Once again, this will be a long post full of photos so either open this page, wait for it to load and go do something else before coming back or just click the X button on the top right hand corner of your browser window and don’t come back.
This was what happened during the whole of last week…
Preparation for CNY
The flowers around the “pond” as well as a few more pots out by the recess area of my house cost a total of $50 only! Cheap and beautiful.
We tied a little red ribbon on Simba’s collar to put her in the festive mood.
Simba zz
I could never resist taking a photo of Simba.
My room is so damn neat now. It has never been so neat for months. Oh but the neatness is a façade. All the mess was stashed into the drawers and cupboards.
I cleared up the mess above my bed and arranged my vodka bottles in a row. These bottles really served as great decoration. Please do not be mistaken that I’ve drunk all those. I merely tried a sip of each of them. The rest were drunk by my sis who insisted on me collecting the bottles for her.
Vodka bottles in a row adorning my headboard
CNY eve (Saturday 28 January 2006)
Once again, I did not do much of my part in spring cleaning this year. This job is really a good excuse for it.
We still gotta work on CNY eve! Everyone was in such a CNY mood. Lessons were relaxed and unstressful. Majority of teachers with 6pm classes had their lessons postponed to attend reunion dinners.
As usual, we had our steamboat at Ah ma’s place (Paternal grandmother). Every year, I would be sitting at the table eating and eating and eating till all the people sitting around me kept changing. For last year and this year, I just ate 1 bowl and left the table. I’ve been sick for so long it’s affecting my huge appetite.
Leftovers of reunion dinner
This year was special, firstly we “lo hei” on the eve and secondly, the raw fish slices were salmon sashimi. So untraditional... What’s tradition anyway?
Salmon Yu Sheng
LO HEI!
A video of us Lo-ing.
CNY Day 1 (29 January 2006)
We went to Ah ma’s house again.
Family photo plus 2 small fry.
Half the cousins at dad’s side.
2 small fry
Allan and me
2nd sis n me n small fry
Family photo
Me. I wanted to capture my whole outfit including my pretty boots… hehe
Next we proceeded to big aunt’s house on mum’s side. By the time we reached, it was already so late that most of the relatives have gone home. I was so glad that kh could drop by to bai nian. Big family gatherings scare him off. And my extended family is really BIG with 4 uncles, 8 aunts, 30 over cousins and a few nieces and nephews on my mum’s side; 7 uncles, 6 aunts and about 15 cousins on dad’s side.
Went over to kh house to bai nian.
Deardear and me
CNY Day 2 (30 January 2006)
At 6th aunt’s place (mum’s side)
Small aunt’s place (dad’s side)
The mahjong kia! All 4 are siblings. I realised it's good to have 4 children. You can just kai zuo and play mj among yourselves.
Delicious food prepared by my uncle.
A fusion of east and west… traditional and modern:
Home-made pizzas, seafood pasta, roast chicken, curry, century egg porridge etc etc…
The man behind the food…
This uncle not only cooks good food (he has a restaurant… duh), he makes sure everyone drinks something alcoholic. When cuz Allan asked for coke, he gave him bourbon coke. When he saw my 2 sisters and me he immediately poured drinks for us saying it was “coke”. Of course it turned out to be bourbon coke again. I’m not surprised if he gave all my younger cousins “coke” as well. He poured red wine for everyone else. I hate bourbon more than anything else and was so thirsty but there wasn’t a single packet or canned drinks without alcohol in his house. Anyway have I mentioned before that most of the people on my dad’s side are alcoholic, except my dad?
I don't know how we did this with self-timer. It's cool to have a tall TV to act as a ledge to accommodate everyone.
Then we hopped over to big uncle’s house at mum’s side.
I’m so preoccupied with taking photos of my niece, Ziwei. The last time I saw her was last year and she was still a tiny toddler then. Now she 2+ years old.
She is a camera whore and so very cuuuute! She could pose exactly what we tell her to do.
We told her to act cute, she did.
We told her to do gong xi gong xi, she did.
She did her xi nu ai le too.
xi3
nu4
ai1
le4
Ziwei’s 6mth old sister, Gladys.
My cousin is only 2 years older than me and she has got 2 kids. Where would I be the next 2 years?
Next the whole relatives entourage trooped to my place.
We lo hei again.
A video of us lo-ing at my place.
When people lo hei, we usually cry out all those strings of mandarin couplets like “bu bu gao sheng”, “nian nian you yu”, “wan shi ru yi”, “xin xiang shi cheng”, “sheng yi xin long” etc etc ( that’s as far as how my Chinese vocab would take me). However, I supposed all my relatives are also very ang mo pai (English ed) so all we do is say “Ohhhhh” and “Loooo” and words that sound in the middle of these two.
CNY Day 3 (31 January 2006)
We went to 4th aunt’s place at dad’s side. The same place I go every week to tutor my cousin. I love going to my 4th aunt’s place because she always “stuff” me with a lot of food.
We had Tom Yam steamboat.
It was so delicious that I just sat there and ate for an hour.
We savoured our favourite “drinks” for another hour. My uncle and aunt, being very good host, would never fail to present their guests with alcohol.
We savoured…
Sake…
White wine that was a tad too sweet, it tasted like dessert wine…
Kahlua on the rocks…
Chinese tea to end it all
4th aunt’s favourite wine bottle… the bottle is very special. It has 2 openings (symbolizes friendship) and she could not bear to open it.
My Snow White cuz.
All those attached cousins brought their partners except me. I was a bit disappointed that at the last minute kh could not make it. SIGH… almost 5 years together and my dad’s side has yet to see him. Their impression of him is forever overseas.
CNY Day 4 (1 February 2006)
Since our Monday and Tuesday off days were “eaten up” by CNY, the company decided to give us an off day on Wednesday. I went out with a bunch of hh colleagues for KTV cum buffet session.
Me as usual being self-absorbed
Our buffet food spread
My share
Food
Food
More food
I got so sick of my fave salmon sashimi after this buffet.
A video of us singing Alex To’s “tuo diao”. For non-Chinese, it means “take off” as in take off clothes. I thought that taking a video of this would be fun but they were so shy to even pretend to tuo diao their jackets. Then the video time ran out and didn't catch Alex To tuo to his yellow ducky.
Then it was back to work the next day. Work has been very fun the whole week. Everyone was still in a cny mood.
Cancelled all tuition last week to spend more time with kh as he was flying away again. There goes another year of Valentine’s Day cum anniversary not being physically together. But to look on the bright side of things, it’s only for 1 month. Yay! By now, 1 month is nothing to me. And yay again coz people, my non tuition nights (Wednesday and Saturday) are free till beginning of March. Jio me k!
For the whole of CNY week, I have been visiting this mother dog and her pups every night. They would be sleeping at the electric plant (or whatever you call that.. those who stay in HBD flats would know) downstairs my block. Many people visit them too. Apparently the dog is highly favoured by joggers from the stadium nearby, uncles, aunties etc. She is such a gentle dog. The first dog ever to allow me to pat her and play with her despite having puppies to guard strangers from.
From 7 pups to 6 to 4 to 2 to 1 pup. The 7th one died 2 weeks ago while the rest of them have been adopted. Every few days, people would adopt the puppies. All the adopted puppied were well accounted for as the were people with experience and dog lovers. One of it, i'm not sure as it was taken away by an Indian boy to be sold to a cake shop! Bloody hell! Cake shop? Now the only 1 left is the most active one and it has reached its 30 day period, it would soon be running around and I'm so afraid it would get knocked down by reckless drivers. I hope somebody adopts it soon.
