~*pre-chinese new year dinner with the whole lot!

i went to town today, and yesterday too..two days in a row! and i hated it! it's just waaaay tooooo pack around this time of the year! but my dad needed to get this pair of shoes he absolutely needed or wanted (whatever) so we all get dragged down to Sungai Wang...goodness, i have never despised Sg.Wang as much as i did today! The ventilation was soooooooo bad, and the place was sooooooooooooooo overcrowded, if any air borne epidemic were to flourish in Malaysia, Sg.Wang will definitely have the honours to kickstart it!



while i sat near the concourse stage waiting for my mom to get back from the ladies, some nice Chinese New Year deco caught my attention..we have the Plum Blossom...all pink and blooming (cus they're all plastic ;p)



and seeing red with this lion dance head...did i tell you i actually enjoy watching Lion Dance competition? ya i do...and i can get sooooooooo engrossed in it. Once when the Hong Kong team fell off the beams, i was actually depressed by it for the whole day! hmmm, tht's one side of me i never even knew about myself!

after having left Sg.Wang (thank GOD!) we headed to Chinatown to buy Bak Kua *a.k.a Chu Yok Kon, Daging Salai, BBQ Por Slices*...poor dad had to queue up really long to get his share of Bak Kua...yummy Bak Kua! i like those with extra oil, extra fatty stuff and all thick and chewy! *yummy*

and every year, my aunt organizes a dinner 2 to 3 days before Chinese New Year to gather the entire family for a small dinner...nothing big, nothing special, just a get together which i think is really important, it creates a warm atmosphere, just being with your cousins and aunts and uncles..sharing dumb jokes, and everyday life drama! so off to my aunt's house we headed next!


the food lineup!...and more to come ;p


here's my aunt - who complained about me taking her picture in such an undesirable state before she threatened me with a knife! ;p


YEE SANG...! something every chinese must eat! and i mean MUST!!!! it's soooo fun! How can anyone not have it? ;0 so here it is, sitting in the kitchen all raw and not fully garnished, we have pomelo, red pickled ginger, shredded carrot, apple and radish, pickled onions, pickled melon and shredded ginger with deep-fried flour crisps, ground peanuts, sesame seeds, sweet plum sauce and fragrant oil. Those inexpensive ingredients needed for the Yee Sang...my aunt added clams to it which tasted sooooooooooo darn good!

Yee Sang - which is one of the traditional dishes for the Chinese New Year celebration. The Chinese believed that, after having the Yee Sang [in Cantonese say "Lou Sang" ], it will bring lucky and fortune for the coming year. That's why, the dishes is much popular during the season. (ok i took this off a website...i bet you must be thinking that i know a lot abt yee sang huh, i dun, until now ;p)




now here it is, all nicely done up, sitting right there while my aunt guarded it with her life just so my cousins won't dive their chopsticks into it before i took a nice lil picture of it ;)


loh ah loh! the higher you loh the better it is...


pass it all around!


before dinner and during dinner ;p don't we resemble something out of Da Vinci's Last Supper, except that we have more than 13 people present ;) and it's not our last supper...


Chu Tou Tong the *SOUP* - the soup which confirms chinese eats the insides of an animal ;)


what's left of the perut khinzir , my aunt taught my mom how to prepare this particular soup which included this particular sentence "You just have to first scrub the pig's stomach with 'ya-da-ya-da-ya-da' as though you're washing your clothes" ... hmmmmm.....interesting!
Scrub the stomach! Scrub it! Scrub it like you're washing your underwear! hahahaha (Maybe annie will know a thing or two on how to prepare the pig's stomach for consumption ;p)


what's left of my cousin's dinner...


we rounded up the evening with calls back to homeland China for all the good wishes and come to Malaya (tht's what my Granma calls M'sia) for a holiday! I think my Granma had a blast speaking to her sisters and brothers, as she proudly yells into the phone "Don't worry about me, i am in good health, i don't think i am dying soon, i won't be dying, i don't know when i will die, i don't know what will get me to die sooner" i though it was all about pleasantries and not dying? that's my granma, everytime i visit her, i'll leave with her confirming that she won't be dying anytime soon. She's spunky, and i love her to bits, we spoke about why in the world i have 4 piercings in one ear and she wants me to wear big roses ear rings ;) *cute*