Slightly over Mid-Chinese New Year update.

Prologue: Arrgh procrastination. Being at home means I procrastinate in most of the thing I do.

Today's the 8th day (初八) of Lunar New Year which means it's already a day passed the half way point for Chinese New Year Celebration. Pardon my CNY procrastination and occasionally compromised by PPStream leeching internet connection for leaving my blog in dust but here's some update of where I had been doing for CNY. A few highlights besides the usual CNY relatives visit:

Visiting fellow Kuching High Gang on the Day 2 (初二) and Day 4 (初四).

Two good round of Chinese New Year visits this year and for the first time ever since I finally upgraded my license to full C driving license, I drive and people carpool my car on day 2! Day 2's visit are the usual Kuching 38 gangs in which we visited BeiShan's, ShanHui's, JouHui's before wrapping up the day over HuiYing's place (my first time visiting her place). Typical 38 gang shenanigans of very loud laughter, trading barbs and jokes, gossiping about every single thing on the surface on the earth (including a very serious discussion about the importance of pre-nuptial agreement! How did we end up there anyway?), delicious cheesecakes and mini tarts over HuiYing's place and last but least, a little leisurely gambling for our own amusement with lady luck. 小赌怡情！Oh, you noticed the lack of picture until this point? That's because we had so much fun with each other that I forgot to snap a few pictures. Hey, those who brought along their DSLR camera, please upload your picture to Facebook now!

Day 4 is the MEN'S gathering which I was invited to join thanks to Owen which took place over WeeLun's place (after we visited Mdm Eng's house earlier). As typical of MEN'S gathering, exchange of loud machismo, "Orang Jepun" as deliberate mispronunciation, oggling at Weelun's huge action figurines collection and of course, another round of leisurely gambling! Remember people, it's 小赌怡情. Again, no photo except this one:

Dried meat from BeeChengHianf in which its packaging look a little too phallic.

After we're done with whatever we need to be done *wink*, most of us were hungry (typical of man during midnight) and went off to 3rd mile where the 24 hours food courts are. Watched football and witness the downfall of Chelsea (lol sorry Taukelip. He went back earlier because he has work when the sun rise) to the delight of Chelsea hater (which means almost all of us here. Not me though but I follow results!) while resisting the temptation of kolo mee they ordered. Geez!

Day three of CNY's (初三) 5s1 2004 Reunion at DongBei Steamboat (东北火锅) and 2nd round at Jase's Tea House at 101. (Picture courtesy's of Juliana! Her album here!)

All thanks to the effort by Jessica for creating an event page on Facebook and booking a table over DongBei Steamboat, we from the 5s1 Class of 2004 (well, those around Kuching and came anyway) finally had our own CNY gathering!

Twin steamboat, the red one is spicy mala base and the white one is herbal base.

Attendees from left: Kelly, Jessica (the hostess!), YiiChing, BeiShan, YangLip, ChinKai. This is table one.

Attendees table 2 (from left): Yours truly (it has been a while since my face is on my blog!), Owen, Cecilia, SiewYa, SiewChing and Juliana (whom I stole these pictures from.) So as you can see from these two photos, just slightly over a quarter of us turn out but pulling this off is already a GREAT achievement. Really need to express my gratitude to Jessica for pulling us together!

As typical of highschool reunion dinner, reminiscing about our good ol'days back in highschool, updates about our whereabout are exchanged, in depth discussion about the worries for future careers of youth typical of our age were made, juicy gossips about each other as well as other classmates of ours are shared, all between chopsticks shuffling around picking up foods from the steamboat!

Obligatory group photos! YiiChing took her leave first. Oh right, JouHui came too but didn't feature in the earlier photo cos she came slightly later.

After we had our dinner, Cecilia and SiewYa took their leave first because they want to visit AguShanHui's house while the rest of us wondered what should we do next. Because we didn't have enough of each other just yet, we move on Jase's Teahouse which located around the same area too.

Look at the ambience and sofas and curtain.  I never knew about the existence of this quaint and personal little teahouse before until that day!

The ladies. Oi JouHui!

The gents.

A more intimate surrouding with comfortable sofa means more intimate discussion are made, mainly about romance and the failure of it besides the usual future career stuff. Oh we youth.

Iced peach fruit tea thingy ordered by Juliana and Kelly.

Honeybush Rooibush tea by me.

Owen's Choco-tini, feeling a little adventurous by experimenting chocolate liquour.

A few more other random stuff, mostly food related.

Pizza? On Chinese New Year? Mom went to Pizza hut with her temple mates (at the same time trying to make use of the discout coupon) and there are plenty of leftover for us to be made as breakfast the next morning!

Sudden craving for kolo mee (all thanks to those guys back in day 4 that tried to seduce me with one) at night while home alone with the brothers. Went around 7th mile to find stalls that open for business only to experience first hand how early bird businessmen makes extra Chinese New Year bonus by raking up the price by at least 20 cent. This stall's kolo mee wasn't stellar too and I wouldn't choose you if pasar malam did open.

Today's (Thursday 10 February) dinner: steamboat! Wholesome family goodness with all six of us! It has been a really long time since our family is complete. Only in CNY month.

Last but not least, a little rant about adulthood. Lesser and lesser angpow as I grow up. I am still single you know so I deserve more angpau but whats with the decline then? Another thing that reflects my social skills: almost all these angpows are from my relatives while other visits only make up for one or two angpow. What does that indicate of my family and my social circles? (Don't ask and don't tell me.)

That's all for CNY update. Feeling more nervous than ever as weekend approaches. My good comfortable days back in Kuching are numbered! I don't want to go back! I don't want to face the cold hard reality!


Epilogue: Research update: supervisor replied with comments for improvement. Still working on the improvement part even though it's only one small part left. Dammit!