猴 Seh 猴年 Chinese New Year 2016

Goodness gracious! It is 5 months after Chinese New Year and here I am writing about Chinese New Year 2016. This post, together with a few other posts, has been on draft mode till spiders had already begun to spin web on it.


Let's start with my CNY gelish nail art. Some of you would have seen this photo on Instagram.




It is the year of the Monkey and I contemplated doing monkey nail art. However, it is more difficult to draw a monkey and hence also more expensive, so I decided on Fortune Cat instead. It is cuter and easier to blend in with the glittery red CNY colours for the rest of my nails.

It is the usual practice for our department to have CNY lunch together before the 2-day CNY public holiday starts. Lunch was yummy but what was more memorable was the good time spent with these friends from work. Another memorable event that happened that day was how I injured myself while playing Bubble Bump.

We would usually have reunion dinner with kh's family on the eve of CNY but since he has overnight duty on CNY eve, we had our family dinner at Canton Paradise on the CNY eve eve.




Compare the length of the chopsticks for tossing Yu Sheng with the normal chopsticks.




Raw fish slices used in Yu Sheng were replaced with abalone slices at Canton Paradise. It was during the period of the raw fish scare when there were a few cases of hospitalisations and that the Ministry of Health (MOH) said it found a link between the consumption of raw fish and Group B Streptococcus (GBS) infections.




I haven't Lo Hei with a group who knows exactly what to recite for each ingredients so this was the guide in many people's mobile phones to refer to.




I love Chinese food and I always dislike how they could never look appetising in photos like their Japanese or French or Italian or whichever Non-Chinese counterparts.














Bob Marley photobombed our family photo. Facebook actually had a face recognition tag for him!




Before I got married, we would gather at my paternal grandma's place for home cooked reunion dinner on the eve of CNY. It has been years since I had reunion dinner with my family and relatives and it was great to spend time with my relatives on CNY eve.




Just look at the home cooked food spread! Delicious and comforting!




My grandma is getting senile but the things she says still makes her so cute and endearing.




I'm never into flower arrangement so I'm pretty pleased with what I've done with this vase of orchids.




And this vase too. (Yes, they are different. Check out how horizontal and parallel to the table these orchids are.) I had some help from my youngest BIL as the flower stems simply would not stay put even with those "pebbles" or whatever you call them. It was a funny sight with 2 people trying so hard to hold the flowers in place.




I took the mini flowers free from Gardens by the Bay. Some flowers had wilted by CNY but I was glad that majority of them held up well.




All decked in red for Day 1 of CNY.




I never had a red dress in years and I bought this red dress for CNY, Christmas, National Day... Be prepared to see this dress being worn to death.

I love the collar zip of this skater dress. I could achieve different styles with zipped up mandarin collar, zipped down into a V and zipped down with collar folded.

Wefie with hubby




It is a tradition to go back to my family home for lunch for CNY Day 1 and I absolutely love my parents' cooking!

A variant of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall soup.




Leek and tofu.
Leek is an auspicious food to eat during Chinese New Year because the character “蒜” in its Chinese name (蒜苗/大蒜) sounds like count (“算”) in Mandarin. Due to the similar sounds, it is believed that eating leeks is an auspicious symbol of wealth (lots of money to count) in the coming year.




White-spotted rabbitfish.
The white-spotted rabbitfish is highly sought after for eating during the Chinese Lunar New Year. At this time, the fishes breed and their roe are particularly relished. Called 'Pei Tor', the Chinese believe that eating it brings abundant luck.




Ngoh Hiang.
I have never ever eaten any ngor hiang that tastes like the ones my mum makes. Pure meat and prawns and no flour in the filling at all. She also adds water chestnuts for the crunch. This dish is many of my relatives' favourite dish too. During reunion dinner, some of my relatives would actually wait for my family's arrival just for my mum's ngor hiang. LOL...




I'm so glad we could continue the tradition of The Loh Family portrait shot on the sofa. We did not have one last year because of my eldest sister suffered from a stroke and was in ICU. This year's CNY period marked her one-year survival mark!

The animation doesn't seem to be showing on my blog. Click here to watch.




Ng Family portrait.
Note to hubby and self: Lean forward when taking photos and we would look short and stumpy.




Click here to watch if the animation isn't showing on my blog.




I forgot which day it was that we had steamboat dinner with kh's paternal relatives. We also visited other relatives just that these visits aren't captured in photos.




Yummy steamboat with pig stomach soup.








CNY dinner with the VIOS gang at New Ubin Seafood.




















Super belated CNY in March with my other family (Cyn and godkids Jase and Mia).




So many happy wefies! Though there would always be one with bad angle or when somebody was blocked or did not look good. It was hard without a selfie stick.






Sweet and pretty Mia with her hair all tied up, sporting a sideway ponytail and fringe framing her cutie face by bimbotic Godma.




Jase was and is always the good older brother to his sisters Charmaine and Mia whom he loves dearly. Mia thinks the world of her beloved older brother too. To him, his half-sister Mia is his treasured sister and there is no such thing as half sister in his dictionary.




Hugz and kisses to my 2 little rascals.




Who loves doing the Asian peace sign?




Jase attempting to take a wefie.




Ending this post with a wefie with Cyn, one of my bestest gal pal ever. As I'm typing this, Cyn and the kiddos would be emigrating to the UK to join Patrick as a whole family in a few days time. It was a long and tough decision for them but everyone was glad that the whole family could be reunited after so many challenges.

I would miss you!




I thought of scrapping the idea of posting a late one but felt that it would not make my blog complete if there is a missing post for this year's CNY. I sure hope you enjoyed joining me on my CNY 2016 happenings through these photos whether they are late or not.