense off the students before carrying on to Tanjung Genting, to where we were staying. To tell you the truth, when arriving at Teluk Dalam, I was so excited to see the clear green vibrant hue of the water that I wanted to jump off the boat there and then. Anyhow, they say patience is a virtue so I stayed put in the boat.

Turtle alert!

And I am glad I stayed put. As soon as we left Teluk Dalam the driver alerted us on a turtle that was swimming right next to the boat. Truth be told, that was my first time seeing a turtle swim in its natural habitat and let me tell you something, turtles are very, very fast swimmers! We could only catch a glimpse of the turtle for a minute or two before it swam off into the deep sea.

The mosque at Perhentian Kecil

On our way to Tanjung Genting, I was pleasantly surprised to see a beautiful mosque at Perhentian Kecil. From what I've learnt, the majority of the locals (who are working as fishermen, boat drivers and at the various resorts around the islands) are staying at Perhentian Kecil and there's a primary school, mosque, police station and shops on the island, catering to the needs of the locals.

Tanjung Genting

There are various resorts around both Perhentian Besar and Perhentian Kecil, so basically it's a place that caters to everyone i.e. the ones with bigger budgets get to stay at better resorts and the ones with smaller budgets get to at BnBs (bed and breakfast motels). There are coconut trees everywhere and plenty of activities for everyone.

The view of the beach from Coral View Island Resort

Beautiful bright blue sky, pleasant breeze from the ocean and salty smell of the sea. What more can a girl want?

One of my favourite photos of the island

We took a stroll from Coral View Island Resort and after climbing a flight of stairs, we ended up at Perhentian Island Resort. It was almost sunset by then and we decided to enjoy the rest of the day watching the sun set into the horizon and enjoying the warm breeze of the ocean.

Jetty

This jetty is located right in front of Perhentian Island Resort and is mainly used to ferry passengers who are checking in to the resort or those who've checked out of the resort.

Going somewhere?

There's plenty of water taxi services available on the island so do feel free to roam around the island and visit the nearby islands as well. We went to Perhentian Kecil for only RM10 per person (return trip) and managed to explore the small village at the island. We also took an island hopping and snorkelling trip to Pulau Rawa the next day for RM60 per person. I'll put up another post on my snorkelling experience but before that, let me leave you with a teaser photo =).

Snorkelling

All in all we spent three days in Perhentian, the first day was our arrival where we arrived at the island at around noon. We spent the afternoon actually sleeping (because I had just finished submitting a major assignment the night before at midnight and then woke up at 4 am to catch our early morning flight (which was at 6 am from Subang airport). We woke up at around 5 pm and enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the beach and sunset. Unfortunately it rained on our first night in Perhentian so we weren't able to do much exploring. The second day we went snorkelling (left at around 8 am if I'm not mistaken) and enjoyed snorkelling at around 4 spots, Pulau Rawa, turtle cove, the lighthouse, and shark point and came back to the resort at around noon. It rained in the afternoon so we ended up enjoying some downtime in our chalet reading the books that we brought with us. On the third day we decided to go for a bit of a swim in the morning before packing up our bags and leaving the island.

Getting ready to head back home

So, the verdict? If given a chance, I would love to go back to Perhentian Islands and enjoy some quiet me-time. But there are plenty of other islands in Malaysia that I haven't been to as well =).

However, my word of advice, do check the weather forecast, rain could be a real downer on your vacation and you could end up cooped up in your chalet throughout the whole trip. In terms of cost, we paid RM265 per night for the chalet, RM30 per person for the shuttle from the airport and back, and RM60 per person for the snorkelling trip. Flight tickets, if I'm not mistaken, Subang - Kota Bahru was less than RM200 for a return trip with Malindo Air.

Not sure if you should bring your kids with you? Let me just say that there's loads of families with small children at Perhentian.

I'll share on our experience staying at Coral View Island Resort, the snorkelling trip and even of Perhentian Kecil in a separate post, inshaa Allah. For those who are interested in going to Pulau Perhentian, you may want to visit Anjung Holidays website [here]. 

xoxo Mrs Fashionista