Prologue: Dead bored in my room. Even the internet doesn’t seem that interesting any more. Not to mention still procrastinating and not doing anything productive such as my own assignment and a proper blogpost.
Just a continuation from my previous (proper) blogpost about the day I reached home but this time it will be just a rather quick, condensed blogpost of one whole week of CNY holiday (from 13/2 Saturday as well as CNY eve til 21/2 Sunday or the day I fly back to Penang) back in my beloved home Kuching, a summary if you will. For more details and photos (for those who added me on Facebook), just check out my CNY photo compilation album.
So how did I spent my time at home for that one whole week of holiday? To kickstart this series of pictorial summary, CNY eve especially Reunion dinner.
One thing that makes me immediately feel at home is the rain back in Kuching. While the peninsula (especially scorched earth Penang island) are having dry season during festive season, it’s totally the other way around Kuching where it will rain almost everyday with most of the time are torrential downpour and remain cloudy on short occasion of sunny days. This pic was taken during noon time after I washed the family car. Look at how heavy the rain is!
My family’s reunion dinner have always been an extravagant fair of gourmet homecooking from my wiz-chef DAD since forever and he definitely didn’t disappoint us this time and keep us salivating. Look at this 10 course meal for six person!
In fact, it is so great that I couldn’t resist put another shot of it on our dining table. Will you look at the abundance of gourmet food!
One of my personal favorites of all CNY reunion dinner dishes is my Dad’s signature CURRY CHICKEN. Look at how rich and thick the curry is. It taste HEAVENLY.
Another one of dad’s signature dish is the sweet and sour pork stew. It’s unique sweet and sour taste is very appetizing and will make you ask for more. Who cares about the thick lard and oil floating atop of the stew if it taste divine! Other dishes taste fine as well, but these two are my personal top choices. OMNOMNOM.
After the dinner, I was dragged along by my younger bro (Jackson Cappucin Omega Tate Zachary Efron Zince LYH) and my parents to go to temple for a lil New Year Eve prayer and countdown celebration.
Saw all the Chinese Zodiacs on display in the temple. I think all of these were made by the believers on their own. Good handiwork. And this is my zodiac year, Dragon!
Which makes me kinda like spesies ganjil among my peer who are mostly of Rabbit. For more information regarding respective zodiac animal’s characteristics, click my photo and zoom in closely…
10 minutes before the clock struck 12 midnight and the CNY eve firework shows from all corners of Kuching begins! All the firework rising up light up the sky in Kuching and definitely way more colorful than Merdeka Day celebration! BTW, this is the only firework pic that turns out nice!
And of course the immediate effect of firework is the billowing odour of sulphur smoke. For a moment, Kuching is covered with haze.
Once at home, it’s time to receive our red packet/angpau from dad! My first angpau of the year is in an LG red packet. LOL must be from our purchase of LG flatscreen TV.
First day of CNY: Open house over my home.
A tradition of my family to start of our first day of CNY is to have Mandarin orange and Glutinous sweet cake served with chinese tea for the purpose of prosperity and good luck.
Those who come over to my house during the first day of Chinese new year are in for a treat because our family will serve meal for festive visitors! My dad ordered hundreds of satays (beef and chicken), ketupats and such…
As well as noodle topped with Dad’s signature curry. It’s a must-try!
And what’s CNY visiting without the tidbits? Seen here are my mom and bro busying preparing the CNY tidbits…
And not before long, it’s ready to be serve on our family coffee table.
And of course when we talk about first day of CNY, phototaking with family is definitely a MUST. So here’s my parent.
Family portrait. I am in a family of six and the second eldest among the four siblings. From left is my younger bro (3rd) Jackson Cappucin Tate Zince LYH, my youngest bro LYD, yours truly David @ LiZaRdboi88 LZR and my eldest bro 可乐 LZH.
Lion Dance Troupe over my neighbour’s house, picture taken from my room on the 2nd floor. For some reason though as I grow older, I wasn’t excited any more in going out to watch Lion Troupe any more if compared when I am still young back in school. I fondly remember that I will usually wake up early in the morning to the sound of lion troupe and immediately I will be excited and rush out to search for it in the neighbourhood. Today, I will just groan and went back to bed instead. Loss of innocence or plain laziness?
From 2nd day onward until the end of my one week holiday back in Kuching.
From the 2nd day of CNY onward until the end of my holiday back in Kuching, the mood for CNY was actually muted and relatively subdued for me which I spent most of my time at home whining my boredom on Facebook while praying for an invitation for visiting to appear in my mobile phone and contemplating real hard whether I should take my initiative or not…*sigh*
On the 2nd day, we went to the temple again, this time to pay tribute to my deceased (mom’s side) grandparent as per family tradition before we continue to visit our relatives and such. Same old things and angpau. In fact, I lost a couple of angpau just because I am already over 21 years old. pfft.
Blooming orchid over my cousin’s house.
But at least I had kolo mee. Some kolo mee stall start their business on Wednesday or Thursday so just in time to have one before going back to Penang.
What’s new for me though is driving my younger bro (Tate) around visiting. Drive him around a couple of times besides hanging out with him and their friends which I am ok with it cos most of them knows me through Facebook. Here’s a couple of highlight:
Breakfast at Causeway Bay Hong-Kong Cuisine Restaurant/Cafe at Crown Plaza in the 3rd day of CNY.
Ordered Nissin noodle with egg and hotdogs for me.
The main reason for this breakfast is because their classmate Michelle (the girl on the left which Melvin pointed to.) will be going back to PLKN camp in Lundu in the evening. And that’s me in the pic for some reason.
Another one of the highlight is movie-going with them before going to Open-air market to have chicken porridge for supper (which I for some reason forgot to take picture).
The movie that we are watching: star-studded romantic comedy Valentine’s Day. And I am sharing a couple seat with…MELVIN. LOL. The couple seat was pretty comfortable though and can be reclined. There’s a whole theater reserved for couple over at MBO Kuching. Anyway about the movie itself, it’s quite funny but there only thing I don’t really like is that the two Taylors (Swift and Lautner) are pretty pointless for the whole movie.
How about my own visit? In the end, I didn’t get much invite for visitation during the earlier part of my holidays until the point that I am worrying that am I going to get any invite to hangout at all?! In fact during the earlier part of my CNY hol, I only managed to go to SanHui’s house and that’s because my younger bro (Tate) happens to be her younger bro’s classmate. But luckily my plea of hanging out with frens was answered and they (to be precise Owen, YangLip, CheeSiang, BeiShan, ShanHui and JouHui) come over to my house at night to open table and start gambling which me and Tate actually win some! (which for some reason I forgot to take pictures. WTF for me.) Then a few days later, I got another visit and this time is from TianLe who I haven’t seen for quite a while with his GF, Felicia. And then later, it was my coursemates in Kuching (namely Ah Bui, SanJing and HueyLan) who come over to my house to visit before going to each others house…with me as driver! Yet another whole new experience! (Which unfortunately again, I forgot to take pictures for some reason I couldn’t fathom.)
My last hangout trip is on Saturday night, the eve of me going (as well as the rest of us) going back to respective university which for me will be Penang. And not to repeat the same mistake again, this time, I remembered to take pictures.
Attendees for the night from left: Sunnee and BeiShan.
Tauke Owen and Taukelip.
And CheeSiang joined in a while later. Before we left for another venue, ShanHui and Eshyen joined us too.
Our next venue: The Hills Shopping Mall, the latest mall in Kuching…which I think is quite small. But nevertheless, they still got into a CNY mood with decorative lanterns over the main atrium.
Times Book Store is back in Kuching over at The Hills. More choices to find books. Owen bought himself a book about the White Rajahs written by Ranee Sylvia herself. Should be an interesting read, an insight towards the Brooke’s Dynasty.
Toys R Us entered Kuching’s market as well with its express outlet over here.
Next stop: Petanak Wet Market in which I had a famous local Kuchingite fare which I sorely missed: Tomato Mee! It has been forever since the last time I had a proper Tomato mee with it’s crunchy noodle~~
To wrap up the night, we went over to Bella’s (JouHui) house to hang out and have a little recreational gambling such as Poker…
and mahjong! Bunch of novice at play~ I count myself out btw and watch horoscope on Satellite TV instead lol.
The day I come back to Penang (Sunday 21/2):
Had Sarawak Laksa as breakfast. Phew just in time before I bid farewell from it for the next 2 months. Unfortunately though, I missed out KuehChap this time. Next time, next time…
My last dinner before I left home again to go back to Penang island. Oh how much I miss homecooking.
And not before long, I went to the airport with my cousin and ready to fly back to Penang. To my surprise, I was allocated this the VERY first seat of the plane: 1A. And I didn’t even pay any extra money to secure that seat and all this happened under random chance. Fantastic!
All of my Kuchingite coursemate are on the same flight back to Penang and it seems to me that most of the passenger on this flight are actually USM students! It’s basically like a charter plane for USM student’s lol. Anyway from left: HueyLan, SanJing, PikHang and PauLee.
The best thing about being seated in the very first row is the larger than other seat seat pitch. For once, I can actually stretch my leg in coach! Not to mention that I am seated to a window seat and the exit is just right in front hence I will be among the first passenger to disembark from the aircraft.
The folded table for the first row is located in the armrest hence the armrest there are permanent and immobile.
The flight itself was relative pleasant because I was seated with an acquaintance of mine in TESOL, PeiLing so we had chit-chat and way much comfortable with the larger seat-pitch and two hours later (after a bump descent), we landed straight into reality in the form of Penang. *sigh* That’s all for my one week CNY holiday.
The few things here right now that will remind me about my CNY holiday back at home are the mandarin oranges (8 or 10 of them that my mom packed for me) a can of chocolate candy. *sigh* Looks like it’s time to shake of the holiday lethargy and shift into a higher gear…
Epilogue: Phew long post is long! And I can sense the rumbling noise of snowballing assignment coming at me from behind right now…
No comments:
Post a Comment