Chinese New Year Part One

It's always sweet to be back in Penang (or wherever ur hometown is) during CNY. I really sympathize friends who had to stay continents away during the festive season. Sooner or later it might happen to me, but for now I am still enjoying it here. Blek!

Anyway, this is how my CNY for the year of the Piggy goes....

Prelude to CNY

Ever since I moved to Kay Lel, holidays before CNY is always dedicated to meeting lau peng yews. There are soo many of them, ur kampung one, ur primary school one, ur secondary school one, ur kindergarten one....
It is when all gatherings is to be held, because people most probably come back for CNYs.




















Kel's place. Poor guy departing right before CNY.
















Secondary school gathering. No babes allowed! XD

Then of course those small small gatherings, like going-for-movies or jz simply sit-at-on-a-padang-and-kap-siao types.

And not forgetting people who needs to depart from Penang to stuff their brains with tons and tons of knowledge. To you guys I sympathize.
























Will miss u guys definitely.

CNY Eve.

Also known as Chu Xi in mandarin. It is time to start gatherings with families.
















Dad (in blue) with uncles.

The eve is always about family gathering and eating together. Due to overload of people (my grand dad had 11 kids, imagine that...), we don't do it in Arthur-and-his-knights-of-the-round-table-style. We just scatter all over the house to eat. Well, as long as you are in the house and as long as u can hear others shouting ur name from the kitchen, it is still considered that we gathered, right?

As I mentioned, Chu Xi is about family and food. So there are tons of food here.
















All these years, we did steamboat each and every time. It's been the custom for my family like since forever.






























One thing good about doing a steamboat is that you can take as many rounds as you want. Jz add in what you craved to eat into the pot for a while later, u can get what u want. One more advantage is that, as my auntie quote, we are a bunch of sharks, we need a helluva lot of food. So, steamboat is of course the best option.

Chinese New Year

The actual day(s) are of course about saying Gong Xi Fa Cai and receiving ang pows. It is always a bonus to have lots of relatives who are already married. More married relatives = more ang pows. Hehe.
















Of course it comes with a price. Visiting relatives for me had to be done for 4 to five days. It is exhausting, traveling practically the whole island.

But then again, think ang pows and exhaustion will be gone. XD

To be continued.....