a cardiff raya

A slightly over due post. Took me awhile to compile the photos, and when I’ve finally got them, work load kept me a tad busy.. hehe.. For this year’s Hari Raya, a last minute invitation to an open house led me to celebrate Raya in CARDIFF!! In case you’re wondering, well it’s the capital of Wales and way bigger than Aber. Not that I regret coming to Aber or anything, but hey, after about a month, it’s good to go some other place just to see how ulu we are.. lol..

We (Mel, Aric and me) arrived at Cardiff on Saturday evening, chilled at a friend's place, had a wonderful dinner with Cardiff friends at Lee's Garden (Malaysian-owned restaurant, good food), visited a casino (my first time!) and finally got to Aliana and Amal's place (friends who were having the open house) right about midnight, where Mel and I stayed for the night.

As both them was just about to start the cooking, we were all having fun helping the hostesses prepare the food in the kitchen. There was quite a few dishes to prepare, and believe me, they made all of them from scratch! Both of us went only went to bed at about 5am, after not being of much help and snacking on kuih raya and the fried ikan bilis =D

Got up at about 8.30am and decided to go check out the city for abit. Obviously we headed for the shopping area, c'mon we're girls afterall! haha.. But only to find out that the shops only open at 11.00am =(

So, we decided to explore the place wherever our feet can take us. A short walk down Queen St, we saw this:

Ooh, a castle!

Cardiff Castle to be more precise

in Aber, we only have ruins of castles

See, an actual castle!

with a pretty clock tower

Here's a couple of snapshots of the castle grounds

Saw some peacocks wandering around, they weren't very proud ones..

this is prolly the prettiest..

.. and what i guess to be his mistresses cause they kept following him around

I shall own one someday.. *daydreams* =)

It so happen that day, a marathon was going on and the castle grounds was the finishing line.. There was quite a crowd.

After that we went for some breakfast at McDonald's, I had a breakfast bagel. Lingered on for awhile before hitting the shops!

I want one in Aber!

the row of shops that goes on and on..

my current favourite! look the the people waiting outside even before it opens!

Halfway down the street, we heard music and saw a parade!

the parade started with this..

.. and went on and on with little kiddies at the end!

We went back to Amal's place around lunchtime and had a spread of authentic Malay food! Pardon my excitement whenever I see Malaysian food nowadays because nasi lemaks, char kuey teows and roti canais don't come my way often.

happy happy.. there's sambal, rendang, nasi lemak, ayam masak merah, nasi tomato and even serunding!

yummy..

right on the mantelpiece for everyone to see

hostesses happy when guests started pouring in..

with our gracious hostesses in pink and HELP friends, super fun to see all of them once again!

It didn't take me long before I dug in!

I ate..

..and ate..

.. and ate some more!! hahaha.. hey its not often you see me going like 3-4 rounds at a meal k!

with their housemates, luckily the food wasn't too spicy for them..

In between my makan rounds, we took quite abit of photos! We stayed on as guests came by..

.. and left! We were there for about 4 hours till it was time for us to catch our bus back to Aber.

Thanks a bunch to Amal and Aliana for the invitation to a wonderful open house & also to those who met up with us! Really glad I made the trip up to Cardiff =D