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..
No comments:
Post a Comment