Selamat Pagi Malaysia! & my short update summary

To my faithful readers, (haha, give a comment if you are still around so that I know someone is still reading my blog!)

It's been too long. Yes, my bad. I've just been too lazy. Can't believe it's been a week since I came back home... home sweet home! It's really nice to be back in the comfort of home and to rekindle the love of family and friends. They knew I was gonna be home but didn't know exactly when so I made a pleasant (i hope) surprise to most of them! :)

I also realised that I haven't blogged after I went back to Turkey from Latvia. So let's see if I can compensate on that with my summary below:

31st July - 26th August: My visit to Latvia

• Welcome meal: PORKchop with mushroom sauce, mashed potatoes and sour cream! (I was "pork-sober" for 3 months in turkey...)
• Great times catching up with old friends (Ilze & Juris, Igors, Agnese & Valdis, Karina, Dace, Anete, Ieva, Kristine, Crista & Guntars, Inese, Janis, Olga, Natalija, Marina, Maris)
• Attended Brainstorm (Prata Vetra) concert as blogged below.
• Went to Ventspils, Riga and Sigulda city festivals.
• Experienced a drum&bass rave party (not as good as I expected but anyway, it was something new for me).
• Went boating and swam naked in the river of Ogre (brrrr).
• Met my students who were 12 when I taught them and now 16 and all taller than me. I felt like a midget.
• Stayed at Igor's, learnt russian, cooked red lentil soup and chinese vegetarian fried rice. They loved it! ;)
• Went to an Indian vegetarian restaurant at Kr.Barona street.
• Attended Maria's 5th birthday party at their summer house and met cute little Nikita.
• Went to Jurmala (beach at the gulf of Riga) & Ventspils seaside (Baltic Sea).
• A walk in the lovely Old Town of Riga (city of inspiration).
• A boat cruise along Daugava River.
• And lots of booze.

26th August - 2nd September: Igor's visit to Turkey with his sister & niece

• Met Murat & travelled around Buyukada (big island) at Istanbul.
• Murat left and we visited Blue Mosque & Topkapi Palace.
• Took a flight to Dalaman and then took another expensive Havas bus to Fethiye to meet Sinan, owner of Yakabagh House where we stayed for 3 days.
• Excellent retreat at Yakabagh... turkish home cooked meals, mediterranean cuisines, swimming, yoga, gardens of olive, pomegranate, grape, melon & fig.
• Met lovely 5 year old Iris who speaks Spanish to her mom Isabel and Turkish to her dad Sinan.
• Went to Oludeniz (mediterranean sea) and lost my goggles after a strong wave :(
• Free wall painting & whirling under the neon lights.
• Met some "rainbow" people...
• Took a 9hr bus to Ankara and met Murat again (twinkling heartshapes all over me).
• Went to Ataturk Mausoleum & Ankara Zoo.
• Went to Cappodocia for the weekend, visited underground city, fairy chimneys and stayed in the enchanting cave hotel!

So that's about it. Email me if you need more details or best yet, call me since I'm back in Malaysia!! Same number, I'm very free. Came back to settle some stuff... obviously full of frustrations when it comes to legal matters... anyway, new shopping malls are open: The Gardens (went there yesterday with my parents... erm, quite high end type...), The Pavillion (yet to go there coz they said it is still so new that not all shops are opened yet...) and Sunway Pyramid 2 (seems that there is an extended wing at the lion mall??).

Great, a blog posting without any picture... that's coz I'm too lazy to beautify it, otherwise this post will never published...