Chinese New Year Dinner

Preparation for dinner began very early. Lots of chopping, cutting, slicing, frying and so forth was done in the kitchen for us to feast on for dinner. Here are your kor-kor's busy cutting the ingredients for that night's lou sang:
So what was on the menu for the first day of Chinese New Year's dinner? Ah Ma's specialty Hainanese Chicken rice. Yummy... and of course it wasn't just plain old steamed chicken and rice (of course, there's nothing wrong with just that..), there was lobak, soup, veggies and another specialty dish from Ah Ma, char siew:

Look at the beautifully prepared Wu-Sou Kai:

And dinner began with another round of lou sang:

And for you the day ended with more sparklers and pop-pops:

So many pop-pops. You were throwing them by the handfuls!

Chinese New Year Lunch

After the lion dance we went into the house to take more pictures in air-conditioned comfort:

Posting with the dragon which was left in the fruit basket. Sue Kor-kor poked two sticks so that you could hold up the dragon easily.

Here's our family picture. Seems like everyone was in red/orange this year:

Then I sneaked to the back to take pictures of our lunch being prepared. Here's the soup cooking in the giant wok:

Lots of chillies:

Fried eggs (lots of them):

If you haven't already guessed, it's our usual first-day-of-CNY lunch, Mee Suah Soup:

Welcoming The Year of The Dragon

I woke up earlier, showered and went downstairs for breakfast. Halfway through breakfast, I was greeted by a groggy you. Groggy but not teary (thank goodness!). Fed you breakfast then it was time for your shower. Got you all dressed and you went down to greet everyone, all dressed in the red dragon motif "Chinese Costume":

Here's the things all ready for the things ready for the lion dance which was to arrive at 10am:

Fruit basket and the ang pow with veggies :

While waiting for the lion dance to come, we were all busy posing and taking pictures with everyone. Here's a picture of my little boy and his uncle both dressed in Chinese Costume making a "kung fu" pose for the photographers:

At last the lion dance arrives. It has been 2 years since we last had the lion dance:

And of course the music was to loud for you:

.. there was also fire crackers this year. The lion dance lasted for quite a while. One of the highlights was the "transformation" of the fruit basket. Notice any difference?

The finale was the lion dance climbing up the table and benches to get to the ang pow and veggies which were hung by daddy from Kor Poh's window:

... and the lion leaving with a wonderful message:

This was what happened on the first half of the first day of our Chinese New Year.

Happy Chinese New Year of the Dragon

Keong Hee Huat Chai!

Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner

Look at what the "chefs" of the house are mixing for dinner:

Can you guess what it is? The chefs had to prepare the whole day (actually days ahead) for tonight's "simple" dinner. Popiah and yee sang:


Here you are with the little "crown" given to you by Yvonne Kor-kor:

And the final picture before we started on the feast:

Stirring the yee sang thoroughly.

This is the first time I've had popiah for Chinese New Year reunion dinner. Apparently popiah is a traditional Hokkien dish for Chinese New Year reunion dinner. In fact we had to wake up at 5.30 this morning to buy the popiah skin to be brought back to Ipoh.

Geong Hee Fat Cai! Have a wonderful Chinese New Year.

Getting Ready for CNY

We tried to get daddy's car washed today. But there were 25 cars ahead of us!! So in the end, we just had lunch, bought some groceries then headed back home. Daddy decided to wash his car himself. So now you and him are busy downstairs washing his car.

Playing with Fire Crackers

.. yup and with our permission too. Only thing is this fire cracker would not explode or do anything *grin*. We just made our fire cracker out of ang pows and then used them to decorate the house with it. Learnt how to make them from this website.
It's very simple and at long last I have found more uses for the toilet paper rolls which I have hoarded kept and which is also driving daddy nuts (collecting dust).

Halfway through you decided to decorate your own instead of using old ang pow. This is what you drew:

There is you throwing a snowball at a snowman, a house and mummy and daddy also throwing snowball at each other. It is also snowing (snowballs??) in the picture.

Pictures In the Plane

Here are the pictures taken on the flight back. Jaclyn che-che sent them to me and I've finally found time to upload them. They are pictures of you with Jaclyn che-che, Janice che-che and also Randy Ko-ko:

Back to School

On Wednesday, I had to wake up earlier after 6 weeks of waking up almost an hour later to get ready to go to work. It was the first day of school and we had to get you ready to go and stop by to see which class you were allocated to. After meeting your teacher and she had shown you where you were supposed to put your school bag in the mornings, we said goodbye to you and daddy told me "We'd better go off before you start to cry". I could see you looking a little teary eyes and so we quickly bid you goodbye and walked to our car.

Everything went well on Thursday. BUT on Friday we were a little earlier and the teachers were still in Mrs Sebastian's office and I had to wait around with you. By the time the teachers got out of the room and I prepared to go, your floodgates opened. And you cried and refused to let me go. Mrs Shanti took over and carried you away and I had to quickly leave the Center.

With you behaving like that we worried that you'd cry again today, especially over the weekend. But thank goodness, you were fine. I had to leave you in Center for a while as I went to get you a new homework pouch and when I got back to tell you that it will be passed to you later on, you were so engrossed in playing that you probably didn't even realise I was there.

Phew.. hope that this goes on for the rest of the year. *keeping my fingers crossed*

2012 New Year

The new year just crept up on us. We were all dead tired that before the clock struck 12 midnight, ushering the year 2012, we were all asleep oblivious to the happenings around us. We only woke up and wished each other a "Happy New Year" the next day after a good night's sleep.

So how did we spend the first day of 2012? Why, lazing around the house of course. After so many days of walking and early morning calls it's time we relaxed in our comfy house. And I had another day to rest before going back to work. As for you, you had two days before the first day of school. Lucky little boy!!

Day 6: Goodbye Korea

It's time to say goodbye and the morning call for our final day in Korea was at 6am, which as usual means we have to wake up even earlier to ensure you are up and ready before 7am which was the time for us to meet to catch the bus.

We sat a little dazed in the bus as Bob spoke a little more to us and also mentioned that Jeff Ko-ko was freelance and was selling the pictures he'd taken of us during the whole tour. We picked almost all of the pictures except for some which were amended and he'd even given daddy his e-mail so that we can ask for the softcopy of the pictures.

We stopped at a location about 10 minutes away from the airport for breakfast. We each had a bowl of udon then walked a little in the shops before hopping into the bus again. Daddy in the meantime went off to take some last pictures of the snow in Korea:

When I got to our seat, I was shocked to find that one of my paper bag was missing, but not the contents. They were all strewn on the seat. Good thing nothing was missing. Oh well...

We arrived in the airport to check in our luggage, get our tax refund claims stamped then went in to clear immigration and walk around the airport before departure time. You even made a "pit stop" at the children's play area before daddy picked up some whiskey from the duty free shop. We were a little late and were among the last to board the plane. Lucky we made it in the nick of time. Phew...

The plane ride back was fun as we'd already made friends in the tour so you were happily playing with Randy Kor-kor, Janice Che-che and Jaclyn Che-che. Halfway through the flight, the stewardess even took you to the galley to give you some snacks (biscuits which I saw you saying no to and a packet of sweets). Suddenly it got turbulent and you had to quickly get back to your seat. In fact this flight back was rather turbulent.

We arrived in KLIA, said goodbye to the rest in the tour then walked around, had dinner and then headed to the domestic terminal to wait for our flight back to Penang.

On the way back home, you dozed off. That's what happens when you don't nap at all the whole flight back. I had to wake you up when we reached home as there was so many things to carry up to the house. After that you stayed awake for another 1 hour plue to shower and eat supper before you KO-ed while watching football.

This trip was rather short (as you had reminded me many times), but we sure had lots of fun.

Day 5: Something Interesting and Shopping

As usual morning call was 7am and we were already up earlier to ensure everyone was ready before 8am. Breakfast was the same place as where we went on Day 3. Then we went to the Digital Pavilion. We had to wait around a little as we had arrived a little early. At 10am we had a guided tour of the place with instructions on how to play with the new electronic exhibitions. Here are some of the pictures I took of you trying out the exhibitions:

Checking out the digital fish pond with Randy Kor-kor

Having your "health check" by the computer

As a finale we were treated to a 4D movie. It was a cartoon 4D show and as you were not tall enough, we stacked our jackets for you to sit on. I was worried that you would be afriad while watching the movie, but after the initial shock you were ok, and everytime the air blew at you you'd pat your hair down. After the movie, you told me that you were only "a little afraid" during the movie.

Next we headed to Myeongdong Market for lunch and shopping. Walked around the maze like place picked up some shopping and at 5.30pm met up with the rest at a designated spot and hopped into the nice warm bus and went to our dinner location. The dinner menu was Bibimbap. After dinner, we stopped by another FaceSh0p and then headed to the final stop for this tour, "Drawing Show: Hero".

It was an interesting show where there was dance, comedy and drawing. They even provided boosters for children. Halfway through the show you were too tired and dozed off. I guess you were too tired from our shopping in the afternoon. You were very good and walked all the time, not requesting to be carried.

No photography was allowed during the drawing show but daddy managed to get a shot before we left.

After that we hopped on the bus and headed back to the hotel for rest. You continued to sleep after I changed you into your PJs. Daddy and I hopped into the convenience store opposite the hotel and had drinks and supper. After packing up, we all went to sleep.

Pets

We were just having a discussion on pet names today:
Mummy: What would you name a dog if we have one as a pet?
Evan: Chelsea
Mummy: A cat?
Evan: Tom
Mummy: A mouse?
Evan: Jerry
Mummy: A chicken?
Evan: Bok-bok chicken
Mummy: A duck?
Evan: Quack-quack
Mummy: Quack-quack chicken?
Evan: Hahahaha... NooOooOo... Quack-quack duck!
Mummy: A crocodile?
Evan: Then I run away.

Wahaha.. I guess you know what is logical. Or so I thought... Next you told me this:
I'll take a sword and chop it up.

I guess the last answer was your imagination going wild. But it was a fun discussion.

Day 4: Watery Fun and A Theme Park

It was not easy getting you out of bed. Especially since you had such a late night the day before as we had strawberries, wine (milk for you), and squid which daddy had ran off to the nearby Family Mart. You refused to go to sleep but after I finally managed to drag you back to the room, you KO-ed as I was packing up our bags.So after I managed to get you out of bed and dressed you up, we headed downstairs to a place which looked like the hotel ballroom for breakfast. After breakfast, we grabbed our bags and met the rest of the tour group in the lobby and to go to the next stop.

Next stop after around 40 minutes drive from Phoenix Park was Ocean 700 which is located in Alpensia. After briefing from Bob, we got our locker number, dropped our shoes inside, dressed up then went swimming in the indoor heated after we rented the swim caps and life floats. It was so much fun. You could not go on the tube rides as you were not tall enough, but you did have fun with the other games including the wave pool. Daddy and I tried out some of the tube ride. It sure was fun.

After some time, we got ready to go to the next stop. Before we left, one more shot with the ski fields of Alpensia:

And of course you played one last time with the snow:
On the way back to Seoul, we stopped at a restaurant to have lunch. This was the steamboat (yes, again) cooked with the dried pollack fish. Here's a shot of the fish which daddy took:

After a ride of over 2 hours (I think) we arrived in Seoul. The next stop for the day was Lotte World Theme Park. It was so super crowded as it was Korea's school holiday. The queue for all the rides were so long. We walked outside took a look at the rides which were actually more suited for older children/teenagers and headed back inside. Daddy asked you what you wanted to ride and you wanted to take the monorail. So off we went. It was such a confusing place and the map did not help much. When we had finally found the place, the queue was so long. We had no choice but to queue up. One good thing was that the queue was moving, but after moving a while, we came to a sign which said "Waiting time from this point is 1 hour". Our hearts dropped to the floor but we stayed in the queue. In the end, the wait was just over 30 minutes. We got into the monorail and the ride lasted a grand total of THREE minutes! We walked out and joined the Jungle Ride queue but when the person in charge measured your height, you did not meet the 112cm minimum height requirement.

We only had time to queue for another ride, so we queued at the Sinbad ride which was recommended by Bob as a "family ride". It had a very long queue when we walked past it earlier on. This time the queue was shorter or so we thought. It took us 20 minutes before we entered the "cave" but in actual fact the queue continued inside the cave. We waited another 10 minutes or so and then it was our turn to get into the boat ride. Less than 5 minutes into the ride, you were screaming and crying out of fear when you saw the rather scary scenes. Aiyo.. you said that it was too scary. And the rest of the ride was spent consoling you. You only started to look around as we reached the end of the ride when Sinbad had rescued the princess.

We tried to look for a place to grab a quick bite, then headed down for the 7pm parade. After the parade, we gathered at the meeting point then headed to check into our next hotel.

At the hotel, we dropped our luggage and headed to the Korean BBQ restaurant just across the road from the hotel. Dinner was so yummy. After that I left you with daddy while I went to Doota with the 2 che-che's. When I got back, I had expected you to be asleep, but no you were still so energetic. At last it was zzzz time for us all.

Day 3: More Pictures

Here are some pictures taken from Ah Kong's camera:

Our beef steamboat

Side dishes to go with the steamboat and rice


Enjoying lunch wrapped in seaweed

Getting ready to ski: Fighting with the ski boots

First one ready: Evan Ban

Stylo or not? Ski suit complete with skis and even ski goggles

Evan and mummy trying to balance

You managed to sort of ski down the little slope, but I had gone ahead of you and fallen down and before I could get up, you crashed into me. Shortly after that Ah Ma went to rent a sled for you which was what you played with till we (as in daddy and I) were too tired and had to drag you back to the hotel.