More CNY Day 1 Photo

Bomb post with most of the photos we'd taken after the lion dance:

With my love

My little Stinky

My big guy

Our family photo

Ladies of the family (second generation)

Second generation cousins

Third generation (with Chek Kong)

Then we went into the house for more photos with daddy's DSLR:

The seniors

The Ban clan (no full attendance *grin*)

We also took our own photos:

Serving tea as requested by the school

Serving tea to daddy

Ang Pow time

Ang pow

Then it was time to head to the kitchen to prepare lunch.

Welcoming the Year of the Dragon

 As usual, the first day of CNY starts very early. We all slept late, so many zombies wandered around the house so early in the morning. Look at my "morning girl's" look:

Daddy had to be up early to do his duty to tie up the ang pow and lettuce:

Then everyone quickly took their turns to shower and get dressed up for the lion dance. Look at you.. Kor-kor had to curl your hair for you:

The lion dance troupe arrived rather early, so they had to wait for us as it was not the agreed 9.30am yet. I managed to engage some assistance from the little girls:

Then the performance began. 

Posing with the lion in the background

We also got a family photo with the 2 lions:

Took many photos after that too:

Mei-mei with her 2 coins from the lion

The deco left by the lion

Then we went into the house for more photo sessions:

Daddy's "studio" which he says I had forced him to have

Then we headed into the kitchen to help prepare for lunch:

Egg fry master

I helped to cook the mee suah. 

Lunch is served

I took a nap. Later came down to find these people playing mahjong with alcoholic drink as the stakes

Soon it was time to go back into the kitchen to prepare dinner.

Daddy was the taste tester for the "chu yoke yuen"

The ladies did a fantastic job frying them up

Kor Poh with her injured hand also helped around

Cut cut cutting the ingredients for the "lou sang"

Mei-mei arranging the "dragon"

Our funny looking dragon

Then we brought out all the food. It was time to lou and then eat dinner. There were 35 of us for dinner tonight:

Later it was time for more fireworks:

Yan Yan enjoying the fireworks show

This was the "big guns":

Then we headed back in for drinks, longan laichi, shower and then it was time to sleep.

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Eve of CNY 2024

As usual when it's time to decide how much to cook, Chim Poh will pull out her "menu" from previous years. This would give her an idea of how much to cook and not have too much leftovers (it's usually never the case of insufficient food). Look at the lists from the many years:

Uncle Joe came a-visiting. And he taught the kids how to play cards. He even provided the capital to each child to play with:

Ko-ko looking at your cards (look at the cash you have won)

On a roll.. won quite a bit

While in the kitchen, we had completed the cutting up and shredding of the rest of the vegetables. So it's time to slowly cook up the ingredients one at a time:

A lot of arm muscles are use!

Peeling the popiah skin

The cabbage has been cooked for the first round

The cooked "mangkuang" (jicama)

Even Pek Kong was helping out

This budak turned up to help for a few minutes

Then we stopped for lunch:

Roasted pork bone porridge

The final touch is to mix up all the different ingredients:

The rest of the family also helped with the decorations around the house:

Finally at around 6.30pm, after prayers and offerings to the ancestors, it's dinnertime:

The kiddies got a different dinner spread:

And this is our super delicious popiah:

Again, it's fireworks time, before we head in to shower and have longan/laichee drink in the nice cool living room:

Today is the eve of the eve of CNY, and we're starting to get ready for the celebrations. First thing after breakfast is to head to Ipoh Parade to buy groceries, including large bottles of mineral water for the household consumption. As we waited for daddy to buy some drinks from Hank's, Mei-mei decided to pose with the decorations:

Two men who walked pass us were so amused with her pose!

We ate the noodles (Hokkien mee from Penang and curry mee from Ipoh, along with a lot of fried stuff from K10) for lunch.

After that it was time to cut cut cut, cook cook cook:

Kor-kor and Chim Poh frying prawn crackers 

Chim Poh cutting up the cabbage

After all that hard work, we headed out to a cafe to relax with a cup of coffee, some cakes and savories too:

Dinner was supposed to be Kai See Hor Fun, but we weren't too keen so Chim Poh helped us book a table in The Museum. It was outdoor seating, rather hot, but the food (and company.. Ashley Kor-kor and Uncle Dennis joined us) were great!

Went home and the kiddies had fun playing with the fireworks.

And finished off the night with cool, cool drinks. 

Calligraphy in school

The mandarin teacher had informed us via Class Dojo that there will be a pre-CNY event in school. Children had an option to pick calligraphy or drawing cherry blossoms. To my surprise, you told me that you wanted to do calligraphy. So I bought the ink and brush and this is what you came home with:

We have proudly placed them beside the TV in the living room.