Christmas & Winter Solstice *burp!*

Happy Christmas people!  :)

Christmas started pretty early for us this year.  Our first Christmas dinner was on the 18th (a week prior to xmas) at Modesto, spent with good food and good-er company of our salsa friends... hahaha.. ya.. good-er.  New word before end of 2010.

Throughout the Festive Season, it was just continuous feasting.  Oh boy... With all those yummy food, I think I've piled on some extra kilos.  My poor dance partner would have to suffer when the training start next year!

All these photos are courtesy from Alina and friends, which I stole them from their FB.  I was too lazy to take pictures.  Whenever there is good food and good company, photography is never a priority.  Hehehehe....  Good food come first.  Update on good gossips come second.  Photography comes after all that is done.  Lols..

Here are some photos taken with friends before the dancing start.  Actually it should be before my hair starts to get messed up with sweat!  Or that my face start to shine with all those...lols...

Alina and I.  From this photo, realized my hair had grown so long as compared to a year ago!  Time to do something about it.

We played secret santa for that party and my secret santa got me this!  A ticket to Aquaria!! Yippee!!!  Will head down there when the school holiday is over (so that I won't get squashed by parents & their kids), have a field day on my own, snapping away or even a little heart to heart with those sharks in the aquarium there :D  *excited*

Next was the party with The Deliquenos at Zouk Cafe in The Gardens on 21st.  The Deliquenos, is another bunch of salsa friends whom I met thru another dance school near my house which I joined last year for couple of months.  This bunch is the real crazy and fun ones.  Despite of the crappy food served here (the crappiest of the crappiest) and the crappy service, we all had so much fun.  As you can see, our theme for the night was green shirt, blue pants and a red santa hat!

I had seafood aglio olio or something...  it looks good.  But it doesn't taste good at all.  Pretty spicy too.

The husband's carbonara fettucine or something.  So-so only.  

Cheers!

We each brought a gift worth exactly RM15 for gifts exchanging.  Not a cent more, nor a cent less.  It gotta be exact RM15.  That's the rule for the gift!  I bought two lovely diaries from Loccitane, RM15 x 2, one for the husband and one for myself to be brought with us to the party for exchange.

In return, I got a 'good luck' cat!  Just in time for Chinese New Year!  Hehehe.... Trying to balance luck above my head in the above picture!

The husband got this mini exercise ball.  It was all in pink and I couldn't resist and tried to inflate it immediately.  It was too cute to resist!  But now looking at this picture, I think I am cuter than the ball... lols... the husband have no eyes see (mo ngan tei).... hahaha...

There we are, despite of the crappiness, we had so much fun.  Love this picture.  Very Christmasy.

And this is the cutest picture for the night.  Hehehe.... The consequences of not dressing to the theme.  Our friend here came in light blue shirt and trying to pass it off as light green!  We all had a vote and concluded that it is BLUE.  And so we stuff that mini exercise ball under his shirt, make him walk like a preggy woman all the way from The Gardens to Cosmic Bowl at the old wing!  Lols...

It was a hillarious sight!  And mind you, the pre xmas crowd was maddening.  Everyone was staring and laughing away.  Lols...

At Cosmic Bowl, it was a game of the fairer sex Vs the not-so-fair sex.  Lols...  It was one hell of a game with all those teasing and distractions.  We were like the noisiest group there... it was so funny.  I played an unbelievable crappy game that night.  Must be the crappy food and the crappy service at dinner thus the crappy game! Blaming blaming blaming...lols.

That night, besides celebrating Christmas, it was also a surprise birthday celebration for Penny.  Halfway thru our bowling games, WK took over the PA system of the arcade and announces the birthday celebration over the loud speaker followed by a birthday songs sang by Derek and out come the cake!  Penny was surprised!!!  She was like... "huh????.....".  It was good.  Simple and nice.

After the game, as we were walking thru the mall, decided to take a group photo at the already closed Bodyshop's booth.  Lols.  I thought this photo were rather cute too.

At the main concourse, where all the bears are put up as Christmas deco, which I would never get a chance to take a decent photo thru the mad crazy crowd during normal mall's hours.  I seized the moment.  I look so 'in love' in the photo.  The bear on the other hand look so BLUR...  hahahaha...

It was 'Winter Solstice Festival' (DongZhi 冬至) the very next day.  One of the most important festival celebrated by us, the Chinese.  It was also a time for family get together.  That evening, we gathered for a sumptuous feast (yeah, eat again!).  A typical full course chinese dinner - vege, fish, sharkfins, abalone & etc... *burp*  Lols... it was extra special cause mom was coincidentally in town.  So it was good to be able to celebrate this occasion together.  It has been awhile since we last celebrated major festivals together. :)  No, I didn't take any photos of the food cause like I said, when there is good food, that gets the priority first.  Lols...

Other than dinner together, another tradition for the special day is the making and eating of tangyuan (glutinuous rice balls) which symbolizes reunion.  I was too lazy to make them from scratch.  No, actually I was too busy with the party the night before and the working Wednesday, I bought those ready made ones from the supermarket instead.  Just left to boil some syrup with ginger and pandan leaves and throw those balls in to boil!  Voila!  Hehehehe...  Still, nothing even come close to the ones I used to have in Kluang.  

Note:

I just learned from Wikipedia that this Winter Solstice is celebrated on a day when the sun is weakest and the daylight is shortest!

Rest for a day and here comes Christmas eve!  Nom nom time!  Again we are at Buonasera.  This has been our third year.  We simply love Enzo's turkey and Christmas pudding!  In fact, were just there again last night with The Fernandez (Alina and Family).  

Enzo brought out the turkey for us to take a picture before taking it back back into the kitchen again to be carved and served.  Lols...

Menu for the festive season.  We finally tried their prawn bisque last night and I am still thinking about it now.  Lols.... 

The carved turkey.  The texture was moist and tender and the flavour was superb.  Ma ma mia!  Super love!  I think I wanna have another go at it before the year phase out...lols...

All licked clean!  Hehehe.... If whatever I cooked ends up like this all the time, I would be the happiest person on earth beaming from ear to ear!  hahaha...

And here comes the Christmas pudding!  Super moist fruit cake in some cognag gravy plus a vanilla ice cream on the side!  *gulp*

This year, everyone came equipped with presents!  We were so excited and immediately exchanged presents the moment we sat down.  Hehehe.... I got mom and mom-in-law a Frances Yip's CD, dad-in-law a collection of oldies, sis-in-law a bracelet, bro-in-law some stuff from Bodyshop and 2 cousins, those handmade boxes of mine that was filled with eclairs!  Last year, I got the husband a Garmin GPS.  This year, I wanted to get him an Iphone4.  Unfortunately, they are out-of-stock everywhere.  Just too bad... :p *rolling eyes*... hehehehe....

Other than the few presents I received, I love this the most!  It was from mom and believe it not, she lugged it all the way from Singapore to Kluang to Kuala Lumpur!  Lols.... She wanted me to guess what it was and I simply couldn't guess it!  At the back of my head, I was like, don't tell me this is a doll house!  hahahaha...  She went on and said... "Go ahead think.  What is it that you wanted that is big?".  I was like... "hmmm... the biggest thing that I wanted is already walking around at home! (i.e. the husband)"... hehehehehe....

Amazingly, when the husband got home, he immediately got it right on a second guess!  He is good or what?!?  Mom said he knows me better than I know myself!  Hahaha.... how true!

So, here it is, my brand new Singer sewing machine which I so very LOVE. :)  I can start experimenting with new sewing projects.  I told mom I gonna sew her a blouse (seriously, I know nuts about sewing! Lols...).  She said as long as it is printed with "My daughter sew me this", she will wear it.  Hahahaha...

Happy Birthday Mom!

Another candle on your cake,
well there's no need to pout.
Be glad that you have strength enough,
to blow them all out!

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM"

Of Birthdays Dinner and My CFM Heels...

This is a long overdue post mainly due to mad August for us.  August had been hectic.  Social calendar packed like sardines in can.  Finally found some time to look thru my photos and steal some from mom's blog cause I left my camera at home that night.  Yeah, I know.  Me leaving the camera behind, what's the odd?  Well, think pretty clutch purse vs large obscene bag.  Of course pretty clutch purse won! :p

Since Harrison & I gotten married more than two years ago, come every August, mom will travel all the way to KL to celebrate our birthdays together which were just days apart.  This year, she arrived a day earlier prior to our long planned Cherating trip to celebrate the occasion with a nice dinner.  I know it is cruel of me to be doing this to you at this hour of the day, but what the heck.  

PLEASE BE WARNED: DO NOT CONTINUE READING IF YOU ARE HUNGRY.

We let mom choose the cuisine she prefer cause Harrison & I really ran out ideas as to what to eat and mom suggested that we go for seafood!  When it is seafood, it has to be SS14's Unique Seafood for us.  That's us explaining to the captain how we like our seafood to be cooked.

There were only just the three of us and we ordered (1) Drunkard prawn - fresh prawn cooked in rice wine.  Yummeh!

(2) Evaporated milk prawn - my favourite.  Mom can cook a really nasty one too! :) You must be wondering why two prawn dishes.  Well, I couldn't decide which I like more.  So we ordered both. :p

(3) Giant Bamboo Clam cooked with glass noodles & garlic - nom nom nom.... superlicious!

(4) Kailan fried kailan - everybody's favourite.

And this fella, which was later being cooked to...

(5) Snow crab in salted egg yolk... lols... and last but not least,

(6) Seafood Yee Mee - birthday mah... must have noodles to signify long life.  Which in the end was packed home for breakfast next day.  Lols...  over indulged.

When it comes to seafood, we have long decided that we just go to Unique - fresh, reasonably priced, stress free, save petrol rather than travelling all the way to somewhere we are not familiar for some overpriced frozen seafood and getting lost along the way.  Even PP seconded that when she was still alive. Hehehe...

Anyway, Though there were just three of us that evening, we had a great time pigging out. :)  Love these photos of us shot thru her Sony.  Lovely lovely!

Oh yeah, mom bought me a present too.  All wrapped up in love love wrapping papers.  Cause I mentioned before that I love opening all wrapped up presents.  It has been a long time since I last received presents that are wrapped up.  

I wonder whatever happened to that culture.  Daily lifestyle got too hectic to even spend sometime wrapping presents?  Hmm...

And this is it!  Taa...daa..!  My birthday present from my mom.  A pair of lovely pink peep toes with bows details. :)  Finally wore it last night to dinner with Terri.  One look at it she went... "Nice.. very nice... like CFM shoe...".  I was like... "CFM Shoe?!?".  She replied... "Come Fuck Me shoe....".... hahahaha... what she meant was... very girly hau hau shoe.... lols...  

Nevertheless, though CFM, though a little tight, still loving every inch of it.  Thanks mom!  They are pretty!  Just ignore Terri.  Lols

Our Extraordinary CNY

As we were driving out yesterday evening for an impromptu dessert outing at Swensen with the Fernandez, I told the man... "Today already 7th day of CNY. CNY passed so fast hor..." and he went like... "mm hmm..." and I continued, "But then again, luckily we went for a 3d/2n trip to Aunty Ruby's Resort... otherwise sure bored until chau ken (cramp)...".. :p

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CNY has finally come and gone. Not entirely but can be considered so la... Afterall, work starting tomorrow (I know some of u started way earlier, aww... poor u) and things will fall back to normal routine once again.

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Didnt take any photos of CNY this year. Probably too tired from rushing about getting things done until no mood to even lug my camera about. What shutter speed la... aperture la... aiyah... fuck it la... Might as well just sit down and relax and arrange tiles and pong hung zhung, pak pan, fatt choy better... (mahjong) hehehehe....

Collected these lovely cupcakes which I ordered from Terri for my in-laws as gifts for visiting guests on eve of CNY. It was not only xtreme pleasing to the eyes but to the palette too. Yummy! The kids love them so much.

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Had reunion dinner at home that night. I always love to reunion at home instead of makan-ing outside at restaurants. No.1 cause restaurants are jam packed with people and I can't stand crowd. No.2 cause need to dress up. No.3 cause they are not only expensive, mass produced food are yucky too and have to wait forever to be served. So, we had a really nice reunion dinner at home. Mom-in-laws cooked up a storm.

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Day 1 & 2 of CNY was basically comprises of visitings. Relatives visited us and we visited some others. Like that la... standard activities. Eat, talk, laughed....

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A little out of the norm for this year's CNY would be, instead of going back to Kluang, we went to Aunty Ruby's resort in Cherating on 3rd day of CNY for a 3d/2n trip instead. It was simply perfect.

Other than mom, Terri's family joined us too. Lagi perfect. Ngam ngam 3 kaki (me, mom & terri). Lols... Aunty Ruby took out her brand new mahjong set for us to play. She said must give her angpow wor... virgin mahjong mah...lols... damn sam pat lor...

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On the first day there, we started to play after dinner at Duyong. About 11pm like that and played right thru to 6am. It was really nice. Playing mahjong by the beach while enjoying the sea breeze and the lapping sound of the waves in the background. What a holiday! The initial plan was to play till sunrise but somehow the plan changed along the way. Decided to snooze before the sun rises. Otherwise, sure difficult to sleep. Heard the cockerel cocking away as we walked back to our rooms...lols... then the birds began to chirp and then the insects too...lols... Didnt know it was like that. The cockerel is the alarm clock to the others. :p The wonders of nature.

Awaken rudely the next morning by some uncivilised barkish dogs few doors away at 8:30am. Got up, went out, gave the owner a look of disgust of their untrained dogs, slammed the door and went back to bed. Woke up later at 10:30am. Though still a little grumpy due to the earlier incidents, it was nice just lepaking at Aunty Ruby's cafe over some simple breakfast of mee siam and coffee. At least the hati lega a bit la... that's the magic of that place. Very laid back. Wanna feel angry for long also difficult.

Went lunch at Malaysia Restaurant (the only one that opened) for stuffed crabs in the afternoon. Evelyn & Dennis joined us too. After lunch, we proceeded to Hai Peng for some local coffee. We make mom belanja us. Lols... picture above shows the Ah Pek who started the kopitiam.

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Back at the resort, we continued with mahjong. Stopped at 6pm to take the dogs down to the beach. Mana tau, after changing into our swimsuits, the weather suddenly changed. Strong wind coupled with drizzle. Everyone was running back from the beach. We lepak in the room for awhile and my Mr Macho said... "Aiyah... already changed... will get wet anyhow... might as welljust go swim la...". So off the two of us went, down to the beach. It was so freaking cold. Along the way, Aunty Ruby spotted us as she was washing down the yard and start spraying us with the water hose somemore and yelled..."wah... so romantic arr... "... kanasai.... I tell you arr... really really really cold lor.... my teeth were chattering non stop even before reaching the beach... :p Once there, quickly jumped into the sea. At least the sea is warmer...

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That night, being still pretty full from all those sumptuos meals, we opted for cup noodles instead. Having nothing much else to do, we started to play with bubbles.

The culprit who started it all, my mom, the dai kui tao. See.. see... the 54 years old aunty playing bubbles. Somemore dancing around with it until Terri have to say... "eh, your mom got take her medicine or not??" lols....
Then the engineer also got addicted while trying to repair the bubble gun and started blowing bubbles.

The little boy said... "I want to go into the bubble please....."...lols.....

Christian (the boy) had the most fun. 7 adults + 6 dogs entertaining just one kid.
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Come midnight, we had a not-so-surprising birthday celebration for Terri as it was coincidentally her birthday the very next day. 'Not-so-surprising' thanks to the-love-of-my-life. He burst the bubble. What's new... Twice to be exact.

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1) When Evelyn said she will go get the thing, he have to ask not once but couple of times... "what thing???"
2) When Evelyn smsed into his phone to tell us that she already got the cake in her room, he have to read out loud... "cake???"

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You see la.... hehehehehe.... serious blur case. Lols.... Nevertheless, we had a great time. Tokkok, sing song, joked and laughed. 'Someone' ended feeling extra jolly and puking by the tree after 4 bottles of Tiger beers in half hour. Mad fella... must be extreme thirsty. It was really funny. Though it was just a simple celebration, nothing great, it was really nice.

The weather was really nice next morning. After lunch at HaiPeng, we went down to the beach to take some photos.

Love the blue sky, the long stretch of sandy beach, the island in the distance, the trees, the breeze, the gently lapping waves....

And especially love this one... it has been awhile since we last took any nice photos together. Always look better with sunglasses on. I got cacat sepet eyes that spoil photos... lols...

The tree house built by Aunty Ruby's staff. Pretty cool. Only shortcoming is not having a toilet up there. We had barbeque underneath it the last trip we were there last year.

Taken with the center of attraction of the trip, Christian who sometimes answer to 'Superhero' or 'Spiderman' too. Also known as Christian Girl/Christina when he gets too whiny.

Christian/Christian Girl/Christina/Superhero/Spider with Aunty Popo.
With his God a.k.a. his daddy.

With his mommi at the tree house' swing. It was a really cool swing. I had a great time swinging away too...:)

A picture with the birthday girl. My face look so big. Should have used my hair to cover half of it like how Terri did it. Then will surely look slim....lols.... Sigh... time to shed some weight.

The vain pot.

The birthday girl's feet. I was trying to be artistic. But it came out over artistic. Blur.

Faithful MU supported. Father & Son team.

Classic.

Mom had a go on the swing too. Heheehe.... Forgot to take med. Lols

We bidded farewell to Aunty Ruby after playing under the tree house for awhile. On way out of Cherating, we stopover at Chiang Kee for some sea goodies - ikan bilis, dried scallops and shrimps.

Keropok hanging in the shop.

Mom paying for her loots.

Dried cuttlefish. It goes well for soup.

Ramesh bought a lot too. Plenty of fresh ingredients for his salted fish curry.

These are pictures of some of the stalls next to the one we went to. That pretty much cover the eve of our CNY right up to the 5th day. It was good. Overall, though we did nothing much on our trip, we all had great fun. It was really really good and we already blocked another 3d/2n in August at Ruby's. That will be our 4th staying trip. Oh boy, that place must have casted some kind of magic spell.... it's addictive!