Happy Chinese New Year!

Playing with our food at Reunion Night

How was your Chinese New Year celebrations? 
This year I celebrated CNY in Kuala Lumpur as the "one who makes determines all decisions" lives in Mid Valley area (my grandma). Checked into the Gardens Hotel during Reunion Day just hours before the dinner. 


The bed was not as heavenly as Westin KL. Not sure why cuz I kept waking up with two hour intervals in between (3am, 5am then 7am). Weird.
 



The room allowed us full access to the Executive Lounge so that's where my cousins and I chatted up at night with our endless supply of Lattes and cookies:
 

REUNION NIGHT

Got together for dinner at 5:30pm because the restaurant was fully booked so they needed to split the session to accomodate another set of diners later on. Met up with the relatives and it was great since some of them I have not seen in more than a year as they're abroad studying. 
 

Chinese New Year is never the same without the yee sang. And in my family, the kids tend to loh as HIGH as they can then sometimes the yee sang gets all over the place. 


And when it comes to yee sang, all of us tend to aim for the salmon. 
 



HUGE chopsticks to loh the yee sang. Of course you don't eat with it, though some of us tried to as a joke.
 

NIGHT BEFORE NEW YEAR
It's believed that children should stay up past midnight as a way to prolong their parents' life- like the longer you stay up, the longer your parents will live. So what better way to stay up than to play mahjong?
 

Okie I kid. I don't gamble. But we did stay up at the Exec Lounge and chatted about horrible housemates since most of us live without our parents/ abroad.
 

FIRST DAY OF NEW YEAR

First day of New Year was held at Northpoint. As usual we start of by pouring tea for my grandma. This is apparently a verryyy old tradition... and I believe not many people practice this anymore. But we still do. And my dad is the second youngest so I kinda had to wait my turn before I could pour the tea.
 

"Tim fook tim sau"
 
As I poured tea for my grandmother, she cheekily asks "When are you getting married?" in Cantonese. Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin! Well, at least not now.

After that it's time to give ang pows. The elders will give to the young ones and each family has five minutes to do this. Yes we have a time limit, like we work on a schedule. This year my grandma hosted a tiny grandchildren lucky draw. Basically it's just a lucky draw for all the grandchildren. We call it the "Popo Draw".
 

What happens is that there is a box of Mandarin oranges. Each orange has a number at the back of the orange. So you pick an orange, and the number on it determines the ang pow you'll recieve. Each ang pow has different amounts inside.
 

I picked #12. I gotta say kudos to my grandma though... it's such a cute and simple draw.

Anyway here are some random musings:

Cute Dragon Ang Pows
 
Nail art done in Japan (my aunt's). It's not sticker, but gel-based. Beautiful!
 
A cousin's socks which has two little thumbs that stick out from it... cute!

After visiting, I got a knock on the door back at the hotel and a staff sent us a Chinese New Year goodie bag courtesy of Gardens. 
 

I don't eat Mandarin Oranges but the red packet looked enticing and I opened it, it's a little booklet of your 2012 Predicition based on your zodiac. These things are so relative I don't take much attention on it, but I read them anyway (NOSEY).
 

FIRST NIGHT DINNER
The first night dinner is usually not as grand as Reunion Night. On our tables, there were little packet fortune cookies. I didn't open mine at the table, but my cousins did and boy did we have a laugh at our fortune slips.
 
 
They're very Confucious-like and one sentence sayings with ambiguous meanings. And after the fortune, there is a lucky number you can buy 4D with. No joke.


Yeap so that was my CNY this year. Before I end this entry, I'll leave you all with a little random picture I captured during CNY break.
 

If you play WOW you'll know that's the Lich King. The pink dragon on the left was a gift (as I'm a Dragon) and it is handmade, would you believe it! It's amazing. The person who made it is very very talented... I had a friend who says she would definitely buy this if it was sold haha

Thanks for reading :) Gong Xi Fa Cai