Chinese New Year Eve

Hey hey hey what a beautiful Sunday and it was the eve of CNY, my favourite part of CNY where the anticipation for good food and great reunion began!

Uniquely we went to the Bedok Library in the morning for Evans to return his books and to borrow others. We had a simple lunch at a nearby kopitiam cos tonight would be a feast! It felt really nice with CNY in the air, despite me having to be in mask most of the time. The flu couldn't stop me for feeling festive. Thankfully I felt better after a warm shower.

Evans and I spent our afternoon resting at my parents' place while the cleaning aunty did the cleaning at our place. Papa and mama were busy preparing for reunion dinner.

Our first stop for reunion dinner was at my on-laws' place. They too prepared steamboat like my parents. It just felt more like CNY with the hot pot, just like how turkey/roasted chicken is for Christmas. And Evans showered me with his cherry tomato juice when he took a bite, the juice just splattered all over me. #$^&*/$#& Thanks. No biggie... just glad to be able to let down my mask and enjoy the dinner.

Round 2 was at my parents', another round of steamboat!!!! Never get sick of it especially during this time of the year. With all my favourite like tau kee, wongbok, prawns, sotong balls, mushroom balls.... I could whip up another bowl of rice! Yum!

Following tradition, we also played the fire sparklers just at the lift lobby. This tradition started even before I was married. Still remember how my bro and I would play with the sparklers then take many funny wefies to stay up way past midnight - shou sui. Now we couldn't but we would still try to stay up to the max to shou sui.

Fire sparklers time

Just the 4 of us but that's good enough

This year Evans was asked to formally do CNY greetings to the elders in order to get his angpaos. I must say he could remember the standard set of wishings pretty well. Quite funny to see him do that in his new pj.

Bai Nian lor!!!

After fetching papa to the neighbourhood temple, we headed back home and got to count down to the Year of the Monkey in the car... Evans slept pretty fast and so now I got to continue my shou sui by watching the free singtel tv channels.

Happy Lunar Year of the Monkey, my dear friends!

All Ready for Chinese New Year!

Despite being hit by the flu virus, I was glad that I started the spring cleaning earlier and bit by bit, we managed to clean up some parts of the house while we will leave it to the cleaning lady to help us with the cleaning on CNY eve.

My bro also got to buy Evans a set of CNY clothes just in time. I haven't been able to get something I like.

I am also very thankful that my boy recovered from the fever and cough!

Regaining his cheekiness

The decor which lights up the house with CNY mood

Last Work Day before CNY

As our tradition, we would meet up for our little reunion lunch on our last working day before CNY. This year we would not be able to enjoy a CNY eve half day in office cos the eve falls on a Sunday but let's create a little CNY mood with lots and lots of chicken and laughter. And Irene turned up late so she wasn't captured in the picture. Still glad she came in the end to help with clearing the dishes.

Team Lunch at Ichiban Boshi

Miss Ang insisted on giving the team a treat for our help in covering her duties when she was away and also for some bets they were in and did not want to share.

After some discussion, we decided to have Jap food (again, for me)--> Ichiban Boshi at Novena Square. I know I just had jap food yesterday but I was fine with it. I kind of love jap food and I think it needs to take a few more meals before I get sick of it. Am still missing yesterday's sashimi.

The pictures in the menu looked all delectable and quite spoilt for choices especially when it was a treat! Hehe but of course we did not exploit Miss Ang. We ordered within limits. Think my Chirashi Jyu was one of the cheapest $14.90++. Basically it was rice with sashimi cubes (tuna, swordfish & salmon) with roes and cucumbers. Refreshing. I just had to dip the sashimi and rice in bits of soy sauce, it tasted good. Oh it came with miso soup as well.

Thank you Miss Ang for the lovely meal!

Rainy Friday

A good weather for piping hot and spicy Bak Kut Teh, as Ah Yeo said. But now I am kind of feeling "heaty"... a little headache. :S Or maybe it's the work. I don't know.

Ah Yeo drove us to meet up with Bo who was on leave today, at Founders' Bak Kut Teh. It was packed with patrons but luckily Bo was there earlier to help book the seats.

Initially we took the table inside the restaurant but it seemed stuffy so we went to sit at the table outside instead. Thankfully for the rain, it was breezy too. The food was served very soon after our order.

The ribs were tender yet springy. I would love it if it has the soft cartilage bones. :) I also love eating "Tau Kee", a must-have, though I still prefer the steamboat kind cos' I can decide how long to cook it, to retain its chewiness. Ah Yeo also ordered the pigs' parts assortment where everyone got to eat their favourites like pigs' intestines, liver, stomach, etc.

Again, Mr Kok could not join us because of his site meeting. And... ...

It's a mistake to send your photo to your friends... Haha! Hope Mr Kok won't mind our nonsense. As usual, while we were talking and all, Ah Yeo was busy snapping and doing his collage. Stealing this from him:

Argh! I am beginning to feel the heat around my neck and head, I think it's the bak kut teh.... Better drink lots of water!

Lunch at Xinwang Cafe (Anchor Point)

This was what I had today for lunch. The gang drove to Anchor Point and we settled our lunch at Xin Wang. All the way there, because Mr Kok needed to send his Sacoor Brothers' Suit for alteration. And Bo recommended him a tailor (Queen's Alteration) at Queensway Shopping Centre. So, journey to Queensway.

Anyway, this was the 2nd time I ordered this noodles cos' I love the soup! With the milk and papaya, the soup was soooooo sweet! And that time Irene told me we could change bee hoon to noodles. So I ordered the same combination, except I forgot to change the hard boiled egg to sunny side up. Nevermind, it still tasted good.

Why did I order this healthy sliced fish noodles soup? Because KS, Yeo and I wanted to try something else... it's a little sinful, oily and fatty. So to compensate that, I ordered this soupy main. LOL! What was that we wanted to try?!? (Hubby would be very interested to know this.)

Each only took one piece so not that sinful actually. Frankly the chicken wasn't big. Verdict is it's just like any normal fried chicken but KFC would be much much better. So, I don't think I will order this again. (Hubby, hear that?) For fried chicken, I will still settle for KFC, Popeyes or IKEA!

How I Spent the Labour Day

Waking up to a very humid morning but the trio went ahead to have breakfast outside. After Evans was done with his morning milk-feed, papa drove us out to Lai Kee Pau. This time, we wanted to try the roasted meat from the other stall which we thought looked delicious. On top of that we could not resist but to order some dim sum to top up the roasted meat noodles.

The noodles fell below our expectations. The shao la was not bad, the char siew and roasted pork (shao rou) had the wok smell but then not impressive enough for me to order again. The noodles were a little soggy and the sauce made it kind of thick and mashy. Hmmm, disappointed. So it was a good thing we had the dim sum to fall back on to make it a more satisfying meal.

Hubby ordered a new item which was actually sweet tofu fish paste cake at the bottom, with a prawn on top. Yah, nothing big deal. I think the usuals (fu pi juan) still taste the best.

We also ordered the Liu Sha Bao for Evans... too dry. I think the Bao Today's version is still better.

After breakfast, I suggested bringing Evans to the playroom, to keep him entertained, also to enjoy the air con. Evans was of course delighted. He had a lot of fun with the play house and the slide. There was another baby seated in his pram at the play room. I think the dad brought him in to enjoy the air con too since the baby was way too young to play in there. Evans did try to say Hi. :)

Evans surely had a fun morning.

I was feeling a little tired but I thought to myself I needed some workout to feel upbeat and of course to "recover" from all the pork knuckles the previous night. So after I put Evans down for his afternoon nap, I asked hubby to help me look after Evans while I picked up my running shoes and headed for the gym downstairs.

Never really like to run on threadmill unless I do not have other better choice. As I did not have much time, I needed to finish the jog and go back for shower before Evans woke up, threadmill was the best alternative. Jogged for about 40 min or so. Felt accomplished though the speed and the distance covered were not impressive. But a pat on my shoulder for working out.  Hehe!

Another place to enjoy the air con and the free space for Evans to roam about would be.... .... AIRPORT! Yes, airport AGAIN & AGAIN! It's near our house, it's a few stations away... We spent the evening there, doing almost the same old thing but so long it pleased the little boy...

From the last Heguru lesson, the teacher mentioned that we could start introducing vegetables and fruits to the kid. So we brought Evans to the NTUC at T3, introducing him to the various fruits/vegetables. Though he wasn't really focused and at times, not too interested, I wanted to believe that sub-consciously he was learning. He did show some interests when I let him carry the cabbage and apples. It was a pity that all the fruits and vegetables were wrapped in cellophane. Here was papa's turn who tried to get Evans interested... ...

After dinner at the foodcourt, Evans re-visited the Aviation Gallery where he could play with the rotating "flowers" again.  And given that it was a PH, there were more kids running about. Very rowdy. Sometimes I wish the gallery could be revamped cos' with all the wear and tear caused by the kids running up and down, it looked quite sad and old.

This time, we did not spend much time convincing Evans to leave for home. He probably had played long enough and was a little tired. Then we took the train train home.

This was how the trio spent the PH away... :)