Horseh year!

The horse doesn't lend itself to many funny phrases unlike the snake year. I see mostly horseh - 好势 - so indeed, hope this will be a horseh year! To get us going, I pasted a horse sticker saying 马到功成 on Yang's room door in January - for his PSLE :p

Anyway, we had a rocky start this year - viruses!

Last year, Kai missed out on LNY celebrations in school as he was nursing a cough. This time, Yu woke up with a tummy ache on Monday. He couldn't even finish his milo. In the end, he stayed home and missed out on celebrations too. Yang wondered if it would be his turn next year...!

Yu's tummy ache came and went a few times. Else he was mostly fine and had no other symptoms. He couldn't eat much though, as late as Wednesday dinner, which was telling as it was Macs...

Sito didn't feel well since the week before. Sore throat and phlegm and coughing. By the time he felt better, it was my turn - I started with my usual drippy nose a few hours before going to Mother's place for dinner on Sunday, via YQ's place as we had never been there since he moved over two years ago!

Ill but still can eat!

Anyway, I think we're finally on the mend now...

Sito and I were guessing what Mother would cook - we both guessed fried prawns and we were right, haha! And that's not all, there were also fried wontons, woohoo! Kai had a few of the wontons while Yu preferred the prawns to the wontons. Yang - oops, forgot, probably coz he didn't want to try. But no fear, there was also salmon and braised eggs so I was sure Yang got his proteins. Adults also lapped up the curry chicken and braised vege. Everyone missed out on the meat in the soup though, expected since the soup pot was on a side counter.

There was a scary episode just after we started dinner - I stepped away to grab Kai's water bottle and came back in time to see a lizard darting away under my chair! So daring of it to come out of hiding when there were so many people! It went to the wall and ran to behind the curtain separating the kitchen from the living room. I tried not to think about it...

After dinner, Mother opened up the sewing machine to show the boys. Finally a working one after seeing so many during our Chinatown trip!

Yang and Yu took turns to step on the peddle

Kai was more interested in its $ value :p

YQ brought some mandarin oranges again so we shared a few. Yang really enjoyed them! He has expensive taste (up to $8 each?!) coz he isn't so enthusiastic about the usual oranges haha! 

We left pretty late - forgot about school the next day! But anyway it was just celebrations. 

Sito and I decided to whip up a good reunion dinner at home on Monday so we were busy in the morning even though Yu was home. But when Yu decided to stay home, I told him that we would be busy so he just read and played on his own :)

I prepared ingredients for four dishes before handing over the kitchen to Sito to prepare his second dish - roast pork. He had already dumped his char siew in marinade on Sunday. But I didn't manage to wash the toilets before Kai and Yang came home so my work extended beyond lunch time. Barely rested and had to start preparing dinner!

We started from about 2.30 pm. So much work... But it was all yummy!

六六大顺！

So we had roast pork and char siew, thanks to Sito. It was originally 五福临门 then Sito added char siew :p But the char siew was very good! Better - and easier - than the roast pork! The pot was 盆菜，with wonbok, carrots, taukwa and glass noodles buried under scallops, prawn paste, fish and mushrooms. The soup was good but the taste didn't extend to the toppings.

The lion's head meatballs were amazing though I now have a big pot of leftover filtered oil waiting to be used up. The steamed chicken/sausage is my usual steamed claypot rice recipe, minus the rice, just to add some 腊肉 to the LNY mix. The pork dumplings were the only dish we finished, as they were less easy to keep. So ya, 年年有余！

All of us thought the food was good, except Kai. Sighs, so difficult to please his palate..

This time last year, Kai was still shorter than me. And Yang was thin. So we couldn't all fit into our bed anymore, sighs.. We started out in the living to snack and watch TV together. This year, for the first time in years, we did not snack much - Sito was still coughing and I started to develop a sore throat :( Kai snacked the most as he finished 15 Rocher chocolates! We have six big boxes and three small boxes this year, very scary....

After the movie on Channel 5 ended, Sito and I retreated to our room to watch our TV, leaving the kids to their Sonic the Hedgehog marathon until almost midnight! The kids wanted to stay up more but nope, parents wanted to sleep haha! But since it was almost midnight, Sito and I stayed up a little bit more to watch the countdown on TV.

Tuesday morning came suddenly. Yang and I were the first to wake - I saw him pop his head into our room. So I went to his room to hug him for a while. But I really had to get the day going. Yu was the last to wake at almost nine and only coz I went to his room. Kai went, "Aren't we supposed to leave at 9am?" Hoho!

We left after 10 am! Coz after breakfast, we needed to take photos and give the kids their first hongbao of the year :)

All decked out :)

Yu was just asking me a few days ago for more recent photos on our photo wall. Indeed, the most recent photo there was from 2023 so we're already short of three LNY shots! Should get down to it one day...

Oh, Yang broke our selfie stick tripod stand while I was trying to stand the thing on his sofa seat *.* 岁岁平安！Quite sad though coz I just spent ¥20 in Beijing to keep it in a locker outside Universal Studios :(

Forgot to go through the greetings with them but ok la, they remembered a few simple ones that they kept repeating through the day.

It was raining so we left with four umbrellas and even took bus from AMK interchange to Mother's place instead of walking. The snacks were out - and Kai attacked the Rocher again! 

We got to AhYee's place quite late but lunch started late this year too so just nice! AhYee made 盆菜 too and hers was better than mine haha! But this meant there wasn't much protein for the kids, especially Kai. Yu had the most - a large piece of roast pork, a fuzhou fishball, bah kwa and vege on rice. Yang had the same but no roast pork. Kai had only bah kwa and vege on rice. Nvm, would compensate at dinner!

Lohei!

Some had left by then but oh well, not enough space! Good to see JieJie over LNY as she's usually on holiday. Also caught up with other relatives here and there. I even got to carry our baby niece who's now almost 1.5yo! So soft, so cute :)

Got home quite late this year. Only managed to dish out dinner at 6 pm. Just added some glass noodles to the pot, and heated up the other leftovers. Finally broke out the pineapple tarts while watching Frozen II on TV!

On Wednesday, day two, things became normal, i.e. like a weekend, with the kids having work time. I spent the morning baking hotdog buns, burger buns and muffins for the coming school days. 

Happy with their loot!

All the hongbaos from day one. Also passed them hongbaos from AhMa who brought them over on Saturday before leaving for their cruise on Sunday.

Dinner was Macs!

Yes, we succumbed to the lohei treasure box of nuggets, wings and twisty fries! Yu had been mentioning this every time we passed by a poster. And Sito saw that there was a discount so ok, quite worth it. 

But we didn't eat properly at the dining table as the kids wanted to watch Wonder on TV - it's the film adaptation of Kai's sec 1 literature book of the same title. That carried on to Turning Red, quite a funny show that we enjoyed even though the kids frowned at first at the girl protagonist.

With that, it was the end of the LNY holidays. School started on Thursday and things went back to normal routine, albeit with a bit of a shit show in Yang's 听写 which we totally forgot! But 拜年 didn't stop there. On Sunday, we went to AhMa's place with mandarin oranges.

And lohei again!

Nowadays, we have to say lohei instead of 捞鱼生 coz no 鱼生 inside at all! At AhYee's place, it was all fruits; here, fruits were buried under the standard seasoning and topped with abalone.

And I must say that JieJie is very 厉害 - in order to prevent Mum from massive cooking, she first booked them on a cruise over LNY, and then booked dinner outside when we visited 👍 

We went to Man Ting Fang - second time and the kids ate a lot again! Yu kept getting sweet and sour pork and tomato omelette sans tomato for himself. Yang had his big bowl of rice plus YeePo's half bowl *.*  Kai was the only one who had the duck. 

And I suppose that ended our visiting and feasting this year... Coming up will be 元宵节 when we usually had hotpot but this year, we had something interesting to do - akan datang - so hotpot will be separate...

On a side note, one unrelated person kept getting mentioned last week...

This year, we watched a lot of TV, as in free-to-air channels, over the holiday season. On Monday, it was The Tiger's Apprentice, very apt with zodiac animals and stuff. Kai commented on the accent of the villain, which wasn't very angmoh. So we found that it was Michelle Yeoh.

Later in Frozen II, when he heard the matronly voice of Yelena whose accent was harder to place, he asked if it was Michelle Yeoh 🤷🏻‍♀️ Next in Turning Red, he heard yet another matronly voice in the Grandma and asked if it was Michelle Yeoh again! No, both weren't! 

But best, on Thursday, when somehow the kiddy movies continued, Kai and Yu were watching Paws of Fury - Legend of Hank, and Kai heard a third matronly voice, "Wait a minute... Is that Michelle Yeoh?!" Now this really was Michelle Yeoh! 

We found it really funny somehow! Tried to convince Kai to choose a Michelle Yeoh movie on our movie night on Friday so that they could hear AND see her :p But nope, he wasn't keen..

Horses everywhere

For our annual pilgrimage to Chinatown for festive snacks in the past few years, we always picked a weekday afternoon - whisked the kids off after they came back from school and dropped their bags. But this year, there isn't a day when all three come home at the same time. I don't wish to stagger meal and shower times etc so in the end, we went on a Saturday this year.

With more time to work with, we worked in two on-the-way excursions.

Had our lunch early and set off about noon for Decathlon at Centrepoint to get running shoes for Yang - more on that next time.. I thought we would just randomly picked a size for him to try but wait! There's a foot scanner!

His feet are a couple of mm shorter than mine but he was recommended size 41 while I was recommended 39, probably coz his feet are much meatier. I didn't try shoes but 41 didn't work for him. In the end, he found 43 just nice. Kai didn't try shoes but I think he's would be 46 or so, bigger than the recommended 43 since his feet are meaty too. Sito also bought running shoes - size 43, he'll be dwarfed by all his sons soon!

Then we ran for the bus to Chinatown with a bag of shoes dangling from Sito's arm! We were at a bus stop waiting for a bus but that bus would take 15min to arrive while another bus to Chinatown was arriving at the next stop just a short walk away so we ran! And with this little exercise, we also made the 45-min connection and saved some money, yay!

The boys were getting hungry so we made a stop at good old Old Chang Kee before the second excursion - Chinatown Heritage Centre.

Annual shot outside Chinatown Point

This cartoon horse looks like a pig at first glance... There are many like-real horses along the road outside but oops, forgot to take photos.

Anyway... I remember going to the CHC many years back and found it interesting. But it was closed for some time. When I saw that it was open when I passed by it with Na during our - also annual - trip in late January, I thought it would be fun to bring the kids there.

Best part? Can use cultural pass so no money out of pocket! I used up my cultural pass for my date with Kai but Sito hadn't used his yet. As we weren't sure what time we would reach there, we didn't buy the timed tickets online. It was quite fast to buy on the spot anyway.

The CHC is not a big museum. But it has a lot to see. I figure we spent just over an hour exploring it and a good 20min playing with AI at the end.. Could have taken more time to explore if we scanned every single QR code for more info but you know, the kids aren't the type to stay still for long...

Papa explaining how a mechanical sewing machine works

The first floor is a tailor shop out front with a working area and a yard/kitchen behind. Yang really liked the sewing machines! Told him to ask WaiPo to demo when we next go there since she has a working one.

Playing with what I think is a tracing wheel

This shop brought back memories coz Mother sews quite a bit. When we were kids, she made dresses and quilted blankets for us. Now, I don't know what she sews apart from five stones! But the machine is still there.

She also has at least one of those wooden rulers and tracing wheel - I just called her to confirm! I remember the tracing wheel is quite fun - put tracing paper on cloth and roll over. Oh there's also this flat blue chalk for marking. Anyway, this Sunday, we'll go over to explore and hopefully not destroy things...

Old phones are always fun - we saw this at the National Museum before

Yang fiddling with an old iron

Goodness, a sarong cradle! Yu is pointing to a bamboo baby chair

Lots of altars in the shophouse

This is probably not a room for one or two...

I think my paternal grandmother had a big bed with drapes like the above. It was when she was living in a clan association house as a housekeeper. It must be before primary school coz it's hazy but I remember the whole family sleeping there and a big cockroach on the floor *.*

Anyway, the above was a big room in the shophouse. The rooms on the second floor were smaller and housed as many as 10 pax each! Appalling conditions, as I reminded Yang and Yu that night when they were in the comfort of their bed in a bedroom for one that is bigger than a room for a family of 10..

Heh heh!

Sito drew their attention to the pail to collect excretion in the toilet. I think the old clan association house also had such toilets. I really didn't like to go to the toilets there...

He found a palm leaf fan!

The boys flipped every single light switch in the shophouse!

Sito tried too *.* One boy - forgot which - asked if they were old light switches. Yes, light switches used to be like that. My house used to have them, I think. Or maybe it was at the grands'. I can't remember.

Btw, these switches are all decor. Very safe. I think they spent a lot of time on the details, even what people would like to touch and try!

Rat. Also a detail and common back in the day

Yu's face is so funny! He very gamely posed for his trigger happy Mama so there're many photos of him while the rest ran about.

The third floor of the shophouse is more like a museum, telling the stories of people moving to Singapore, their lives and contributions, and old names in Chinatown.

Cher, are you teaching Chemistry - in Chinese?!

Two scales - one real, one fake

There's at least one of such a set of scales (the real one) in Grams' old provision shop, next to the dried goods and biscuits, easy to weigh in front of customers.

What a date would be like in the old days - watch opera together!

While the kids had fun at a cinema on wheels!

There's a girl in front of Kai. I blocked most of her from this angle but her shoulder is still visible. Writing this down so this doesn't feel scary years down the road :p

Told him to pretend to flip bah kwa but he preferred to flip the mesh

The boys found two AI machines at the end which captures our options using finger gestures, and we had such fun seeing ourselves transported 50y back. 

Kai the trishaw rider - so handsome!

Yang - is this a naughty or creepy smile? Haha!

Also Yang the street hawker - the forehead proportion a bit off...

Looks like some evil concubine plotting against fellow concubines :p

Yu - looks like an innocent concubine happy with her life, haha!

Yu again - somehow the system cannot capture his finger gestures well

This is, um, no system error!

My laogong very funny :p I'm less funny..

Just want to be 花旦！

Yep, so we had a lot of fun in CHC! But it didn't seem to be a popular spot; we saw only one other family who came in right after us. Such a pity. Maybe the cost turns people off? After all, it's free to visit the National Museum for Singaporeans. 

And I think it's very educational for the kids. Secondary school history covers some historical figures related to the Chinese community but nothing beats seeing for your own eyes how people used to live. Such a replica is as close as we get, I suppose. 

But of course our kids didn't look at everything in detail and were fooling around a lot. At first I thought they might not remember much but all managed to say something when Sito asked them to tell the grands the next day 👍

Got the kids some snacks - mantou biscuits and binoculars chocolate - at the ticketing area before we left. It was drizzling so we decided to have dessert at Mei Heong Yuen on the parallel street. By the time we needed to get out of the shelter, the drizzle was gone, yeah!

This year, we had the kids share one ice dessert as they couldn't finish two last year. Sito was hungry and had chee cheong fun while I had orh nee - my second in a week! First was at Curry Times on Tuesday. Similar except that this one also had sweet potato cubes.

Finally, it was time for shopping! We reached the jelly store first. This year, it's $2 per 100g. We saw $1.80 per 100g in Clementi but didn't get then =( It sounds cheap but I still remember spending over $30 the first time I bought them over 10y ago! Got the boys to choose three flavours each. By the time we were done with choosing and weighing (1kg) and paying, Yang had seven jellies from the sampling counter!

Next was the main event - traditional LNY snacks! Bought $45 worth of pineapple tarts and friends, less than last year coz (1) we already bought one can from Sheng Siong and a kuah lapis from Ikea, (2) it's iffy if the kids will eat much (Yu insisted on love letters again so we got a small bottle this year as the big one went soft after he stopped eating), and (3) I'm getting fat, must control. Lucky coz the next day, AhYee gave us a can of love letters too.

With that, it was time for dinner. Saizeriya made the kids happy with the free flow drinks bar. But I reserved my belly for Chinese pancakes :) Went to a different store this time to try different things. I ate some when we got home and heated the rest up to eat after showering. So good.

Unfortunately, Sito fell ill along the way. Late nights, haze, kiddy virus or all of the above. The kids were also tired since we were out for way longer than usual. So that night, everyone slept early.

It's now one week to LNY, woohoo!

Happy new year and a summary

It's 2026, woohoo!

So we slept through all the countdown and fireworks :p Old already, cannot understand crowds, cannot stay up so late. 

And on this day, I woke at 8.20 am. So happy until I realised that tmr it's 6.10 am again *.* Yes, the new school year is starting... 

Got the boys to pack their schoolbag today - nothing much coz no timetable yet. Also got them to clear their cabinets but the amount of unwanted stuff was unfortunately very little.. I have three little hoarders...

Since it's the new year (and I have leftover mashed pumpkin from making pumpkin noodles a couple of weeks ago), I made some pumpkin mochi pancakes. Eat 金瓜 to bring in the 金 and may the kids be 顶呱呱 in their studies! But Yu didn't eat any, even when we had a small plate of dipping sugar. Ah well, all the best to him? :p

Later, we'll be having hotpot for dinner. Macam LNY, haha! 

So, what was Clan Sito up to after the Beijing holiday? We spent a lot of time at home studying!

But we did have some fun here and there..

Went to Legoland on Thursday, 18 December. We had wanted to go on Wednesday but since milk delivery is always on Wednesdays, we decided to prioritise milk and go the next day. But I forgot and had ordered frozen meat to be delivered on Thursday. So I changed the delivery to Wednesday. 

Then, I received news from my milk man that the current batch of milk had an expiry date within a week of delivery. So I decided to postpone delivery to wait for the new batch. To avoid confusing my meat seller, I didn't change the meat delivery date. And of all days, my period came on Thursday. Sian... Legoland is fine but the mall toilets aren't too conducive...

The lucky thing was the weather - it was lovely! Finally no rain in the afternoon!

But of course we didn't know ahead of time. It was near lunch time when we got there but we didn't eat at Nanyang cafe as usual as we were afraid it would rain the afternoon. So we made a snack stop at BIG supermarket instead. 

There were still highlights despite having been to Legoland n times. The build-and-race area has been refurnished with a new Ferrari, new tracks and a new virtual race using real Lego builds. Yu finally rode the VR roller coaster with the headset and it was great, he said. 

Kai piggybacked Yang when he said his leg hurt, awww...

Took little dragon with him

Hard to get in, hard to get out - we're old!

The virtual race with real builds

Then we went back to the malls near the checkpoint for lunch, massage and shopping :) This time, Sito managed to nail the time for grab rides so we avoided fare hikes to and from Legoland.

Early dinner at Meng Meng

Back home, chess is a key feature. Since after his exams, Kai has been going for chess tournaments in Bishan some Tuesdays, and attended a few other tournaments. Sometimes, he met a friend or two before that to play. Once, he went to a friend's place and his friend fried noodles for him! Wa, when can my kids cook for me....?!

Mother continued to cook for us though. Went over for dinner one day, and ate too much... Brought home 15 bah zangs and all were gone in three days, thanks to the kids fighting with me for them! But I'm also glad that they like this traditional food :)

Our year-end festivities started with a 2.5kg semi bone-in ham - real ham! Sito glazed it very well and it looked and tasted wonderful! So moist unlike the ham roll we had a couple of years back. But Kai didn't like it as there were fatty bits in the real deal *.* 

Simple Xmas eve dinner

Also took a chicken fricasse recipe and added pasta instead of reducing the sauce. There were also cabbage steak, grilled pineapple slices and sausages. Too much food :p The ham alone could feed us five times! Since then, I had used some ham to stirfry with taukwa and leeks - so good and all the kids liked it. Next week, I'll make fried rice with it...

For Christmas day, we ditched KFC for Jollibee coz Yang doesn't like the 11 secret herbs and spices... Sito made the trip to Vivocity to buy the fried chicken. They were still crispy when we opened them up! The fries were still yummy too. I think really, no more KFC Christmas for us....

Xmas day breakfast at the newly opened Yakun

What's with my hand...? :p

On Boxing Day, we went cycling! But first, breakfast at Macs at Metropolis. Filled them up with a big brunch, cycled the energy out of them, fed them a good lunner at Le Shrimp. Yu took some time to familiarise himself with cycling again before we cycled to the playground. They played mostly on the swings and the flying fox. I tried the flying fox too - so hard to get down when stuck in the middle!!!

Cycling and swimming were the only two exercises the kids had this term break. With Nintendo in the afternoon, none was keen to head to the playground! 

We had wanted to go to the Queenstown swimming pool but the opening had been delayed from this quarter to the next. So we went back to Delta - sheltered pool. I kena complaints coz I forgot their goggles. But by the time they got into the water, they forgot all about it - just splashed around. They also did some form of backstroke so no goggles needed.

So cold!

The Papa boat is still going strong

Come to think of it, that was also Sito's only exercise in December. He got Flu A from Beijing and was quite sick for a few days. Then rest.... until now.... Nvm, he's lean enough and no more IPPT!

Oh, this Christmas, we had a total of three logcakes! Bought two on 5 Dec :) when we went to Jurong East - we had planned to get the Ikea log cake but also saw some at Donki so we bought two :p The chocolate crunch logcake from Ikea was frozen anyway so it ended up being eaten the last. The Donki logcake was a refreshing yuzu flavour while the middle logcake was a black forest one from Prima Deli from our journey to the east.

Would have bought a fourth one after dinner at Le Shrim but it was going to rain and we had two brollies among five of us so we ran off. We were lucky the rain was light at the BV MRT junction and Sito went without a brolly. By the time we cut through the HDB estate to the last traffic light, it was pouring! Took two trips to bring everyone over and we stayed dry, phew!

And most recently, it was our 忘年会！Third time at Makan@Jen and it didn't disappoint. But it got more crowded every year! I was glad I hit the desserts early coz by the time Sito went for it, the logcakes were gone and we had to wait for the next batch...

One hiccup - I went with a weird tummy that I, um, didn't manage to clear in the day. After half a cup of milk coffee at the end of the meal, I started feeling bad. Laosai bad. The rest waited for me in the lobby area while I went in and out of the toilet. At one point, it felt like that Vivocity episode again! I was resting in the lobby, hoping for the pain to subside so that we could quickly grab a taxi home but nope, I suddenly had to vomit. 

I think it was the original tummy ache triggered by the milk coffee. It wasn't like I ate so much until I had to vomit - I already know I'm past the age to stuff myself. So I was very sad - the yummy coconut logcake, the lovely baked fish, the perfectly roasted broccoli, and I spent time and effort queueing for and shelling the jumbo river prawns! Actually I had only three of those prawns. The only upside was that the vomit was sweet, not bitter. Ok, tmi, haha!

Yang asked if I ate chilli, coz he knew chilli upsets my tummy. But these two days, he didn't tell me to skip my morning milk coffee...

Black and blue are the colours of the day

Looking at the skaters while waiting for the bus home

The term break this time felt longer, perhaps coz we left for Beijing right after school ended so the time in SG was more continuous. I would really miss waking up late! Not very late anyway.. Only once did the kids allow me to sleep until 830 am... Else one or two or three might be on our bed at 730 am, which is the earliest I allow them to disturb us...

So, now we're almost ready for the new school year - books mostly settled including wrapping the textbooks, just waiting for others to become available, shoes mostly done, including new shoes for LNY! 

Auntie wrapping books

I used to wrap my own books after seeing Mother do it but my kids aren't bothered... I insist on wrapping Kai and Yang's books but for Yu, well, no younger sibling to give his books to so what's the point?! I decided to ask him - he wanted his books wrapped. Ah well, I asked for it.

Happy new year to us all!

花好月圆

When we first moved back to HV, the first CC event we attended was Mid Autumn Festival celebrations. We skipped it last year as it was too close to PSLE and we wanted to avoid crowded places. This year, we're back!

Just saw that the 2023 event cost $2 per person. This time, it was free and at the CC hall, i.e. with aircon. There were fewer games and kiddy food. In fact, it seemed more targeted at the elderly as the singalong was full of old songs! But we had fun anyway :)

We were early and were among the first at the Chinese calligraphy booth. I thought we could write but no, they had professionals writing names and blessings. Ah well. Each kid had their own name in gold on red paper.

Sat down for performances while waiting for the gold ink to dry. The sand art was very good! I was eating a hotdog bun so wasn't fast enough to take a picture of a nice Chang E scene.

We were seated quite in front. Emcee called out Yang for a handsome boy and Kai for a tall boy but neither kid would stand - so shy! But they were not shy at the quiz segment - all wanted prizes! Yang didn't get picked to answer though..

Kai won a 大白兔奶糖 metal mug

Yu won a reusable bag - I took it :p

Good to expose them to CC events and to facing a big group to answer questions. Don't be too shy :)

There was a singalong session and the emcee went around the audience with a microphone. I sang a bit of "Fly Me to the Moon" and Yang said it was soooo embarrassing! Hahahaha! 

When they were playing 城里的月光，I was reminded of that time in JC (1 or 2?) when we performed this song at a Mid Autumn Festival celebrations. Probably a CLDDS thing. I sang a bit into my phone and sent to Na who was in the performing group, but she didn't remember, haha!

Stilt walkers!

This one was giving out candies. Another one was giving out plushies! I refused to get plushies but Yang and Yu decided to ask for one themselves! Sighs, more dustmite pillows...

Ok, the rabbit mascot looks a bit freaky... Too thin!

Mascot was giving out 大白兔奶糖 so the kids finally saw the rice paper that could be eaten. But Yang didn't have his.

We went for a hotstamping activity just before leaving and oh my, it took a long time! Quite interesting though to see how the kids took part. Kai was more hands off and let the volunteers help. Yang did almost everything himself. Yu was interested to do but looked a bit blur :p Sito and I were like Kai coz we were holding all the random things.

Finally ready to go!

Actually Kai was very tired by then. He went to bed right after showering.

But he was ok to take a little trip to the playground for a photo in the dark

So that was last Saturday. The actual festival fell on Monday, when I realised I forgot to bring out sparklers - bought them years back but didn't finish using...

Anyway, I made mooncakes again! I was rather undecided as the few tries last year yielded skin that turned hard quickly. But I was persuaded by Redman to get yam paste so I had to use it...

It turned out wonderful!!!

The trick is to steam the dough rather than microwave it. Yes, I did a shortcut last year coz the stovetop steamer was a bother. But this year, I have a cute little electric steamer that I use fairly regularly!

Gosh, it was so soft and remained soft in the fridge. We even put a bit to freeze and thaw it to try - soft! That's it. 

And the yam paste made it easy to wrap as it didn't melt like ganache. Sito and I discussed a few ways to make different mooncakes. Maybe can try :) Just hope my mould lives longer - the spring mechanism is all rusty after just one year in storage...

Snowskin mooncake - flower print coz 花好月圆 - with glutinous rice tea

That was my fourth yesterday, oops... And it was quite soon after a hotpot dinner coz I was inspired by the big round moon when I sat down in the living room after a shower...

It's a new ritual for us - hotpot on this day. 因为月圆人团圆 :) Hope the kids will find it fun to attend such celebrations and enjoy the hotpot, and eventually grow to appreciate the festival as (another) one to celebrate with family :)