Avatar: The copy-cat

Living in Ireland is totally different from where I came from. 10 years ago when I first arrived here, I was really surprised to find that shops closed at 6 in the evening, it's four-season country but it rains ALL the time (including in summer), you can't dine out late at night if you are hungry and there's nothing much to do if you don't have your own transportation.

So the only thing I did back then to entertain myself during my free time was go to the nearest cinema to watch movies.


Sometimes, I'd have a movie marathon and stayed in the cinema for the whole day and watched anything available with my monthly pass. Well, that was long time ago now, before I had my first baby.

Since then, I can't even recall when was the last time I visited a cinema, until recently. Well, even that's been quite a while. My last visit being when Avatar came out at our local cinema. My husband decided to go and begged me to come along and asked me to find someone to look after the kids. It was like a date for us after a really long time.


To cut it short, I agreed. He was so excited he even bought tickets for the movie online, a whole month before the release. It was a 3D movie and I was like so jakun as it was my first time. When they handed the 3D glasses I was so excited - like a kid getting a present. I totally forgot about the 3D thing at first and forgot to put on my contact lenses so, you can imagine how stupid I looked wearing the nerdy 3D glasses on top of my normal one! Haha...you can laugh, it's OK.

Anyway, apart from the movie being quite long, I thought it was awsome. The picture was so good - colourful and with the 3D experience thrown in, it felt so real. The story itself was a bit boring but I can still give it one thumb up. Honestly, I am not that good at reviewing movies as my husband always reminds me that instead of giving a summary of a story, I always end up re-telling the WHOLE story.

So, forget about a review here. A few months had past after we watched the movie. Since then, my husband and I have been catching up on a lot movies from around 2007 and 2009. The exact time-frame when we were so busy. What I discovered to my surprise was that Avatar movie is a totally un-original movie. To me, the movie was made and created by putting together pieces from a few different movies, all of which I've watched at this stage.


To name a few, there's Delgo, Terra, and Appleseed ex Machina. It's true, it was a combination of all that 3 movies or maybe more that I don't know and haven't watched yet. My husband tells me the ending (with the "tree of life" and all) is from a Japanese manga movie called Princess Mononoke).

For example, the animals that they ride on Avatar is almost the same as the ones in Delgo. The big robots used by the humans to fight in Avatar are largely the same as the one in Appleseed. And, the whole story line from Avatar is more or less the same as Terra but honestly, I think Terra make more sense than Avatar.

Seriously, you guys should start to watch the movies I mentioned. And you might get an idea of what I'm talking about.

For now, I'm 100% dissapointed with whoever created Avatar for copying all the ideas off other movies. James Cameron and his friends should have done better and shame on him for getting all the awards!!! Although, who am I to judge...Hehehe...OK

Auntie Nana's Pretzels

Ever since Auntie Anne's Pretzels came to town I was one of the first customers who welcomed them and joined in the queue to get a taste the first freshly baked batch of pretzels in Dublin. I liked it but strangely enough, was never a fan of it back home in Malaysia. But, since they opened here, I can say that at least almost every week I will go and get a bite of pretzels. Until one fine day that is. The story goes like this.

A friend of mine was on the way to my house and called me asking what flavour pretzel I liked as she was feeling generous and wanted to get some for all of us at home. So, after telling her that cinnamon sugar is my all-time favourite, she said

OK! See you in 10 minutes...

I just couldn't wait for my friend to arrive and was almost drooling for the pretzels. Our doorbell rang and excitedly, I opened the door.

I'm sorry babe, but I didn't buy any for you.

I was so dissapointed (although I kept a smile on my face). To be fair, she bought as replacements, all kinds of sweet pastries from Marks & Spencer. After having a good go at the pastries, she started to explain why she didn't get the pretzels...

As usual, there was a queue for the pretzels but by the time it got to her turn, she had to wait for another five minutes as they had run out and had to put a new batch into the oven. As soon as the pretzels came out, the girl working in the kiosk started to glaze all of the pretzels.

Nothing out of the ordinary there but guess what? It looked like the Auntie Anne's employee had been using the same brush to glaze the savoury sausage pretzels as well as all the other sweet pretzels!

Well, I know it might not be a big deal for other people but for us Muslims, it's a very BIG deal and quite complicated to explain. To cut it short, it's as bad as offering a vegetarian a 12 oz. beef steak.

So, my friend asked me again. Would I buy the pretzels from Auntie Anne's if I had seen what she had seen?

Mmmmm...I was still dissapointed but I knew what she did was right. Oh well, that's the end of Auntie Anne's for me. Well, at least it'll save me money on this not-so-healthy bread.

After a about a week or so, I just couldn't stop thinking about it. My friend did tell me that Auntie Anne's has this DIY pretzel kit so that you can make pretzels yourself at home but I was just not into it. Spending €10 for the kit but still having to do it from scratch? Not for me.

So, I Googled pretzels and found this nice Soft Pretzel recipe.


The results were so fantastic. It's really easy to make and I bet you can save a lot of money by making them yourself. To top it off, it's delicious too and just as good as Auntie Anne's but with the added bonus that these pretzels are home-made by Mummy Nana!!!

I have to stop

If I had my way, I won't actually stop writing about Husayn from the day after his best friend left. But I have too. I don't want to think about it so much, but I just can't help it.


As usual, early in the morning when I was preparing breakfast for Ameera and hubby, Husayn will ask some for himself too - bread with chocolate spread, cut into four small squares or triangles and placed in a plastic bag. This time, the minute I handed over his breakfast pack to him, he said

Mummy, can I go to Nadeen's house after this?

I just ignored him but he didn't stop asking the same question. So, I reminded him that Nadeen wasn't at home anymore. She's now in Malaysia. The conversation went on and he started to cry, asking when she would be back, who lived in her house now, etc. etc.


The whole day, everytime he did something, ate something or saw something that could be related to Nadeen (no matter how remote), he would relate it and talk about her. At one point, it just broke my heart when he asked me,

Mummy, is Nadeen coming back tomorrow so I can go to her house and play with her?

I tried to explain again and not surprisingly, he started to cry again. This time, he asked who was going to play with him since Nadeen was no longer around any longer. It's just so hard for me. I can't exactly explain how I feel right now but whatever it is, it really, really, makes me sad. For Husayn, he still thinks that some time soon, Nadeen will come back and be re-united with him.

I know it will be the same for the next few days, but I promise to post no more sad stories. Somehow, during a break from this whole episode, I just smiled to myself. What will it be like in 10 years time or more, when both of them are a bit more grown up and after a while of not meeting each other (because I know with this current financial situation, I don't see us going home even for holidays)?

Will Husayn still miss his little best friend? He might feel embarrased reading this, but I think it will be the sweetest moment he will have in his childhood.

Free Treasure Hunt Ice Cream- May bank Holidays

It's a long one this weekend. I thought that we could bring the kids to the beach. The weather however, wasn't too obliging. Compared to last week, this weeked is going to be a bit chilly and wet. We don't know where to go, but looking at the kids' faces I told my husband we needed to do something. Anything.


So, as a last-minute option, we decided to bring them to Ikea specifically, to the Smaland play area. I knew that there will be something going on in the place whenever a bank holiday comes around. I was right (as ususal!). After booking-in the kids for the next session at Smaland, we headed to the showroom. On the way up, the lady at customer service asked me whether we wanted to participate in their Treasure Hunt activity. The prize for completing the hunt was free ice cream!


My kids were overjoyed that they stood a chance of winning the prize. I know it's just ice cream but my kids are very easy to please. Maybe it's because they know that Mummy can get really busy, with no helper around. So, they're always excited as long as it involves the whole family doing something together.


The hunt promptly begun. I think it was so funny as other people were so busy looking at stuff to buy whereas we were so excited go back and forth in the showroom to find clues for the answers. At one moment I was like a kid, I told my husband, I saw this lady with her 2 boys loooking for the clues but I think they couldn't find anything yet and tried to peek at our answers. I refused to show it to them (with an evil laugh) and asked Ameera to hide her answer too. My husband laughed at me as if it was a serious competition with big prize to win. Haha... so you can imagine how competitive it got... the hunt was ON!

Don't mind Ameera's hair. She always looks like a ghost. Even I don't like to comb her hair!

Finally, after almost 45 minutes in the showroom we got all the answers. Yeay! We went straight to the counter to get ourselves 4 tokens for the free ice cream we so deserved. The best part, wee had so much fun running around here and there....


So, to the lazy ones out there, here's the answers for you guys who plan to go to Ikea between today and tomorrow:

Can u see it??

It's a bit challeging as the clues weren't actually easy to find (especially in a busy showroom) but we managed to do it. Now that we've "won" the prize we've become generous enough to help you out and save your time...Good Luck!!!