My dream!

I always read in storybooks that people in my age always travel around the world and gain so much experience, i feel a little bit jealous, since most of the time I am stuck here in Simpang Rengam with next to no money gaining experience just by staring at a group of twelve years old playing very amateur baseball.

Well, I cant do much about it since to even travel around Malaysia itself would be costly, what more to travel around the world. I have been to India when I was five and I have been to England only last year, so I should be thankful that I am lucky enough to travel that far.

Though, an adventurer never would be satisfied with just a destination every ten years, right?

So, i just want to feed this passion here, I am going to list down the top 12 places that I want to visit and why, starting with number 12;

12. Paris, France

What more can I say, just by looking at the picture above is enough to fill me with the longing to be in this city.

The thing that drove me to be in this place is because recently I started to study French, so I feel a few month of eating halal-croissants and spending time and its historic city would do me good.

Also, this is the place where the famous musee d'lourve is situated, I mean come on, even people who are not that fond of the arts will spend their time staring at the famous paintings in the Museum.

11. Taman Negara, Pahang, Malaysia

Okay, I know that this place is not international, and probably a lot of people would say that it is no fun. But really, four hours of jungle trekking? I miss that, it has been a long time since I want to go trekking in Taman Negara, but it was always the wrong time, always no money, and always raining season.

All these obstacles only made Taman Negara even more fascinating to me.

Imagine, waking up in the morning, sitting at the edge of a river looking up to the trees and listening to the crickets and sounds of birds. Or at night, the sky will be filled with stars.

I am telling you, I spent my time in Hutan Banding in Perak, and I enjoyed it, so i bet i WILL enjoy Taman Negara too.

10. The Forbidden City, China



Okay, what else can I say about this place? It is like the cradle of China's history, the place for royalties, the place where concubines became empress. There is not enough books for you to read to describe this city, so, you just have to be there, to see it for yourself, to learn every bit of history and the architecture...

I know i have to buy a 50 gig memory card for my camera if I am here... I know i would take picture of every inch of the place.

9. El Giza, Egypt


What's with the culture and the history, and i imagine i would find halal food easily, right?

Well, this country has history waaaay back and most of the proves are still in existence. For Egypt, I would want to spend a month, maybe take a short course on history here, learn everything that i can learn, and spend my time gawking at the pyramids and the sphinx, i don't care how klise thay said the pyramids are, i still want to see it!

And i haerd the currency is a little bit lower than Ringgit, so I can live well there, I think la...

8. Ma'an, Jordan

This place is a home of one of the major historical sites in the world, the city of Petra. This place only became known to the world as recent as 1812. The mysteries shrouding this place is enough to get me there in the next flight (if i have 8 million ringgit).

It is just that, the poeple who created this place carved the city out from the mountains, and get this, only 1 percent of the city is available to the present world, the other 99 percent had been sealed by the people (Nabateans) who lived here when they left Jordan, who knows what lies inside the city?

7. Rome, Italy


This place is what some people call the cradle of civilisation (That does not mean that the ancient people are civilised, that just means that they lived in cities).

Before Rome became the center of Catholicsm, it was a pagan city rised above greece and famous for its knowledge in philosophies and art and also famous for massacre and criminal haven. The remains of all these is still vailable today, (Though most of the pagan idols had been destroyed)

The renaissance art of the holy roman empire is of course still preserved since the time of Michaelangelo and Bernini... and i don't know who else... i just know the place is full of historical sites and famous people had sculpted and painted their products and it is still kept there

These massive collection of histories and art is what drawn me to be in the city today.

6. Uttar Pradesh, India

Not only that this northern state of India is the childhood home of my father (he moved to Malaysia when he was 17, and now he is 71), but it is also the place where Hinduism started and the place where Muslim empires flourish.

So you can just imagine the history that this place have. The most famous sight in India is of course Agra - the Taj Mahl, and there are other interesting places too. The Agra Fort, Varanasi - the holy place for Hindus, the Fatehpur Sikri, Akbar the Great's tomb, and also Kushinagar - the place where Gautama Buddha died.

Also, the cultures of India which is colourful, the arts and the people (Uttar Paradesh is like the place where most beautiful people come from).

I've been to India when I was five, and i cant remember a lot of things but i remember sitting at the side of a lake with my brother, looking at storks and behind us was a vast field full of yellow flowers. It was beautiful, and i really want to go there again.

5. Inverness, Scotland

There is one thing about me that you need to know, when I was small, I always read fairay tales, it was the first few stories in English that i read. So, the ffects of that is my obsession to castles, vast lakes and Greensleeves tune.

So, my heart will go mellow now every time I think of such places. The highlands of Inverness is where the loch ness is; despite the over-publicized Myth about a monster dwelling in the loch, the scenery is beautiful, the Urquhart castle is just at the banks of the lake, how medieval is that?

When i was in London last year, i made plans to go to stay in an inn in Scotland, but the trip from London to Edinburgh itself was costly, and my mom, my sister and I did not have enough money. So we did not get the chance to go to Scotland, and that is why it is in my list!

4. Istanbul, Turkey
From a Byzantine capital, to Ottoman Capital, and into what is now the Secular Turkey's Capital. This place is full of history. The current culture is not that bad either, even though I hate secularism (i think it is a disgusting way of life, completely soulless).

However, all these occupations by different civilizations had made the place beautiful and rich with splendid architectures and fine arts.

Istanbul, (before Mustapa Kemal made his horrendous change) had been a place where the wonders of Islam flourished. So, i want to be in the place where once a Muslim Empire was at its strongest! - Imagine what i can learn!!

3. London, England

Okay, I know, I have been here, but why is it so high up in my list? London, there are just so many things for you to see in London. I have been here, so i know the wonders. The british Museums is where you can find the history of the whole world, you need more than five days to study them, or really to appreciate them The National Galerry, if you like art, that you would die in here. The Tower of London, the whole history of England is wrapped up in this one place - the place where three Queens of England was beheaded.

You can stay in London and you can go around London in one day just by paying 5 pounds... i mean ALL AROUND IT, because the whole of London is connected by the most efficient public transport in the world - the London underground.

I can study history, art and a lot of other things too here, just by going to the museums and libraries. Books here are sooo cheap too. Just one to six pound per book (second-hand of course) which means just five ringgit to thirty ringgit per book.

For Muslim travellers, the halal food is widely available, so there will be no worries!

I can just sit in the kensington garden in spring looking at the birds and the flowers and squirrels and just write me a novel or two. The atmosphere there is truly, truly different and very, very refreshing!

2. Cordoba, Spain

For seven hundred years, Muslim had made the place as one of the most beautiful and carefully administered city in the world. It is like a fort for Muslim civilastion in europe.

In that 700 hundred years, Muslims, Christians and jews live among each other under the supervision of Muslim leaders. There were Universities for Medicine, the first univeristy studying medicine and arts in the world was in Cordoba!

Muslim scholars in Cordoba knew about surgeries and other medicine stuff while at the same time Doctors in England was curing the King of England's injury with real (and of course lethal) gold dust. So, can you imagine the flourish of the most knowledgeable and most carefully administered city in the world at the time.

However in came Ferdinand and Isabella driving all these Muslims away and claimed Cordoba as their own. And all the scholars was driven out since both the King and Queen said that the knowledge was given by satan. So, surgeons was replaced by blacksmiths who would just cut off your feet if you told them that you have rash at the sole of your foot.

Well, with that simple history, dont you want to look at the remains? Cordoba is still full of Muslim cultures and architectures. I want to see the place where one of the world's most flourishing Government once stood.

1. Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia
There is not a place I want to be more than I want to be in Mecca.

I shall not even explain why, I know if you are reading this, I am sure you understand why.

My wants to be in this place is beyond any reasons... just beyond.

I just WANT to be here -that is all!


I will make my dream come true one day - no point of waiting, I will go to these places, especially the number 1.

Feminism, yeah are you sure?

For the past few weeks, I have been surfing the internet and looking around and I always stumble upon blogs and blogs created by Americans who are actually Muslim haters... A funny thing about their debate in downgrading Muslim are always about Women; 1. Women have to wear headscarves, so it denies feminism. 2. Women have to cover up, so it denies feminism 3. Freedom is about you showing as much skin as you can Since Muslim women are supposed to cover up, so they think that our religion is Barbaric and old-fashioned.

Well, it got me into thinking, whether they - the Americans, Europeans - respect their women enough, or they are just humiliating them even more.

The term that I am going to use a lot in this post is brain-wash, the women in America and Europe are brainwashed into thinking the more u show your skin, the better off you are...

let us see some of the activities that the American/European women are involved in, to me, these activities are the ones that would downgrade women, but for them they call it feminism.

1. Miss World/ Miss Universe competition.

Once every year, all the people in the world would go gaga over this competition, they say that this promote peace and friendship (what the hell happened to sports?), they kept on saying that this is a scholarship program.

For most men, this is the time for them to objectify the women, come on, a group of hot women from all over the country are parading around on the stage in their skimpy bikinis, you think we would think about feminism and freedom and equality? Come on!!! It is just about the boobs people!

You know what these pageants remind me off? Just look at the pictures below;

For those who actually like these kinds of competition - better stop reading now

Contestants for Miss Universe competition, all beautifully lined to be judged

REMINDS ME OFF;
Contestants for a show dog competition at Westminster, London, all beautifully lined up to be judged

Similar? No? Come on, I know you are thinking it, for those of you who live by pageants, you have been warned not to read...

Come on, if this is not humiliating women, then what is? In the Pageants, they have slots like costume and talent slots so that these women will parade their costumes and showcase their talents... which is funny since in the show dogs competitions, they have these slots too...

Since most Muslim countries forbid women from entering these kinds of competition they are deemed to be backwards and anti-feminism. Even some of the Muslims think that they are so backwards since their dream of becoming the Miss Universe thing is forbidden...

Come on, get real, it is not a scholarship program, it is a space for men to express their hormones and women to flaunt their beauty.

Ironic isn't it? How cultures who deemed themselves to be supporting women rights are actually downgrading them, and we the little people of the world are stupid enough to buy that notion...

i mean COME ON!

2. Modeling

Twice every year, Tyra Banks would shout to young girls all around America; Wanna be on top?

and thus starts the viral plague that is America's Next Top Model that has, since it birth, infected every country in the whole wide world to have their own version of these competition including Malaysia - Malaysian Dreamgirls. (have never watched the Malaysian version...)

but the very-similar-to-beauty-pageants competition is not the case here, I want to talk about modeling as a job;

Muslims are actually forbidden from these kind of jobs, since flaunting your beauty is not right (which put me into guilt, since I like photography)

Also, another thing that makes modeling wrong in Islam is the amount of lying involved in it.

Again, even in Malaysia, when this topic is open up for a debate, they are many people who said that modeling is an honet job and we should be proud that we have very good Muslim supermodels who came from Malaysia like Nasha Aziz and more.

There was a youtube video a few months ago created by an American atheist who kept on downgrading Muslims just becuase they are not many Muslims supermodel in the world...

Well, come on, this is another job that actually is downgrading women - look at it closely;

A photshoot is very important, but according to supermodels, once a model is in the photoshoot, they are regarded as no better but a moving mannequin, if the director ask you to strip down, then you have to strip down, of course, the picture of your hoohaa is not going to be included in magazines, but all the crew have seen your huha anyway, the question I am asking is that - where is you morality and you dignity then?

A photoshoot also is a place where a lot of editing takes place, because the real YOU is not suppose to be in a picture, so they edit you up and the end photo will be included in the magazine and sold to millions of women who are insecure of their own beauty and they starts to spend all their money and their sanity to achieve the computer-perfected look.

Look at an example below, see how much editing is involved;

and the end picture will go around the world feeding on all girls' lack of confidence, and then starts a viral plague that is botox and extreme makeup.

IT IS NOT REAL: IN THE FIRST PLACE

Now, why dont we want to promote modeling? Because
1. It would give men space to objectify women,
2. It would feed on women insecurities
3. It would degrade the worker

But you know, since Americans dignity does not lie within the amount of skin they show, what do they care, but the question is; where is their dignity?

It is a very subjective debate, since they have managed to fade the line between what is good and what is bad...


To be continued someday...