Category Archives: Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year Eve

January 23, 2012 – 9:54 pm

Once again, Chinese New Year is here and as a Chinese tradition, we spend the eve of Chinese New Year with our family members. This year’s dinner is slightly different as my other cousin has just gotten married, which means we are one member less at the dinner table. But nevertheless, everything else remains unchanged.

Other than the good food, it was a perfect time to catch up and spend quality time with our family members. After dinner, everyone were doing final preparations before meeting again to go to the temple together.

Due to the heavy downpour, we reached the temple later than usual. The crowd was thinner (not too sure if its the rain or the time) but at 2.30am, everyone were still pretty much eager to get into the temple as soon as they can. Its yet another simple yet meaningful Chinese New Year eve.

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My dad is creative

January 22, 2012 – 10:55 am

Since retirement, my dad has been spending most of his time looking after the grandchildren and probably because he is less stress these days, he seems to be alittle more creative.

If you remember, he did a Christmas Tree on the wall using the materials which he could find at Daiso. That I thought was quite impressive.

Then, when we were preparing for Chinese New Year, he did a “福” on the wall.

I hope you guys like it as much as I do.

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Chinese New Year Garden Lunch @ Istana

February 14, 2011 – 11:01 pm

It was a once in a lifetime experience. It was an experience not to be missed. A chance to step into Istana, the official residence of the President for a function, The Chinese New Year Garden Lunch.

The function was graced by the Prime Minister and his cabinet minister and it was an opportunity for them to mingle with the people. It was also an opportunity for people like me to go up close with the ministers and take photos with them. Among those that I’ve taken picture with were DPM, Min. for MCYS, Min. for Home Affairs, Min. for Foreign Affairs, my MP and last but not least the Prime Minister.

This was definitely a memorable experience for me.

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CNY Day 5: Visit to Sentosa

February 7, 2011 – 9:29 pm

Since the opening of Resorts World Sentosa last year, this is the 2nd time we had visited Sentosa during Chinese New Year this year. It was a cool Monday afternoon and the place was still pretty crowded with lotsa of tourists. This was Evan’s first visit but he just slept throughout the entire visit.

There were quite a number of changes with some places open like the waterfront area where you will be able to watch the Crane Dance every night.

The cranes are “sleeping”.

The kids enjoyed playing with the water at the waterfront area.

Since this is the Year of the Rabbit, there was a really huge rabbit at Festive Walk, near the Universal Studio Globe which was not spinning when we were there.

This time round, we came across this store called Candylicious (it was not open during our last visit in July 2010). We didn’t really had a chance to step into the store but Ethan managed to take quite a few photos with the M&M models.

In my opinion, there are more places for photo opportunities now compared to our last visit in July 2010. Well, I definitely hope to see more changes soon with the soon-to-be completed Maritime Xperiential Museum and Marine Life Park.

After visiting Resorts World Sentosa, we took the opportunity to visit Sentosa Flower Festival.

The flowers were really beautiful and there were friendly staff to take pictures for us too. The family photo below was taken by the staff.

I’m quite sure I’ll be back next Chinese New Year for Sentosa Flower Festival again (if there is one). For now, Ethan has booked my schedule for a night at Resorts World Sentosa in July!

Ezanne turns 2

February 6, 2011 – 10:40 am

Time flies and Ezanne is 2 years old and this is the 2nd year we celebrated her birthday during Chinese New Year. As I said last year, only Ezanne let us experience celebrating 2 occasions on one day, Chinese New Year and her birthday. Just like last year, guests were treated to buffet food.

This year, I decided to dress Ezanne up in a Cheong Sam, which I thought she will look quite good in.

For Ezanne’s birthday cake, it was in the shape of number 2 (I hope you are able to see it from the family photo).

Then, I got everyone to take a family photo.

After the cutting of cake, we did what we need to do during Chinese New Year! Lo Hei!

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During Chinese New Year…

February 4, 2011 – 9:24 pm

Chinese New Year is about meeting with your relatives who you will only see them once a year and the food. Before we started our visiting on the first day of Chinese New Year, we took a family photo at the same spot as we took last year. See the 2 pictures and did you notice any difference?

Chinese New Year is a time of great food and New Year goodies. But sadly, this CNY is a time when I’m suffering from flu and sore throat, therefore, I try to control what I eat.

Good food are really hard to resist. On the 2nd day of visiting, I almost finish a plate of fried tapioca.

On visiting, Chinese New Year is about seeing your relatives whom you will only see once a year. I remembered one incident where I said “Happy New Year” to one of my relative but I didn’t know her name at all. Anyone else have the same experience? Then, there are those whom you see once a year and starts asking lotsa of questions and this is a time when I start to feel abit awkward when people start saying, “Wow, you are really productive.”

On the 2nd day of visiting, we visited one of our aunty who is about 80 years old. She is still as strong as ever.

How’s your visiting so far?

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What we do on CNY Eve

February 3, 2011 – 9:57 pm

On Chinese New Year Eve, other than the traditional reunion dinner that we all know, there are many other things that we do too. Before Chinese New Year, everyone of us will go for a haircut and like us, our car need a wash too. It took me nearly an hour before my car was washed. Like the haircut, the price of car wash increased by $1 because of Chinese New Year.

My dad always had his own sets of rules and regulations during Chinese New Year. For example, if I want to continue to be lucky, once I step out of the house after 12 midnight, I can’t get back before 3am. Sounds ridiculous? But I followed. Then he said we need to consume our last meal of CNY eve by 11pm. What was our last meal? Yu Sheng. But I guess, this was probably one of the quietest Lo Hei we had, only my dad we super excited, for the rest of us, we just followed.

You will know by now that after Lo Hei, we are about 1 hour away from Chinese New Year. At the stroke of midnight, I will meet up with my cousin and aunty to the Kwan Im Temple at Waterloo Street to pray for good fortune, health and prosperity for the family. Just like previous years, it was really crowded. We had to squeeze our way through, but I thought, it was really worthwhile.

Just before we left, we took the opportunity to read the forecast of the zodiac at an area near Fu Lu Shou Complex and there was a rotating God of Fortune which I really like.

Tags Fu Lu Shou Complex, Kwan Im Temple, Lo Hei, Waterloo St, Yu Sheng | Comments (3)

Chinese New Year Preparation

January 23, 2011 – 12:20 am

If you take alook at the calendar, you will know by now that Chinese New Year is slightly less than 2 weeks away. Time is really passing by us at a fast speed and so far, I’m still not quite prepared for this occasion yet, well, I’m still not quite done with my shopping.

This evening, together with my dad and Ezanne, we went to the nursery along Bedok South to buy the CNY plants. In my opinion, a home without CNY plants is incomplete. This year, there were more people shopping for the plants and generally in terms of quantity, there are more but the variety is a little limited.

Still, other than the traditional ones like you see above, these nurseries continue to improvised on their existing products to cater to the market. Since this is the Year of the Rabbit, they came up with some rabbit shaped potted plants.

For us, due to our limited space and the children, we decided to get a really small pot. Just look at Ezanne, she is thinking which one to buy (actually, she didn’t choose, but she was just posing since she knew that Daddy was taking photo of her).

I can’t wait for Chinese New Year and preparations will definitely get more intense as we get nearer to it.

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The E’s Uniform

November 28, 2010 – 10:59 am

Chinese New Year is about 2 months away but we’ve anticipated that it will be pretty rush to get the new year clothings for the children in late January considering that mummy would just been released from her “confinement”.

As what I usually do, I try to find a theme for them and for Chinese New Year 2011, the theme is Peeka boo Pooh. So here’s what we got for them, Ethan, Ezanne and Evan.

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Chingay Parade 2010

March 1, 2010 – 4:15 pm

For the past 2 years since Chingay Parade moved from Orchard Road to Marina Bay, I’ve always been part of the workforce, helping to ensure that the Parade will run smoothly. This year, it is something special, I was part of the audience, taking part in the parade and enjoying every bits of it. My cousin was back from Australia for CNY holidays and I thought that this was the best time for us to meet and enjoy the parade with her and Ethan.

This is the first time that the parade is held at the F1 Pit Building and its interesting to see how the organizers mark out the F1 tracks into 4 lanes. The parade started with the the firecrackers dragon and it was amazing that Ethan was able to bear with the noise level made by the firecrackers. Being seated on the first row, we were able to see first hand, the lighting up of the firecrackers and getting near to the firecrackers.

Subsequent performances were engaging and the floats were really nice. We even got 2 packets of New Moon Rice as free gifts, given out by the performers. Personally, I thought that a parade needs to have an impactful music with dancers etc and not slow moving performances like the one titled Yellow River. It was too slow and boring and everyone didn’t really appreciate it.

Near the finale, it was the appearance of the Universal Studios float from Resorts World @ Sentosa and Ethan was really excited seeing Kungfu Panda and some of the other cartoon characters.

The fireworks were fantastic too. At least, all of us enjoy the show and the verdict for Chingay Parade 2011, WE WILL BE THERE! I hope the organizers managed to read this post and hopefully, give me free tickets next year.