Expect a picture heavy post!
(:
除夕夜 CNY eve
 |
| 團圓飯 (reunion dinner) prepared by my mum (except the duck which was bought)! :D |
Reunion dinner is allllways my favourite part of CNY! The busyness in the kitchen starting from afternoon is a good kind of busyness, because you know your dinner is gonna turn out fine and everyone is gonna have a happy and good meal together! :D
 |
| Homemade 盆菜 :D |
As with last year, my mum made the 盆菜 herself. This is truly a once-in-a-year kind of food that we get to eat! In it are all the seafood delicacies like abalone, sea cucumber, scallops, prawns etc etc! Plus we added in some duck and chicken meat too. SO YUMS!
 |
| Abalone~~ :D |
 |
| More abalone and sea cucumber! |
Rubbed my happy belly after the meal. There's always this air of anticipation and happiness and warmth whenever we have reunion dinner. <3
初一 Day 1
 |
| #CNYootd |
新年快樂、萬事如意！Spent the whole afternoon at my maternal grandma's house. Annual thing where all my aunties and uncles and cousins gather here to talk, eat and gamble (ban luck haha). Yep and that's pretty much my first day! Haha no, just because we only go to one house doesn't mean it's boring!
初二 Day 2
 |
| #CNYootd |
The second day is visiting on my father's side! Very big family once again, and I love how there are new additions to the extended family! As my cousins are entering the marriageable age and childbearing age, I look forward to seeing new kiddos running around the house and adding more joy and 氣氛 hehe.
 |
| 魚生 |
 |
| Huat ah! |
 |
| The Loke family! |
In the evening, Jun Yang invited us RC4 peeps over to his house to 拜年! Yay so touched by his gesture!
He even planned a lantern-making activity for us to do HAHA. Our first reaction: "Whoa you prepared a game for us?!" Second reaction: "But it's not Mid-Autumn Festival what!"
Hahaha, nevertheless, thanks Jun Yang for being such a wonderful host! And same to his family too! :D
初三 Day 3
 |
| #CNYootd |
初三was more chill. I went to my parents' friends' house for their annual gathering haha. The host prepared so much food and it wasn't even a meal time! Like 3+/4? Hahaha swear I couldn't stop eating, especially the CNY goodies! #fatdieme
初四 Day 4
 |
| #CNYootd #ranoutofposes #nomoreideas |
On this day, Miao opened up her house for visiting! Yay! Her mum also cooked a sumptuous lunch for us! Homecooked food is really good, there's always that distinct homemade flavour! Haha and the picture below wasn't the full spread of our lunch LOL.
 |
| Cooked by Miao's mother! Really delicious! :P |
 |
| 49th GeogSoc MC :D |
After that I rushed home to welcome guests to our house! Haha. Another group of my parents' friends came over. We've been celebrating CNY together for as long as I can remember, and I'm really glad we continue such practices. (: Their children are all around our age too, and I would say we kinda grow up together? Even though we aren't close (since we meet only once a year) it's always nice to have a catch up about each other's lives. (:
初六 Day 6
Yeahhh and now for MY group of friends! Hahaha. This is one gathering that I also always look forward to every CNY! Siao Kias Pte Ltd - we've been doing our house-hopping tradition for 5 years already! :D Really thankful for this bunch of friends; Cedarians really stick with one another through and through :') <3 Even though this year's turn out was less than last year's, it's okay at least we bother to keep this going and we'll continue with it for many more years to come~~ :D
 |
| Nutella Swirl Cake |
And because there were 5 Feb babies (out of the 8 of us), I baked a cake for them! (And also partly cos I was really itching to bake hahaha.) Nutella swirl cake it is whoo~ This is my first time baking a cake since... July last year? Yeah it's super long! And my cakes have failed before so I was very careful with this one... Not perfect yet (especially the swirls eee not nice :( ) but thankfully it wasn't as bad as what I had expected! Nithya, Yu Pei and Aishu weren't there unfortunately :(
Point to note: make sure I tap the cake pan lightly to remove the air bubbles...
You can always trust us to do our photo shoots hahaha!
初十四 Day 14
And RC4 cooks! We had a baking-cum-cooking session on this ACHW and we made 湯圓 (tang yuan) in conjunction with 元宵節 the next day! Tang yuans are usually eaten on the 15th day of Lunar New Year and it symbolises family reunion, with the round shape representing a full circle of unity and harmony. (: Aww how apt it is, to be making tang yuans with my new family of RC4 peeps! :')
 |
| Red bean tang yuan - so delicious! |
And that kind of sums up my two weeks of festivities! I'm so thankful to be able to celebrate CNY every year with my family and friends, to feel the warmth and love from them! I've always been very, very excited and hyper about CNY (you can ask my friends or siblings LOL) and this year is definitely no exception! A lot of people look forward to CNY primarily because of the food or the ang baos, but for me it's really the human interaction and getting to see your cousins, relatives or parents' children again! Though there may be awkwardness here and there, you must learn to break the ice and get some conversation going! Then it won't be wasted time anymore. I've learnt that in the past few years and house visiting becomes much more fun now. (: I hope that these traditions will last long and that CNY continues to excite the younger generation (for the right reasons)!
.jpg)
