Of foods, family and CNY.

I am not gonna talk about the predictions of this year as I am not an astrologer nor a feng shui expert. Instead, I am gonna share about how I celebrate my CNY long weekend. Oh, maybe you might wonder, how come an Iban-Bidayuh girl celebrates CNY. Well, I don't exactly celebrate CNY. We usually just held a small, low key and laid back family reunion dinner because my ama (that's how you call grandmother in Hokkien) is a Chinese. We held this family reunion dinner every year without fail, unless ama is not in Kuching. This year is more exciting because Uncle Joe and family fly all the way from Miri to celebrate with us. Hence, this is why I decided to celebrate my belated birthday celebration with the family because EVERYONE is here. Oh, and I get extra ang pows because it's my birthday! :p

Not gonna write much more, but am gonna let the pictures do the talking!

Funny story during blowing the candles. So I bought my cake at Lof Bakery, Kuching Sentral as the other branch at Jalan Song was closed *almost cried but sapa suruh beli lambat. Dah tauk Cina mok beraya mestilah daknya tutup for family reunion dinner*. While I was waiting for the shop assistant to do the writing on the cake, I was looking for candles. I never used the number candles before but I guess now that umur semakin meningkat, I guess I should just forgo that thought for I don't feel like the age I am. At times I still thought that I was 21 *coughs* and at times, my thinking is waaaaayyyyy ahead than my current age. Anyway, back to the candles story, I was looking for the suitable candle to be used because to be honest, I'm quite bored with the normal candle that bakeries provide. So I found a "Magic Candle", grab it and paid for it. Along with the cake of course. On my way back, I asked my brother Matthew why did they call it the "Magic Candle". This is what he said:

A few minutes before the cake ceremony, Matthew showed me the back of the candle packaging. It said, "to completely distinguish the flames, it must be immersed in the water...", something like that. I was like, what did I get myself into? Haha. But I just said to him, "it's okay. We can do this." So after that papa lead us with the prayer and blessings, and then, the moment everyone (well, mostly the kids) waiting for: CAKE CUTTING!!! Aunty La light up the candle, but stopped for a while because she find it hard to light it up (hint: MAGIC CANDLE) so Uncle Casey continued lighting up the candle. After the candle is lit, they sang the birthday song and then I tried to blow off the candle. It was a success, and 60 seconds later, it relighted. The thought that came to my mind was, "so this is MAGIC CANDLE." The kids on the other hand, are very excited that the candle relighted so they blow their saliva hearts out to blow off the candle. It was a success, but like the instruction says, it relights every 60 seconds so I instruct someone to take a cup of water so I can finally distinguish it. The kids continue to blow the candle and at one moment, Cody (one of the twin cousins of mine) almost took the cup water and throw it at my birthday cake and I think everyone almost had a heart attack because of this. Haha. Lesson learnt: standby a cup of water if you plan to use the magic relighting candle. Lol.

After the whole conundrum, we proceed with our dinner. There were obviously lots of food and of course, ama's signature for every CNY family reunion dinner, her steamboat. Nope, it is not like the D11 steamboat or any steamboat that you find for that matter. It looks something like this:

More or less lah. We talked the whole night while waiting for the clock to struck midnight. And every one hour, Uncle Bart played the fire crackers. 

All in all, everyone was happy. I think this is the first time Uncle Joe and his family participated in the CNY family reunion dinner. My little cousins, Cody, JJ and Chrysantha were very excited that they got red packets for the first time from ama and Uncle Bart until they said to their mama and papa to not take their money away from them. How can you not laugh at that? 

I hope it's not to late for me to wish everyone who's celebrating Chinese New Year a happy, prosperous Chinese New Year and may the horse be with you!