Year of the Dragon Celebrations

Flower of this CNY.
I was captivated by the bright orangey lil flowers at Far East Flora. There're only 2 or 3 pots there as the rest were in red or pink. On the left was when we first bought it & only a few days later, we saw the pretty blossoms all over (right)!

Like any other year, CNY celebration started early with the reunion dinner with extended family.

Lo Hei the Sat before CNY (14 Jan) @ Toa Payoh's Swatow Seafood Restaurant. That's quite a different reunion dinner as everyone was so into drinking & got a lil too loud.. haha.

Before CNY, not a night we could sleep before 12.... just too many errands (I actually did up a daily checklist for the 1 month right till CNY eve!).

Foie Gras @ sis' just 4 days before CNY!
Had a tiny bit on NYE (as shared with the other 3 - hubby, June & EY) & been craving for it. So when we went to collect a carton of mandarin oranges from sis, we took the chance to have dinner there. Hee.
The feasting had never stopped since Christmas.. Tsk tsk...

年除夕 was a rush for us. After Sunday service, we packed breakfast from Uncle Ong in Middle Road (his homecooked 面粉粿 is superb.. so as his chee cheong fun with special hay bee topping) before going to my manicurist at FEP to add crystals to my gel nails. we spent almost an hour for my nails & had our breakfast there. Also bought for the manicurists as previously promised.

My deep purple French nails with crystals :)

Thereafter we rushed to 2 Crystal Jades - (1) Bishan & joined the long Q to collect our roast meat for reunion lunch (2) Causeway Point, our carrot cake. It sounds silly but we first ordered carrot cake weeks ago & we, of course, chose the closest outlet to us. Then days before CNY we ordered roast meat but could only collect at one of their restaurants (not My Bread) & we couldn't change the collection venue for our carrot cake as well. Anyway, after chain of errands in the morning, we reach bro's just before 1pm for the lunch. Phew!

Reunion lunch @bro's. Sis-in-law cooked all the dishes by herself!

Then steamboat reunion dinner @ AMK.
Thought we could sleep earlier that night as we'd had our car washed & polished a coupla days before & I didn't have to DIY my nails. But still, we slept only @ approx 2am.

This year's 初一 was different because my MIL changed plans. So we visited bro instead (at least to get 1 visiting settled), then had dinner with the siblings before a 9pm show.

Dinner @ Cineleisure's Xing Wang Hong Kong Cafe which was one of the very few restaurants/cafe opened on the 1st day. Planned nicely so we could proceed to watch the show in the same premise.
And it's to celebrate Ben's birthday :)

On the 2nd day, it's the 开年饭 at home that we can't miss. Dear mum prepared everything by herself. **In HK everyone's talking about 开年饭 but in Spore, seems like my aunt and ours are the only families having it, haha.
After lunch, we went back to AMK & the yearly photo-taking. We took much lesser this year & there's no family pic! My MIL was so disoriented this year & made all of us confused as well :( In the evening we caught another movie.

Were glad that the CNY holiday hadn't ended for us as we took leave on the 3rd & 4th day.

On the 3rd day, got to take some pictures before we went to 5th aunt's with mum for lunch. This year only needed to visit 1 aunt as the other started work.
In the afternoon, hubby & I had a relaxing afternoon at City Square, having tea & did a bit of unplanned shopping.

That night, finally got the chance to have our carrot cake for dinner, with shark's fin soup which mum specially kept for us from the previous day's 开年饭 :)

So that week we only worked for a day on Friday. Fri night, we went to 3 supermarkets trying to buy all needed ingredients for next day's lunch as hubby's siblings visiting & we last minute decided to prepare a simple meal for them instead of potluck. Hubby was a great 'assistant' so cooking that day was quite a relaxing task than I expected though I hadn't been cooking for almost 2 years :)

Lunch menu: Sweet sour pork (咕噜肉), scrambled eggs with chinese sausage (腊肠煎蛋), spinach with garlic (波菜清炒蒜茸) & lotus root soup (莲藕汤). Most rewarding for a cook is to see every bit of the food being finished up ;)

After lunch:
Beer tasting! La Trappe beer - different bottles contained different alcohol level. From left to right - Quadrupel 10%, Tripel 8%, Dubbel 7% & Blond 6.5%.
Monopoly time! Looks like it has become our yearly tradition to play this game during CNY. Hahah.

The gang stayed till 8pm & some of us had dinner together @ Kungfu Paradise in Sembawang Shopping Centre. Hubby & I then went for CNY drinks with my cousins whom we haven't been meeting.. First at MBS' CBTL then we adjourned to One Fullerton's OverEasy (yes... it's our recommendation:P).

In fact it's the first time we had a reunion like this. Not all were present though and we hope to be able to gather more in future ;)

The following Sat.. we reached Orchard early at 10.30am. Had our fav Hans breakfast at FEP & then ran banking errands in the vicinity. Did a bit of shopping at ION/Ngee Ann City & then had lunch at sis' as we've arranged to visit dad's in the afternoon.

After that, had tea with sis at Dome in Bishan & had a good catch-up.

After sending sis back to her restaurant, we dropped by at AMK to pick June & EY for dinner. The timing was just right!

Dinner @ Hotpot Culture! As I was craving for some simple steamboat food.

Drinks at Level 33, MBFC. We'd a very good chat there with great view.



Surprise! It didn't occur to us at all that there'd be fireworks at the end of Chingay till we suddenly heard noises & saw the beautiful fireworks from one of the best angles.

We still went Lau Pat Sat for supper after drinks & reached home nearly 2am, again.

Celebrations usually mean unhealthy lifestyle - lots of food, alcohol and late nights. That's indeed very bad...
We're starting a healthier diet program right after CNY because we didn't wanna look so bloated on Con's Big Day. But it'll be so hard to follow, ha...