my lil' nephew

i went back this CNY only realised how much weight my lil' nephew has put on. i won't or in fact inappropriate to call him lil' nephew now. he is 8 years 2 months and 35 KGS. my goodness... i dunno how much my sis-in-law has fed him!!!

but he is cute.. always the lil' nephew that i love. my grandma's favourite being the only great grandson of her. he is so lovely. he is the one calling my granny for meal, the one sweeping the floor of my sis's lil' office, the one holding his mum's hand to sleep and not his two elder sisters. surprise??

and i found out something this time i went home. he has a funny habit when he sleeps. he loves to stuff himself in the gap between the wall and the mattress. his mum said he is the one having all kind of funny position and i think she is absolutely right.

look at him.. so nice.. kekeke...

gaya mesti ada.. :D

now you agree with me?? that's my lil' nephew. kekeke...

Ti Gong Poh Pi

For Hokkien, the 9th day of CNY is big!! It's TI GONG'S birthday!

Normally we have family gathering cum prayer and lion dance as entertainment. And normally the lion dance my uncle engages has those pillars that they use during competition. Cut it short. These are the photos.

Tong tong chiang....

look at me...

look... this lion belongs to KL.. keke..

Ti Gong, you must poh pi gua oso..

It's my year leh... why y'all treat me like this? :'(

me n my little cousin. isn't she cute??

this has some special meaning but don ask me plsss....

Hope Ti Gong poh pi my family, my dear friends and myself all the best in this Piggy year, a healthy and prosperous year!!

Gong Xi Fat Cai

Gong Xi Gong Xi to all my dear friends. For those who are married, please wait for me as I am coming to collect Ang Pow from you. For those who are not married, please call me so that we can all go collect Ang Pow together. kekeke...

so difficult to have all of us together

I used to collect lotsa Ang Pow from relatives and dad's friends and even dad's customers who frequent our restaurant. Relatives still give but most of dad's friends and customers don't give me anymore. WHY WHY WHY??? It's simple!! They thought I am married!! Sigh Sigh..

New year now is not like those days. We used to have firecrackers, lion dances, red lantern and those red CNY decorations everywhere. After the reunion dinner, all kids gathered to play cards and firecrackers till midnight. I remembered those days. Although I sleep late on the new year eve, I can still wake up so early and dress up to welcome relatives to our house. I always carry a small bag to keep all my Ang Pow. Once uncles and aunties leave, I will open up the Ang Pow and peep how much they give. kekeee... If you ask about my feeling now, I will just say "damage control". kakakaa.... Try to reduce the gap of the inflow and outflow. :D

Leave aside the Ang Pow issue. CNY is always a gathering time for old school mates. We gather and play mahjong together, we drink together, we update each other, we chat till dawn.... and we all go watch movie at the one and only cineplex in Muar once a year. The auntie at the ticket booth can't understand English so we have to translate the movie title and describe the movie in Hokkien to her whenever we call to enquire on the show time.

It goes like :

B : "auntie auntie, the movie hor... ther... the one la... got the green green colour man one ah.... got show ah?" (in hokkien ok!!)

auntie : "wu wu... 7 diam, 9 diam pun wu..." (got got.. 7 o'clock... 9 o'clock also got..)

So you know which movie I am refering to?? hehe... it's Incredible Hulk.

CNY is also an eating season. Everyday every moment I am eating. Normally I put on 2-3 kgs during new year. sigh sigh... that's really bad!!

It's already the 4th day of CNY. So fast, another CNY. I wish all my dear friends a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous in this year of Boar and may all your wish comes true. :)

Pre CNY Dinner at Hakka

This is actually some company's annual dinner. and so happened that our dearest Charlie knows the boss well and always join in the celebration. and so lucky that i was invited to the annual celebration :p

The dinner was held at Hakka Restaurant in KL. although i really miss the "crappy meehoon" (actually is fried meehoon with crab :p) we had the last time but too bad people don't normally have this dish on their annual dinner menu :( sigh sigh... but i tried some other of their signature dishes that i have never tried earlier. kekeke...

It's near to CNY so yee sang is a must. norwegian salmon leh... i hardly low sang for the past years but this year is an exception. i already 'low' three times till to date. I was reading the Lilian Too's column yesterday on NST and she says year of Fire Boar is good for sheep, which is me. wahaha... the luckiest of all zodiac. all sheeps will enjoy good health wealth, success, upward mobility and career opportunities. and most importantly, singles could get married this year. wish me good luck all my dear friends!

Cool cool.. don't get too excited.. come back come back...

The yee sang was paired with Italian Patrizi Moscato d'asti DOCG. they all love it but i think it's too sweet for me. as a starter or with dessert may be but i still think it's too sweet for yee sang.

Then we had the soup. according to the emcee, it's called "monk climb over the wall" because there is no abalone!! kakakak... i like the Chilean Los Riscos Chardonnay more than the Moscato. it sounds like mosquito to me. :p

Then we were served with the Hakka famous crispy pork knuckle and some smoked duck air flown from Bangkok. Duck from Bangkok??? I prefer those with shoes.. kekekee... got me?? anyway, i don't really like the taste of the smoke duck. it's like eating some charcoal coated duck. The Italian Castelli Del Duca Sangio Vese was perfect though.

Then we had the pomfret and mustard plants. they are just normal i would

say. nothing fancy. but we had Argentinean Toro Del Piepra Reversa Cabernet Sauvignon with these two dishes. i prefer the sangio vese though.

the last dish for the night was steamed rice with those chinese dried meat. the chef at Quilin master it better. Hakka one a bit tasteless. may be because of the wines down the road, couldn't really taste the food properly. kekek... forgive me Danny.

I should not forget to mention about the Australian Farm's Shiraz. It's great but it will be better if it's served earlier of the night. When they poured the shiraz into my glass, i can't really remember what i drank already. that's probably the tenth glass or more of the night. i am lucky i could drive myself home safely. haha...

I should say Robert, the owner of the company, organise the event really well. free flow of wines all night long with nice food at reasonable price. charlie, thanks for inviting me to the fun-filled dinner. i love wine and dine!!

The Holiday

quite a long time since i last watched movie in the cinema. as i always love romance, plus i love cameron diaz, certainly i can't miss this one "The Holiday".

in chinese translation, it's "no holiday in love". i was a bit confused when i saw the title at the beginning of the show but understood why after watching the whole movie.

what an experience of home exchange!! even if i am given a chance, i will be doubtful on the fella coming over to stay at my place. sekali after two weeks, the whole house is empty!! but how nice to stay in such a big and nice house.. :) the cottage is also cosy, with a "free" man, wowowow.... what a good holiday... :p my saliva drooling and imagination going wild wild wild.... kekekeke....

and i fell in love with jude law after watching the film. gorgeous yet family man = extinct species. i believe all gals will agree with me :) without the glasses, he looks so cool and even with the specs, a little nerdy yet so man. wowowoww.... i better go to bed now and start dreaming about him. wahaha.....

it's so good until i bought a dvd to keep for future viewing... hehee....

time to go to bed now. and you know what i gonna do.. kekeke....

First CNY Low Sang

We decided to have it early before everyone starts to busy preparing Chinese New Year. Pru suggested the restaurant this time at QuiZin at Aman Suria. So we had our first CNY Low Sang of the year with our lovely wine kakis.

this is the yee sang. obviously right? :p

The food there is not too bad. We had a room for 7 of us but I think our laughter made the whole restaurant so noisy. If you were just a passer-by, you would think the restaurant is having a 100-pax dinner that night. kekeke... we were just enjoying ourselves.

With our wine kakis around, of course, a variety of wines is a MUST!! With LA moving to France now, we get to taste French wines on top of our regular Australian and New Zealand wines. We are so lucky, aren't we.

We had 7 bottles for the night, from Australian Rosemount GSM to sparkling Brut Cuvee for the Yee Sang, French Bourgogne Pinot Noir, Castello Di Pomino's Pomino Bianco, Chateau Hyot, New Zealand Clifford Bay Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, and the finale Italian Zonin Ripasso. I can't remember the sequence correctly. Anyway, how could you expect me to still remain sober after so many bottles of wines? :p

Beside than the fanstastic wine we had, the food they served were good too. We had Yee Sang, cold dish, shark's fin soup, steamed Patin, prawns, brocolli with sea cucumber, rice and dessert. Tell me how can I solve my high cholestrol problem??? And how can I loss weight??? But I really can't resist to the great wine and food!

my lovely wine and dine kakis :)

It was a good dinner altogether and I hope there are more to come. Wishing everyone a healthy and prosperous 2007!!!

Tokyo Shopping Spree

Today is a free day for us. As it's a business trip, we gotta do something, at least we gotta pretend that we're doing. kekeke... So we went to Amlux to collect some catalogues for cars and accessories. BTW, Amlux is a showroom displaying all Toyota cars in Ikebukuro. It's a one-stop showroom for all the Toyotas but no test drive here. If not, I will request to test the super expensive but old-man-looking Century. :p

And that's all the business for the day and shopping for the rest of the day. Actually, it's just 4 hours loh... didn't manage to shop much also. Burberry Blue Label in Japan is a must-buy if you like handbags. Reasonable price and you can't get in other countries outside of Japan, not even in London!! I bought 5 altogether. Don't misunderstand, only 2 for myself. I think I am having problems chucking them into my luggage. kekeke... it's normal! :p

Didn't even have time for lunch, we shopped till dinner time and went straight for dinner at Tsukiji fish market. Let me introduce the menu to you. kekeke...

As we did not have lunch, we didn't wait for all to arrive and ordered something to fill our stomach. We saw somebody eating fish head with radish and we pointed to the waiter that we wanna have one too. We ended up had two portions. So you know how nice it's huh. :p

The radish is fantastic!!

And starving for the whole day, the fish head is definitely not enough for four of us. So we had some Yasai Tempura and Seafood Salad too.

We had the Salmon Fish Roe Roll as well. It's called Ikura Maki in Nihon-go.

Just so little?? Of course not! These are just appertizer. For those who love sashimi, look at this one.

Salmon, Hamachi, Ebi, pink one i can't remember the name, scallop in the bowl and the maroon colour one is Tuna. And the fish is Tai. Super delicious! Just melts in my mouth... yummy...

The Tai is alive when it's served. So I don't need to explain on the freshness. It's called Ikezukuri if you wanna try. The shop is at Tsukiji opposite the Tsukiji Fish Market. Must try if you visit Tokyo next time.

And Nabe (steamboat) is good for cold weather now in Japan. It's hot. We ordered a seafood nabe with different type of fishes, oysters, clams, prawns and lotsa vege. In miso soup of course.

I am so full and still blotted. How can I forget to mention the sake and Kirin beer I had? :) They're also a must-have when you visit Japan.