happy "labbit" chinese new year..

have you ever wondered about the history about the chinese zodiac? why there are only twelve out of the millions of other animals? it is said that buddha invited all the animals in the world to join him for the new years celebrations but only twelve animals bothered to show up. so to reward them, he named a year after each one in the order that they arrived; starting from the rat to finally the pig. interesting huh?

yes, i believe that odd looking baby is me....

it is now the start of the year of the rabbit for us chinese people; not the cat (as the nsw premier person sent a note thinking D is vietnamese! jeeezzz.. check and don't assume la..can??).  so anyways, 60 years ago, my mum was born in the year of the metal rabbit. if you've ever read about a rabbit's personality it truly reflects how she has grace, culture and beautiful manners. that;s all i wanted to say - just brings back memories.

 

 

 

we had our little family reunion dinner, only the 4 of us... family plus 1 friend. hahaha yeah no other family around which doesn't seem as fun. since there is only so few of us, i didn't even bother ordering "yee sang". it's kinda expensive here and not as easy to get and no i'm not going to make it myself. in tradition of having a feast, dishes on the menu are: fried fish, char siu, siu yuk, broccoli & chinese mushrooms with rice... can't believe we forgot all about the chicken. damnit :(

oh and to end this post, let me share with you weird randomness that goes through my head. there is this lame joke i made up which still truly amuses about how the frog keeps calling for the rabbit ... "ribit" = "labbit" ... it's makes a little more sense when you hear it. >_< hahaha

i wish you all a very prosperous "labbit" chinese new year with lots of happiness, wealth and longevity. feel free to send me any cny biscuits. *grin*

Happy TIGER Chinese New Year! *RaWWrrr*

this year the start of Chinese New Year fell on Saint Valentine's day. it didn't really bother us since V Day was just another day and Chinese New Year was definitely a big deal.

yesterday, we celebrated CNY with our friends and had our local Malaysian/Singaporean tradition of tossing "Yee Sang" which is basically chinese raw fish salad. half the fun in eating yee sang is tossing it and shouting words of properity, health; pretty much anything good for a person. the action of tossing is known as "Lo Hei "which symbolizes increasing prosperity, abundance and vigor.



"The Yee Sang is characterized by it’s colorfulness. It is served in a large flat platter with vegetables arranged around a small serving of raw fish in the middle."(we added jelly fish which has become a norm nowadays). You should see the mess we make after we tossed!



since we were all working people, we were all to lazy to actually make a home cooked meal, so we all tapau-ed food and brought it over which amazingly felt pretty home-made . this was all thanks to 1 dish which was actually home made. :)



we had abit of excitement after dinner. the fire alarm went off with a man over the speaking annoucing "this is a fire alarm, please stay where you are until futher notice". we all then started looking out the balcony if we could see the fire but heard the fire engines instead and suddenly an even louder alarm rang with the annoucement "please evacuate the building!" the funny thing about fire alarm is that no one really knows whether to leave or not. i reckon more than half of the building occupants didn't evacuate.... oh and our dear friends wanted to use the elevator to get down! *smacks head*

opps, i forgot the flash

fire truck

10 minutes later, we went back home like nothing happened.

but the night was not over yet... our CNY dinner wasn't over until people made money!! the boys started blackjack, we girls moved onto mahjong but kept being short of 1 player and then the boys continued on to playing poker.

teaching & learning

the lan tou kwais

and during intervals of rest time, we played Rock Band.

the rockstars

it was such a fun night, i went home with extra money in my wallet and my dinner covered... hehehe *grin*

Gong Hei Gong Hei - wishing everyone a very Happy Chinese New Year! May your eat plenty of kwei kar pet (love letters), pineapple tarts (which i forgot to steal off Lea yesterday), collect loads of angpaus and win loads of MONEY!!