31st January 2009

Every year I invite some friends over to my house for CNY. Most of the time the selection of friends depends on who I invite and who is free.

This was what we served my peeps this year. ^_^ all homemade (except for the select few like the mandarin oranges and the pie in the lower left corner)... and by mumsie [send my love to my mumsies] Mumsie made us the things that would be put together nasi lemak~! [drool] i miss nasi lemak....
This is the group this year. ^_^ oops, big light in the way.
Second shot, both were taken by eugene's camera and his tripod. ^_^ Let's see...

1st row L to R: Eugene, Kimberly (kim), Jaslyn, Melissa (mel) and Sabrina (sabs)
2nd row L to R: Yoong Yoong, Pauline, myself, clare, pui yee, khuan (foxy)
A very interesting turn of events led me to inviting Yoong Yoong, Pauline and Jaslyn. Nothing against them but I just normally don't invite people to my house unless I know you for years.... Nor do I invite people very much different from my gang.
At the table photos: Pauline, Jaslyn and Eugene.
At the table photos: Take 2.
At the table photos: Mel and her sister, Clare.
At the table photos: Sabs and Kim. ^_^ Kim is wearing the souvenir + birthday gift I bought for her in Melbourne.
At the table photos: Pui Yee and Me.
After our hearty lunch, we moved down to the living room and relax... Yea, it's just lunch and relaxing at my house. hahahha~!

I'm not that good in hosting... XD It's more like I offer a venue and you guys figure out what to do other than the food bit... ~__~ sorry
Keng Yen (my good buddy) came later than the rest but she brought goodies with her.
Yay~! Chocolate muffins? If I remember right, it was all chocolate icing... hahaha~!
And caramel and dark chocolate ermmm... cake? Anyways, they were both made by Keng Yen. She's awesome in making desserts.

The three girls left before everyone else... ~__~ I'll note that even my normal gang was a bit surprised that I invited them (since they were really different from who I normally hang out with). I was a little disappointed that there was this awkward tension in the air. [sigh] Bad chemistry experiment this time round. It's not anyone's fault, it's just the chemistry.

Thanks to my gang for being there for me, nonetheless. Love you guys and hope to be back soon. Missing you lots and LOTS~! Even Eugenia. [snicker] Cheers~!

30th January 2009

When I heard that Khuan was going to visit some of her friends' house (and that I knew some of them), I asked if I could tag along. Frankly, I don't know if they minded but I had a blast. [grin]

We went to Zie Wei's house where we had homemade lunch (yummy~!) [L to R: Khuan, Woan Wei, Sou Leng]
[L to R: Zie Wei, Alin, June & Jess (Mok)]
What I found most interesting was that Zie's mother does chinese painting. XD They were pretty but stored in the back of the house... or were those the new ones waiting to be hung up... [shrugs]
After that, we made our expedition to Woan Wei's house. XD Her mum gave us angpows before going out... so we had the house to ourselves. [evil laugh]
I remember that I was most fascinated by the pair of jade kirins on the table... oh, there was this beautiful display of ermm... displays (crystal stuff, figurines, etc) in the living room.

We ate watermelon (though it was more like; forced to eat them...) hahaha~!

I insisted that they took this group shot, outside of Woan Wei's apartments. [lol]

Lastly, we dropped by Sou Leng's home. In all the houses, if you noticed, we took box drinks (normally brands of yeo's, drinkho, etc...) I prefer those above canned drinks since it's more "healthy". [lol]

Ooo Ooo... I loved them prawn crackers in Sou Leng's house. I'd say we were more actively eating in Sou Leng's house because we were hungry by then...? hahahaha

We ended our house hopping sessions at my place... if i'm not mistaken. =P Should be right since we all went out for dinner later that night...

Though I had told the girls that I had a dinner appointment at Midvalley later that night. So we drove whoever that needed to go home first, then we drove to Midvalley. Had dinner with Chris and Eugene (forgot to take his photograph)

We ate at Manhattan Fish Market... while the girls went elsewhere to eat.

I didn't know how the girls would have interacted with the boys so that's why I didn't ask them to join us.... ~__~ Oh well. That's all for now. Cheers~!

25th & 29th January Chinese New Year with Family

25th January 2009
After all the posts about Chinese New Year decorations, it's about time to add photos that we're celebrating Chinese New Year. [lol]

The reunion dinner this year was back at home. [lol] last year we had celebrated our reunion dinner as reunion lunch and went up to genting for dinner concert and stuff.
So first up is the yuu sang. hehehe~! We buy the normal packets that they sell in the supermarkets and adding extra carrots, turnips and some more salmon. Yum~!
The fun part is seeing the yuu sang being setup. [grin] Mumsie, daddykins and Jessica (my elder sis, Jie)
Our family reunion is with family (duh~!) [lol] (L to R: May-Jie, Pak-liong, Hong-Koh) Yuu Sang is always fun since you can toss the food about and say good sayings.
After the Yuu Sang, we setup for the main course. ^_________^ Mum cooks them all. Awesome~! [drools] I miss mumsie's cooking a lot.

Random: Khuan doesn't drink wine except if it's sparkling wine~!

29th January 2009

Visiting relatives are nice since you get to catch up with what everyone is up to. Certainly would be better if we stayed in touch besides the CNY period but at the very least, we meet face to face once a year. [grin] And then there's some more dinners and stuff.

That's Joanne. (yea, I know. She's got the same english name as myself.) She's my cousin brother's wife.

That's Khuan, "guarding" the wine. [lol]

What's dinner without a little karaoke function? [lol] I'm not sure how you and your family celebrate CNY but one fun way is to mix dinner with karaoke. More of that later.

[L to R: 4-sok, Daddykins, Alvin & Jie] Alvin is my soon-to-be brother-in-law. Hmmm... don't know how the relationship dynamic would be between him and myself but so far I treat him as a friend. Good enough?

You'll mind me... I don't have brothers to compare relationships with... [shrugs] 4-sok and daddykins are brothers so maybe I'll ask daddykins later. But at the mean time, I'm not worried about it.
[L to R: 2-jiong, Joanne, Kwong Yong Piu-Koh, Kwong Lam Piu-Koh (Ronan for short)]
2-ma is mumsie's elder sister. Mum only has one sister so on mum's side it's a pretty small family. Not forgetting my favourite (and only) grandma, popo (though she's not in the shot)
We chat merrily while waiting for the dinner to come.
Oh, mandarin oranges to eat while waiting [peel peel, eat eat] Xp Don't you hate it when the mandarin orange you get is a bit sourish....
Ooo... more yuu sang. I tell you, during Chinese New Year, I eat up to an average of 4 yuu sang every year. [lol] Though Jessica (my sis) says that she ate more since she eats it with her friends as well. Sometimes plus the office dinner might have one... Hahaha~!
In this shot, we ARE holding tea to cheers~! hahahha~! The service was pretty slow, unfortunately.
But we're in the mood to cheers so we don't really care that it's tea anyway. It's the thought and mood that counts. All about the timing.
4-seasons dish. (though if you count with me, there's 5 there) [lol]
[ka-grin] More photo shoots in the room. 4-sok and Alvin.
Oh oh, this is a best example on how cute my po-po can be. Here we see Kwong Chi Piu-Koh (Erwin for short) and mumsies in the cheers shot and po-po in the background. She looks like she wants to cheers too....
Lo and behold, a cheers shot....
... Or NOT~! [lol] We were laughing so hard later. Popo just wanted to reduce the red wine the staff poured into her glass. Love my grandma. She's so cute~!
Erwin and mumsie's snicker shot.
When they finally served the red wine, we did a 2nd cheers~!
Shark's fin soup.
Chicken... served with hot rocks and fire... [stares at the pretty flames]
That's me, Khuan and Erwin... Laze mood...
"Bring on a smile, guys" says daddykins and takes this 2nd shot.
The younger part of the group...
I don't know what we're grinning at... but I do know that Alvin and Jess are in the background selecting songs to be inputted into the Karaoke machine.
FISH~! I love fish. Fish is good.... [drools]
Daddykins love the head of the fish. I prefer the part besides the head.
I love just about any seafood. [lol] Prawns... If I keep drooling like this, my keyboard would drown.
As we come to the midway of dinner, we enjoyed ourselves with some singing.
This was an interesting way to present the lo-mai rice.
We tried to get everyone to sing. That's Alvin.
I get to sing too. ^__^

Erwin like singing too. [grin]
Everyone doesn't seem to mind of our singing. Hahahah~!
More photos from the dinner.
Some more photos.
That night was 4-sok's birthday. So we brought out the cake (more food~!)
It was also a celebration for 2-jiong's birthday too, which was a few days earlier.
The cake~! yum~!
Photo spams...
Spam~!
If I remember right, we were singing "My Way"
While Mum was serving the cake.
It's plenty fun to sing together.
Even Ronan got into the singing bit. Though he needed a bit more prompting...
Top form top form.
Awww~! So cute. He was singing a romance song at that time, of course.
Photo spams...
Erwin and his mum, 2-ma. Singing a duet.
The singing duo.
They were having lots of fun, singing.
[grin] and I enjoy taking lots of random photos. hahahah~! Oops, he caught me in the act/
Photo spams...
More photo spams....
Ooo Ooo.. even Jie got into the act. [grin]
Photo spam..
More photo spam...
Mumsies and I...
Family shot~!
Girls shot. We only got mumsies to sing when we inputted "top of the world"
Hehehe~!
This one was uber fun to do since we were like the backup dancers... Hahaha~!

Not everyone sang that day. Some needed some coaxing before they would take up the microphone. And some didn't take up the microphone even though we asked a lot of time. [shrugs] We get to do all this behind closed doors, of course.

It's all fun and family. Cheers~!

[p/s: The lighting for all the photos are pretty messed up between yellow lighting and white lighting since it was really the yellow lighting and the flash makes it pretty ermmm white...]