CNY Celebrations

Whoops! Mom is still editing the photos of the fabulous gifts that I got from JD & Max, so let me post some photos of the CNY celebrations at Mom's Grandpa's place! This year, it was a little bit more somber as Mom's Grandma is no longer around...plus, it was super hot weather this time of the year, so all we did was laze around the house most of the time >.<" Not that many photos, but we did have some on the reunion dinner! Okay, enough chitter chatter...here are the photos:

Posing on one of the chairs...it's a little bit more cooling here than outside. LOL!

Kenji with his super long tongue trying to cool off...I don't know why he would still want to sleep on the bed. It was so hot, it's crazy!

Me greeting the visitors that come...*grins*

Preparations for the dinner underway, with the infamous long table for the family...we had steamboat again! *licks lips* It's the easiest kind of dinner to prepare, apparently, so why not right? *grins*

We also had the traditional Chinese New Year dish called 'Lou Sang' that day. Here are the men at the end of the table getting ready to 'mix'...the ladies had another big plate of the dish all to themselves. Heh!

This dish is a little curious...it consists of sweet and sour gravies, lots of crunchy (and colorful) tit bits, and some pickles. Some people put raw fish (a la sashimi style) in it...it's supposed to symbolize luck and prosperity (the Chinese have a saying for it, and it sounded like 'fish' for one of the words, so you know how it goes *wink*). We did it a little differently...instead of fish, we had abalone in it! *grins*

Here's how things go with the dish: the condiments and ingredients are laid out nicely on the plate, and when it is time everybody comes together with their pair of chopsticks and mixes the ingredients together, pulling them as high as possible. It gets messy at times, what with the many chopsticks hitting the dish all at once, but it's all good fun and has quite a bit of symbolism too. The action of 'pulling the food up' symbolizes the person going higher up in whatever he/she does, be it career or life...so it's supposed to mean good luck =) Or at least, that's what Mom gets out from it. *wink* At the end of it all, everyone enjoys a little bowl of the mixed dish...yummy! I managed to get a few bits from the things that fell from the table, but that's about it I guess >.<" Like I said before...so near, yet so far! =(

After dinner, there was some funny things going on too...Mom's Grandpa wanted to dye his hair, coz according to him his hair had become grey. And so, he asked Mom's cousin (who is a budding hair stylist) to help him with it! *grins* Mind you, he's a ripe old age of 82...so to only dye his hair now is such a great testament that his jet black hair lasted VERY long before needing a dye job! *wink* How I wish my fur was like that too!

Well, that's about it for my CNY back in Seremban...the rest of the time we were there, we spent it watching TV and munching on CNY goodies. Heh! It's still CNY now, so the feasting is still on...LOL!


xoxo,
Scottie