Never the same...

Why does my heart feel so heavy as I'm putting this down in words?

Why oh why is it never going to be the same anymore?

Year in year out, it has always been a family tradition for us to have our lil reunion lunch at home (I'll usually rush home from work to help mum out with the preparation) and after that we'll leave the house around 4/5pm to my grandma's place for our huge reunion dinner.

That's how is used to be.

This year, we actually didn't have our reunion lunch. Mum and dad (as well as our aunts and uncles) have decided that we'll not be doing a reunion dinner at my grandma's grandpa's place. We're not really celebrating this year, in remembrance of grandma.

Yups, it's a custom that most filial families will follow not celebrate CNY the following year (some even up to 3 years) to mourn the death of their loved ones.

So this year, we won't be doing any actual CNY visiting or celebration. I was only told this yesterday cos I was lil suprised when we didn't visit my father's siblings as usual.

My first day of CNY 2008....

We went to my grandpa's only around 11+am very unlike how we used to celebrate. We used to wake up bright and early (around 7+am) to greet our parents and then head over to my grandparents' for breakfast. And we'll be there by 9am.

This year, we had our breakfast at home. And when we reached grandpa's place, it was quiet. No one was home as it wasn't a day we'd be celebrating. Grandpa went out to the market, so we waited for him to return. And because we weren't celebrating, we all didn't get any angpows. It sure felt different.

At home, taking a family portrait as usual.

Mum will not be giving any angpows this year, so we only received from dad.

Me with my babies.

At my grandpa's house

We took this picture with gonggong (grandpa) after he came back from the market. This cool dude took off his shirt as he couldn't withstand the hot weather.

I was worried cos my gonggong has sort of lost his usual cheerful spirit. Instead, he was more quiet than usual. I guess he's lonely without my pohpoh to banter with.

We then left to go to the temple in Sg Choh, Rawang.

The jam was crazy! So we camwhored a bit.

Caryn's manicure from Bangkok was still intact. We added the glitters as top coat to make it last longer.

At Golden Dragon Temple, Sg Choh.

Watching the lion dance from afar.

The lion dance troop was approaching this Buddha statue.

The "Choi San" (Fortune God?) giving me "lai si" (lucky angpows).

Male bonding

Don't they look happy together?

My happy family

Posing by the Qilin before heading home.




That was all we did for CNY day 1. It certainly didn't give me that usual happy CNY rush.


We reached home around 4+pm. We certainly didn't know what we should do.
So we ended up playing with Cocoa Chanel.

Dressed Cocoa up with a silk kimono.

And then we played 3-player mahjong for a while, with Cocoa watching the game.
[haha, quite pathetic actually. We couldn't find our mahjong paper, we had to use a pashmina instead].

We got so bored of mahjong, we went to One Utama to do a lil shopping and ended up eating at Delicious.

While waiting for our food...

We shared 2 pasta dishes and 1 dessert among the 3 of us.

#1 Carbonara linguine.

The food on served here on CNY was disappointing. We weren't the only ones returning the food. This carbonara pasta had no taste at all. I wonder if there's any decent chefs around to cook yesterday. tsktsk.

We saw ppl from other tables asking to return their dishes too. It was so pathetic really.

#2 Spicy Crabmeat Linguine with Pine Nuts

This tasted bland as well. Arggh..

#3 Banoffee Pie

This was the only decent thing we had from Delicious yesterday. When all else fail, choose desserts! It's the safest choice!

More camwhoring after food!

We then bumped into my bro and his gf who were there to watch Kung Fu Dunk.

This CNY was so different for our previous that Claudine said, "Che, this feels more like another public holiday where we go out shopping. I don't feel like it's CNY at all!".

Some things will never be the same.

Some people can never be replaced. We miss you pohpoh!