Chinese New Year '09

Red packets lining up

Meant to write on the first 3 days of CNY sooner but laziness got the better of me, as usual :D


Test shot using the tripod

CNY this year was no different from the previous years, the CNY Day 1 tradition prevails:
1) Serving tea,
2) Say some auspicious wishes,
3) Get ang pao, and
4) Mission accomplished!


Here's wishing you...

I wished my Dad in Mandarin this year, putting to use what I've learnt in Mandarin class afew days back. My wish to him was (translated to English because obviously I can't type in Mandarin), "Gong Xi Fa Chai, may you have plenty this year, big prawns and big fish to eat. May the stock market rise up and goes down as you please, everyday you'll have big prawns to eat."

If you translate in to Mandarin, it actually rhymes (though not a very good rhyme but whaddaheck, my Dad doesn't understand anyway! haha).

To my Mom, it was, "May you be healthy, wealthy and lucky!" I love rhymes :D


Obligatory Family Picture

After the neccessary procedures to get our ang pao, we had the obligatory family picture. This time around, it was much easier than engaging a neighbour to snap a photo for us as we have a tripod! And a dSLR! Big smiles :DDD


Dad and I

Later on, we headed back to Ipoh. Our special guest for this year (not that we have one every year) was Huai Bin, better known as sixthseal.com! He was family-less for CNY this year due to some last minute compulsory leave announcement and crazy airfares (even AirAsia couldn't help him), so Eiling invited him to have The Ultimate CNY with The Lim Family.


Q+A+2+A+7 = 21!!

... where he got coaxed to be the banker and had some tough times getting his returns on his investments ;) Nevertheless, I think he had a great time being the God of Prosperity, did you HB?


HB with EZY + Cousins


EZY + HB

But of course, being the gracious hosts that we are, we even brought HB to Mom's old classmates gathering (Read: Get more ang pao) but we were only treated to instant noodles, KFC, free flow of packet drinks and lucky for HB, free flow of Martell. The Martells were opened after what seemed like 30 years, according to the owner.

We left soon after filling our tummies knowing that there won't be any harvest that night :(

It should be made a Universal Rule that married adults hand out ang paos as soon as they detect unmarried children (sorry over 30 years old cannot). Now, who's with me?


sixthseal.com in action!

Well you know what they say, "If you have not try Ipoh food, then you have not been to Ipoh!" We brought this Sibu boy around town to savour the best of Ipoh food- Char Kuey Teow, Beansprouts, Kai See Hor Fun, White Coffee, Chee Cheong Fun... and even Chinese Restaurant Food! Another post on that later ;)


Best girlfriend, Yi Fang & I

On the 2nd day, the whole entourage tagged along to Yi Fang's place which is well known to be THE Place to hang out or have friends gathering/reunion because of the lush and spacious compound for a bunch of twenty-somethings to fool around. Cliche I know, everyone has grown up. The number of people turning up for such reunions decrease every year (according to statistics) due to the many of them being abroad and such.


Happy birthday to me... again!

To compensate for my sad birthday last year, Yi Fang made it all up for me by buying quite a few boxes (note the red boxes in a plastic bag behind us) of cakes and had me blow the candles like I turned 21 on that day. *sniff sniff* Thanks woman!


Ipoh friends, sisters, and a famous blogger

Before we bade farewell and what seem like forever before we see each other again, we had to take a group picture!! Well it's not always an everyday affair you get the best of 3 worlds together in a picture, eh?

We had initially planned to stay for a night in Ipoh but ended up extending our stay to 2 nights as some relatives had come down from JB. To end the trip on a sweet note for HB, we brought him to the famous Funny Mountain for some super good Tau Foo Fah.



Click here for HB's side of the story:
CNY in Ipoh
Ang pow collection for CNY