Hello, Mr. Sun

"Nothing good ever happens after 2am."

Right after quoting this line from How I Met Your Mother, the girls and I (all mabuk and mamai) made a decision to watch the sun rise at Primrose Hill the next morning. It was 2.05am on a Saturday, and the sunrise was at 7.40am. I don't know why we even agreed to give the plan a go...

A few hours later I was woken up by a chorus of alarms, none of which was even mine! All six of us got up for Fajr and got ready to head out, all in silence simply because it was too early for any noise. I sleepily said to Bihah, "Bihah, remember when we made a decision at 2 in the morning?" "Uh huh?" "Yeah, let's not do that again."

It was super cold outside as we were all dressed for a pleasant autumn's day – thin jumpers/tops, light jackets, sans gloves. By the time we reached Primrose Hill it was already a few minutes after the actual sunrise, but the sky still had hues of purple and brilliant orange and we could just barely see the sun peeking out on the horizon behind London's skyline. MasyaAllah. It was just so breathtaking that no words or pictures can do it justice. We took a few pictures with the magnificent background (of course), and then we just sat and watched the whole thing unfold. Something as beautiful as this cannot and will never be properly captured with a camera lens.

No idea what these two were up to

Sheera, the tiny genius behind the lens

London's skyline

A random group of joggers who thought we were tourists and so insisted that we took a picture with them

When it got a little too chilly on the hill we took off and had breakfast at a tiny cafe nearby. The area was still so peaceful at the time; such a contrast to London's usual hustle and bustle, and I have to admit that it was kind of nice. After breakfast we made our way to Emirates Stadium to bring the little Özil fan (Sheera) around for a quick tour outside the stadium. I sent a picture to my family group just to let them know what we were up to and my dad replied, "Apahal lak pi Emirates?" Hahaha I had to explain to him that we were just being tour guides.

Guys, I'm pretty sure I'm at the wrong place

We went back home then, to do the laundry and pray before going out yet again to meet a few of the KY boys at Malaysia Hall for lunch. It was only supposed to be lunch, but after that the Southampton boys wanted to go around London for a bit, so (surprise surprise!) we took them to Buckingham Palace. From there we walked to Big Ben through St. James Park. It was such a lovely day to be out! People were walking their dogs, hanging out with their families, feeding the animals, lounging on the grass... It was basically the epitome of a perfect weekend.

In this last picture, I was actually calling a squirrel because I had a piece of biscuit in my hand and I wanted to feed it. But instead this duck came to me, and when I didn't want to feed it, it got mad and grumpily bit the metal railing a few times. Hahaha it was just so funny.

So anyway, after Big Ben the girls and I rushed back home to cook. The boys (and a couple of others) were coming over for dinner. We were gonna make chicken rice for the first time... and among the six of us, I was supposedly the 'head chef'.

No, that's not a good thing.

Shaza & Sheera made banoffee pie for dessert, while the rest of us were cramped up in the little kitchen, panicking and trying to get everything done in less than 2 hours. "Does this taste okay?" "How is the soup supposed to taste like?!" "Is this how you marinate the chicken?!" "Do we have enough rice?" But alhamdulillah, everything turned out alright and everyone enjoyed the meal. We also surprised Safwan with candles on the pie because it was his birthday only a few days back.

By 11pm all of us girls were so damn lemau from the eventful day that we had. It was difficult to even form a proper sentence. It was a crazy day, really, what with all the spontaneous plans and all after only 3 hours of sleep. But I definitely had a fantastic day with the girls. Sooo much love for them lah. Really looking forward to spending another weekend with them again.

I guess our 2am decision wasn't so bad after all :)

Photos by Shahirah Hasbullah
(I give up trying to align the pictures together. I'll just have to pretend that it doesn't bother me)