Brief History of Nearly Nothing! » Life in Saudia

The last Makkah trip 2011

rizal — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 03:59:31 +0000

Testing 123

Iris of Tumair

rizal — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:08:41 +0000

Our recent trip to Tumair .

The Ghar Hira’

rizal — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:05:07 +0000

March is coming – so before the crowd starts to grow in Makkah, we decided to visit the Holy City again for the first time this year. So I took 2 days of vacation and leave Riyadh on 22nd February morning — it was a long tiring trip as usual and we reached Taif’s Miqat area around 5pm . We took a break for lunch/dinner in the small motel there and left to enter Makkah right after Maghrib prayer.
To cut it short we checked in into the hotel and started doing the umrah ritual around 10pm and completed around midnight. The girls– Alysha and Sabrina did the umrah for first time after many years. They were too young before and always cried during the tawaf and saie so for 2 years (I think) whenever we came here they would either stayed in the room or waited in the masjid area while one of us took turn to do the umrah.
There were a little bit complain from the younger sister but alhamdulillah we managed to complete it without much hassle. Ammar too were wearing ihram this time ( I took him wudu’ too) and he did the umrah without any sign of unhappiness — I always believed that he was the one with the bless of Allah who led us here great country of Arabia .

Day 2: After we completed Fajr prayer in Masjidil Haram (the kids were asleep in the room) , everyone were waken up early for breakfast around 8am. With the guidance of the GPS we reached Jabal Nur around 9.30am.
It was a tiring trip but worth every moment — the kids were complaining as they have to wait for my slow phase climbing the hill.. Hey! give me a break.. try driving for 10 hours and you know how crammed this knee was!
Alhamdullillah it was a great trip .. and imagine this we were at the historical place where our Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) received the first revelation ages ago..who knows if we have stepped to one of his foot steps around the cave .. Subhanallah!
The video below explains better about the trip

The beautiful Diriyah :)

rizal — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 20:35:34 +0000

Still under heavy development -the old city of Diriyah the original city of Saudi Royal families will become the main historical attraction here in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We went there with few families recently for breakfast (but due to the cold and windy weather we left early) but as usual I managed to do the favourite past time hobby – photo shooting

Here are some of mine taken using my new Olympus PEN E-PL1

Lesley Hazleton: On reading the Koran

rizal — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 20:10:59 +0000

The most interesting video from TED I have seen so far about Islam – I am really amazed how a Jew agnostic (what she referred about herself in the video) could explained quite well about Quran – she even explained about some misinterpretation by the Orientalist. But what striked me the most – is my failure of being a Muslim for life of not having much effort to fully understand Quran . Living in Arabia for 4 years now I am near but the journey yet so far .. Still trying to complete my self study with books and 112 pieces CDs - Bayanul Quran by the late Dr. Israr Ahmed .

A week in Tehran

rizal — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 21:25:22 +0000

A week after Eid 2010 – I left for Tehran – a place I always wanted to go for many reasons – to really see the people, places , how they survive the sanctions? and the historical places where many of legendary Islamic scholars (Avicenna, Al Razi etc) were born and the latest one the famous Al-Sharif University – have you heard that the people at Stanford claimed that Al-Sharif University has the best undergraduates EEE programme in the world?

Though at the very last week, I hope the trip would be cancelled — it was a busy month at the office and the school was about to open and having just paid the house rent for 6 months left me broke - did I mention that they don’t accept credit card there?
A week before leaving, I look around for an “affordable” hotel and found one at USD120 per night + 15% discount for NSN staffs! I left Tehran via Emirates airlines reached Dubai after 1.5 hours and a brief 1++ hour transit before heading Tehran.

The red line in the Google Earth map was not the actual GPS route – perhaps my GPS tracker was not functioning well (no signal) during the flight -so the short green line was the only actual route to Tehran. I arrived there around 3.45am and a driver was already waiting for me just outside the airport. Stop by at the money changer to get some cash – 1USD=Iran Riyal ~10400 so for USD200 my wallet was full!
I reached hotel about an hour later around 5.30am – and had a short sleep before heading to NSN office around 8am. As usual I was sleepy in the class – talked about learning an application which I have worked for over 10 years!
I did not go many places when I was there – the first two days I was so sleepy – not due to the jet lag – just because I did not have enough sleep during the travel . It was 2 short flight trip – 1.5 hours from RUH-DXB + 2 hours transit and 2.5 hours DXB- IKA – I just couldn’t really sleep on those short flights.
The people in the office were really friendly and helpful – I believe they had good education – the English was fluent – all woman are wearing hijab though most of them were not properly worn . A colleague asked me what if my perception about the country before actually arrived here ? I said I had few friends who had worked here so I do have general idea about this country – it was not that bad . As a country who had trade sanctions from US , Iran had miraculously survived and did very well indeed they had turned the disadvantage into opportunities .
Remind me of the story of Bill Joy – the founder of Sun Microsystems .

I went to Berkley (rather than Caltech or Stanford) because it had the worst computer facilities of the three. I figured it would force me to be more ingenious

Ramadhan is here again

rizal — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:17:05 +0000

Its already 23rd of Ramadhan now and its my fifth Ramadhan in Arabia.. Alhamdulillah its keep improving every year with new lessons and experiences for me and the family . Though I missed a lot of stuffs about Ramadhan in Malaysia - the pasar Ramadhan , the sound of buka puasa announcement in the radio (they have this special Arabic(?) tunes before the announcement) , my father’s sirap bandung (with ice-cream soda of course!) and my also my mother’s cooking ! – the spirit of Ramadhan was never felt until I moved here. Ramadhan means a lot to me back then -I first came in Arabia on 3rd October 2006 which equivalent to 10th Ramadhan 1427 (so Ramadhan marked my hijrah from MY to KSA) and my first visit to Makkah for umrah was also during the last ten days of Ramadhan on the same year.

Why we need to learn Arabic

rizal — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:32:14 +0000

I have been in Saudi for over 3 years now but my Arabic knowledge has not much improved – my bad. I have heard many lectures , read many books about the importance of reading and understand Quran but it has never giving me the same impact that these lectures on myself. Mashaallah it was really clearly explained! Just listen to brother Nouman Ali Khan you’ll know why learning Arabic is important to learn and understand the miracle of Quran.

Nouman Ali Khan – Divine Speech Prologue – Part 1

Why and How to Learn Arabic for Comprehension of the Quran

You can visit his website Bayyinah.com where he teach (I wish I can visit him one day!) and don’t forgot to download his podcast of tafseer Juz Amma here

Competitive Strategy

rizal — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:14:33 +0000

The new semester had started for my Competitive Intelligence study at OUM - I have to take two subjects for this semester which are Competitive Strategy and Macroeconomics .

As an online student- not being able to attend to the seminar in MY, I had no choice but to find alternative ways to understand the course so I turned to podcast and alhamdulillah I found one.

It is based on a taught course by Professor Mark Juliano (I think he’s a telco veteran!) in the University of Carnegie Mellon University in the MISM masters program. Topics include idea generation, company formation, funding, writing a business plan, sales & marketing, IPOs and acquisitions, and giving an investor presentation

It is quite popular in the internet according Professor Juliano’s blog

The initial podcast episode was created in January 2007. Since then, the episodes have been downloaded/listened to over 40,000 times, and average about 1,500 downloaded episodes per week. I’m proud to say that I have now had many more students take the podcast course than in my total tenure of live teaching at Carnegie Mellon. My goal was always to reach as many people as possible. Isn’t podcasting great!

The links are as below:-

The Makkah and Madinah trip

rizal — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:58:43 +0000

This was the first time I drove with my new Trailblazer from Riyadh-Makkah-Madinah-Riyadh. It was enjoyable trip with additional passenger – Pah. She stayed with us for almost 6 month and only 2 weeks before leaving that we managed to bring her here. Apa nak buat I was busy with Hajj, project and also the OUM exam . Glad to hear that she was happy with the trip