tradition – TheJessicat

Flashback: Celebrating Chinese New Year 2013. Hiss hiss. My zodiac year of the snake!

July 11, 2013 by thejessicat

Today's post is all about the celebration, the culture and the family amidst the Chinese New Year festivity.

Uh-huh. Though I'm fully aware that we've already come to the middle of the year, I'm adamant on posting this despite being half a year late!

Because it's MY YEAR.

Ever since the inception of this blog, it has since became imperative for me to write something about Chinese New Year (CNY), every year without fail. Ergo, I can't and won't let this year go by without a word – especially since it's my own zodiac year!

This is also especially for some of my family members and close family friends who have been waiting for this post and non-local readers who wanted to see how I celebrated my CNY. Sorry I'm late!

So bear with me while I (try) to VERY briefly write and characterize my CNY 2013 as succinctly as I can.

Mandarin Oranges.

Angpows.

Chinese New Year cookies – pity they only come once a year, right?

MORE CHINESE NEW YEAR SNACKS.

GONG XI FA CHAI! First day of Chinese New Year.

The Lion Dance troupe performing in the middle of the night just outside my house.

The Lion Dance troupe up close

Standing by the CNY decorations at the foyer of my home.

Ladies helping out and making preparations for our family steamboat dinner!

(while daddy does the prayer stuff and takes a nap LOL)

Steamboat dinner with my immediate family.

The smallest of what a family can comprise is what we have always been. Granted, we are a close-knit one!

Shall we cue the happy family pictures already?

Mom, dad and I makes the family I'm speaking of

Hugs galore!

The man of the house, Mr. Daddy and his ~~bitches~~ girls.

After our family steamboat dinner, we had relatives come over.

I went visiting my buddies next day!

With Mr. BFF Vincent!

Annual CNY gathering with the buddies

Boo!

Cue the Jagerbombs and CNY gambling!

After the alcohol kicked in LOL

Random selfie while I took a break from gambling with the boys.

Mom and I grabbing a quick breakfast the next day

Brought out babyChivas

Jumped into the car.

Roadtrip time! Guess where we are going?

Two hours down south, we arrived Ipoh. Look who greeted us happily!

My dearest popoh giving me my angpows!

Why does she look more excited than I am?

Lion Dance troupe invasion!!!

Our (very brown) lunch.

Trust me, it tasted ten times better than it looks!

A compulsory photo with the God of Prosperity plushie

and a bowl of ancient money from China.

Hello

Three generations: Popoh, mom and I.

The fourth one will have to wait, okay? Uh-huh. No pressure alright. *rolls eyes*

En route to the big reunion dinner with the extended family!

Headed to one of our favorite Chinese restaurants in town, Restoran Kok Thai!

All decorated for a night of family Chinese banquet dinners!

Camlovin' with Uncle Mikey.

With the (fairy) godmother and popoh

This one is a prized photo with the cousin, as it is one of the

rare photos we snap together whilst not drunk/in a club/at a party/at a rave.

Mommy dearest and Uncle Mikey

I think I must've spread the love for camwhoring to her. Whoooops!

With Auntie Karen and Uncle Philip

With the two sisters – granny and grand aunt.

I think this should be a foresight of how I would look 50 years later?

And it begins! The Chinese tradition of to lou our yee-sang.

(For my non-Chinese readers, it means to toss this dish about haphazardly as a symbol of prosperity)

I know right, us Chinese are all about being prosperous LOL

Just some traditional Chinese dishes in our 8-course dinner:

Braised cerbal chicken with mushrooms

Steamed brocolli, scallops and mushrooms

Mom, couzie Shaun and I helping ourselves to the dish

Pork Trotters with dumplings

GIGANTIC steamed prawns!

Cue the red wine.

Kochabi – a traditional local Chinese dessert (a very frozen ice-cream texture)

which means 'the taste of old times' in literal translation.

We entertained ourselves to fireworks and firecrackers at night

I had my fair share of fun too!

Mom and I flanking kakak

Cue more alcohol. Yummy.

Thanks Uncle Mike, for this lovely photo!

I wish I didn't look so drunk though.

Traditional Chinese mah-jong with the family

Third day of Chinese New Year. We went avisiting more friends and family!

More yee-sang and more homecooked meals. All thanks to granny and kakak, the masterchefs!

Time to toss it like a savage and ravage it like the last yee-sang on the phase of earth!

Hi again. Off to another reunion dinner

Came home bursting at my sides to this handsome furkid of mine on the bed

Couldn't help it. You'd be tempted to camwhore with this fluffy ball of love too.

After all the festivities with the family and friends back home is all over, it was time to head back to the city.

Despite having15 days of Chinese New Year, work beckons! I returned to the office on the 5th day of CNY.

The lion dance troup invading our office!

With the colleagues

At night, we headed off for our company's Chinese New Year dinner!

Baked cereal prawns

Steamed grouper fish

Baked chili crabs!

'nuff said.

And yes, you guessed it. Yee-sang again.

A quick shot before making a giant mess of the yee-sang!

I think I'm pretty good at this already LOL.

With my pretty girls, Carmen and Sheena.

I think that wraps up my Chinese New Year 2013.

Was that brief enough? Hahaha. Better a simple post than completely forgetting to have this up.

So what do you really like about CNY?

Just like every year, Chinese New Year consists of five most important F WORDs for me.

Don't jump to conclusions just yet. Why F WORDs, you ask? They are:

FAMILY.

FRIENDS.

FOOD.

FLAMING FORMULAS.

FORTUNE.

There you have it. You can stop bugging me for Chinese New Year photos now hahaha.

Sorry for the tardiness, though!

But this FORTUNE a.k.a angbao only applies if you are still single. YIPPEE!

The married ones ain't gettin' nothing!

Being forced to eat Vegemite by my mates, on camera! Vegemite : It’s an Aussie thing.

July 29, 2011 by thejessicat

To be extremely honest, I’ve never seen/taste/smell/ate Vegemite in my entire life.

Until I came to Australia.

Bardha, Cleefy and I in the kitchen on the night of the challenge

This is how it all began.

One fine day, Konzy and Cleefy decided to ask me a million dollar question.

“Have you tried Vegemite before?”

My answer was an obvious “no”.

However, I’ve heard some pretty horrid stuff about it; that it tasted vile, disgusting and nasty on your tastebuds. Then again, Cleefy insisted I had some, regardless of what I’ve heard.

Allow me to quote him “you haven’t experienced Australia if you leave without Vegemite”.

Looks like a creepy Vegemite ad, no? 😛

He proposed I eat it in front of the camera so that I could always remember the “Australian goodness of Vegemite”. Fair enough. So I decided to take up the challenge of the infamous yucky Vegemite.

Let the camera roll!

One night before we headed out clubbing, Cleefy brought me a jar of Vegemite

& had it wrapped in a cute blue ribbon too!

I was extremely hesitant after unwrapping it but my mates were pretty persistent.

Fine fine fine. I’ll do it!

Here’s the short video I made. Enjoy it!

Hahaha. Hope you liked it! So there, my 1st moments with Vegemite, added with laughter, nasty facial contortions and friendship encapsulated in a 6 minute video 🙂

Now, everytime I think of Australia or crave for Vegemite, this video will do the trick!

Ahoy mateys! Arrrr. Vegemite has arrived.

How am I ever gonna forget that?

The next time ANY of you come to Malaysia, I’ll do the exact same thing for yall – not with Vegemite, but with Durians instead. *evil laughter*

Thank you Cleefy bear!

Now that I’ve finished blogging this entire post and editing the VLOG, I’m totally up for some. Only thing that’s stopping me is…. I can’t seem to find my Vegemite.

Who has stolen my jar from me!? Identify yourself!!

Grandpa revisiting us as a moth? Dinner with thefockers @ Folie-Folie Cafe & Grill, Ipoh

January 18, 2011 by thejessicat

Okay I promise this is the last post that has any connection whatsover with Christmas! 😛

I'm no festive laggard but haven't really been getting round to writing the Christmas posts instead of all the other posts first

So as a token of apology, here are 2 very adorable snowmen fer you! 😀 😀

So thefockers and I headed to this really nice place called Folie-Folie along Jalan Raja Musa Aziz in Ipoh for some Christmas dinner.

We frequent this place quite often as Uncle Mike knew some of the bosses and staff there 🙂

Say hello to my favorite uncle of all time!

Anyhoozers, the place was pretty packed with people, old and young alike.

All the waiters and waitresses dressed the part too – in the spirit of Christmas!

Silly me thought that these 2 waiters were the same person.

I was thinking "WHOA, he changed hats so fast?" But it's actually 2 different people!

Mom seemed pretty amused with the complimentary snowmen we had too! 🙂

Leafed through the pages of the menu and we finally settled on which Main Course to pick.

In the Christmas dinner set, there were choices of Roasted Duck Breast, Grilled Salmon, Chicken Roulade and Braised Lamb Shank

Om nom noms!

I obviously chose the fish. Salmon FTW forever and always!

My selection of meat is very, very predictable. It's always in this order : Fish, Chicken, Turkey, Lamb, Beef and last in line, Pork.

Or wait. Last of the last would be…. frog. Never my option! Yuck

So the Grilled Salmon was pretty damn awesome, just like everything else served too. Oh and the Pumpkin Cappuccino soup was really new to me! Some of thefockers didn't like it so I ended up finishing it for them 😛

The Roasted Duck, compared to the Chicken Roulade wasn't as flavourful as I had expected it to be.

This was really good. It was light and creamy, soft and frothy bursting with coffee aroma!

The perfect Tiramisu in a cup

The couzzies gobbled them down pretty fast! And so did it.

Anyway, couzzie group photo!

Yup. We're Blackberry addicts.

Sorry no Steve Jobs worshippers allowed at this table 😛

Without our BBs!

Looking a tad more normal here and not too Y-Generation as the previous pic

You've prolly seen them well over a hundred times if you've been following this blog for a long time,

but… *drumroll* the mad awesome fockers in the house!

Adjourned back home to partay at the patio 😀

Put on your Christmas hats yo!

Candid shot!

Our setting for the table. Pretty swell, ain't it?

It's been a longtime tradition for us to celebrate Christmas at home!

Hmmmm.. there's something missing though.

Now that all thefockers are here. Where's grandpa this year? It feels different without him this Christmas.

Oh! There he is. Came back perched by the ceiling to join us, perhaps? :D

I'd like to think so.

Do you believe that the deceased comes back in the form of insects i.e butterflies & grasshoppers?

According to the Chinese belief, it is apparently so.

So… HELLLLOOOO KUNGKUNG!! 😀 😀 😀

Flashback: Celebrating Chinese New Year 2013. Hiss hiss. My zodiac year of the snake!

Being forced to eat Vegemite by my mates, on camera! Vegemite : It’s an Aussie thing.

Grandpa revisiting us as a moth? Dinner with thefockers @ Folie-Folie Cafe & Grill, Ipoh

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