This is a post written in 2014.

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I just came back from Penang trip with my families. It has been 17 years since the last time I visited my relatives in Penang. Reason for this trip is to meet up with my aunties and uncles who came over all the way to Klang to visit my then ill mother when she was in the ICU.

I told my mother that everyone came and visited her and if she recovers from her illness, I shall bring her and the rest to visit the relatives. However, she passed away and I believe that it is my duty to arrange for family visiting.

Since we have a few days of leave during the Eidul Adha, I and my wife decided to visit Penang and to throw that idea to my dad. He is happy to hear about the Penang trip as he can enjoy his so called Mee Pokok Ceri and some other foods which is only available in Penang.

Initially, he said that he is a bit reluctant for this Penang trip as the jam might be massive. I told him to just relax and enjoy the trip. I’ll be driving anyways. He said ok. Let’s go to Penang then.

So food hunting it seems.

While doing the planning, I told Ayah that if we visit Penang for food hunting, we will not be scoring any points in the eyes of Allah. Why don’t we visit Penang for the sake of Silaturrahim? Perhaps that is better since it is sunnah. Being someone pious and learned, he definitely likes my idea and thus our Penang trip is actually to visit relative for the sake of strengthening the silaturrahim. Food hunting is secondary for this journey.

To my surprise, the condition of the road was fantastic throughout the journey except for our first day. It took around 12 hours from Seremban to Penang as we need to fetch my little sister who is studying in UiTM. Other than the first day craziness, the rest of the days are just fantastic.

I told Ayah that Allah definitely loves anyone who does something for His sake and our journey has just showed how our intention can actually benefits us.

So during the journey, we managed to visit Ayah’s family and also the food hunting. However, the food taste was bad. How can that be? Maybe Allah has taken the loves of food from us while we were in Penang and what Allah wants is for us to repair the relationship which was not good.