Time flies, today is the 6th day of Chinese New Year...haiz...I still remember few weeks before CNY, I already could feel the CNY atmosphere. In shopping mall, there were a lot of '70%', '50%'... in my campus, Chinese Language Society organized an event, 'CNY Extravaganza Night' (erm...correct ar the name?..) few days before CNY. Everybody was so busy with the preparation for welcoming the arrival of Tiger Year..ROAR!!! Eventhough I'm not celebrating CNY with my family, but I got the chance to celebrate it with my friends.
Few days before CNY(10 Feb - the day my old friend, Chris went to Australia to further his studies, and my another old friend's birthday, Meng), I had a 'tuan yuan fan' (reunion dinner) with my MMU friends. In the morning, my friends and I went to Tesco to buy drinks and ingredients for our steamboat dinner. At 5pm, after class finished, we headed to pasar malam at Taman Kerjasama to buy more things which we couldn't get in Tesco. Then, we invaded our friends' house..rumah sape lagi..our old place..Jerome's and Ah Chong's house. After cutting all the vegetables, washed the ingredients, cooked our tomyam soup..finally, at 7pm, we started our steamboat session..kai can!! Macam-macam ada, fish balls, crabsticks, tauki, sausages, cauliflowers, meehoon, etc.. and not to forget our cocktail drink. The cocktail drink is our own recipe, Ribena + longan + lychee + 100 plus lemon + berry flavored vodka...nice huh? Macam-macam ada till we couldn't finish it all, end up the food and soup left, we just left in Jerome's and Chong's house, let them to finish it later for supper,xD..
After that, Ying Hui, Wei Ying, Yi Fang and I hang out in Melaka town, to see the hanging tanglungs, we could get a nicer view at night..Other than tanglungs, a huge lion dancing, few times bigger than the ordinary size, was displayed on the side of the road, opposite Gan Boon Leong gym. Before we went home, we had our supper at Dataran Pahlawan McD.
On CNY eve, I was busy sending and reading sms..after 12am, lagi takyah cakap, received more sms..On the 1st day of CNY(14 Feb), my family and I, with my uncle's family as well, visited our families' old friend's house for dinner. Around 7pm, we reached Uncle Chan's newly renovated house at Taman Merdeka. By the way, Uncle Chan can speaks fluent Tamil you know, aku pun kalah..Uncle Chan and his family also visit my grandparents' house every year during Deepavali..inilah semangat 1 Malaysia! Sikap kunjung-mengunjungi diamalkan semasa musim perayaan tanpa mengira bangsa dan agama..ceh wah...
Finally, the 4th day of CNY has come, muahahahaha...that was the day I'd been waiting for so long...the night before the day, I received a message from Eelin, '2moro meet at lee hoon hse at 11 am. Pls pass d msg. Thx.' Pheww, thank god is 11am, because in the previous years, the time is 10am. I still remember, my brother and I late for about 1 hour last year. So I was thinking, this year we won't be like last year...and yeah, I was wrong, we reached Lee Hoon's house at almost 12pm, but we were not the last one to reach, keh keh keh...We had our lunch there while waiting for some of our friends who haven't arrived yet. Every year bai nian (visiting houses during festive season), Lee Hoon's house is the 1st house to visit, her house is our meeting point, the reason? I also don't know..maybe we are use to it..haha..
2nd house is Lye's house..she has a cute puppy, her puppy is like celebrity, a lot of people like to take picture with it..
Kim, Ash and Ong
who is cuter? Mathan or Jerry?
After that, we went to Lay Kim's house. Some of us invaded her toilet coz of drink too much at previous two houses. We sempat watched a half an hour video clip there. The video was taken during Chris's farewell party, credits to Mathan. The video clip is specially for some of our friends to watch, who didn't manage to attend Chris's farewell party. We let kim to keep the CD, so kim, if you watch till the CD damaged or scratched, I don't mind to burn another new CD for you..hehe..
The next house was Chris's house. His parents were so touched because we still visited their house although their son was not there.
Aunty, thanks for the angpow and the drinks!
We can see the gambling faces here...
We, the innocent people, were relaxing and chit chatting...
...and mathan interrupted us..
One of us reminded the gambling faces that we need to move, otherwise, I think they could stayed there for few hours to gamble. Whose house is the next? Siewsee's house!
At Siewsee's house, we attacked all her snacks, chocolates, chocolate cornflakes and ba gua. While Siewsee taking bath(sempat lagi mandi...), we were busy chit chatting, we even chat about Tamil movies, funny huh?..And we laughed a lot too, mostly was because of Ashok's jokes. We took a group photo at her house. Mathan used timer to take the photo coz nobody could be the photographer since everybody need to be in the picture. After 20 seconds......smile!!
pity Mathan....
the BEST candid photo ever...why? because everybody was looking so happy, smile and laugh naturally. Every time I see this picture, I feel we are just like a big happy family celebrating CNY. Credits to Lee Hoon...oh ya, Siewsee is missing in this photo..
Next, Eelin's house! This year, Eelin couldn't join us for bai nian coz she need to visit her relative's houses..haiz...Eelin, I thought I won't get to see you that day. At her house, we attacked her jeruk jambu batu. After drinking a lot of sweet drinks at previous houses, most of us get some plain water at Eelin's house to detox. Again, some of us invaded Eelin's toilet. Although that was the 6th house, and the time was already 6 something, but we still looked happy and energetic...
Finally, the last house to go, Ong's house! His parents invited us for dinner at their house. Eelin got the chance to join too, hehe..but Saran and Yan Yee(Ong's girlfriend) had to go back. When we reached Ong's house, the 1st thing we did...attacked the food? no...we took picture..
Me, Eelin, Lee Hoon, Lye, Vriesia and Siewsee..sayang..Shaline and Kim were not in this photo because they arrived later..
Someone menyibuk want to take photo also...
So, what we got for our dinner?
.
.
.
.
yum yum...ok..Lye, we are not that cruel and evil...the answer is steamboat!
while waiting for the food to cook, Vriesia and Lye sempat pose...Vriesia, don't worry, we won't rampas your food..
Where's the others?
they arrived late, so they had to wait for next round, after us..furthermore, excluding ong, there were 14 of us, how to sumbat 14 people in a dining table? so what could we do was divide to 2 groups, of course ladies first, except my brother yang always tersesat in the middle..We did enjoy our dinner, everything is nice, the chicken soup, the food, even the lighting ..Ong's family is absolutely a good host. After that, the 2nd group came in, and we relaxed ourselves on the comfy sofa, and enjoying our watermelon..
We wished that the 2nd group can't finish all the food especially tauki so that we got the chance to eat for 2nd round..but it seems like no hope..somehow we still smiled and were hoping that a miracle would happen..
Finally!...we were called to eat some more,yes!! but my tauki finished...T.T...we were asked to finish the chicken soup, ok, better than nothing. We eating chicken, drinking the soup..suddenly, Shaline, Eelin and Mathan were laughing non-stop, all because of Cabbage joke..and I just continued concentrating on my chicken soup. Some continued their gambling activity. At 9 something, Mathan fetched Eelin, Lee Hoon and Lye back. While waiting for Mathan to eat mee sua and cabbage together, we were served with watermelon and Mandarin oranges.
At 10 something, Mathan was back, we continued eating for the last round. Again, Mathan and Shaline laughed at the cabbage joke. Then, we had our conversations on hot topics. The gambling people joined us too. The topic is hot, even hotter than the steamboat..'What a guy/gal shouldn't do in a relationship?' fuhh!!..the question was asked by Christopher Joseph. Ong's dining table became our debate spot, till about 12am, we came out a conclusion, 'Guy and gal are the same, it's all depends on the attitude.' At 12.20am, we leave Ong's house and went home. So our bai nian session took bout 12 hours.
The bad thing about good thing is, it finish fast..haiz...however, I still feel happy because we still can continue our bai nian tradition, which we had practice since form 4. I wish we can continue the tradition next year, next next year, next next next year, next next.....ok, I will stop here, bye! Happy Chinese New Year! ROARRR!!!!
