CNY long weekend

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

First day of Chinese New Year (CNY) was spent by visiting relatives house. Every year, if we weren't abroad, we would visit my hubby's eldest Uncle's and my hubby's grandma's house on the first day. Other uncles with their families would go there too, so we would meet each other.

Aem (the eldest uncle's wife) would usually prepare a lot of food at their house and asked us to stay for lunch. They knew I was vegetarian on first day of the year so they cooked and provided a vegetarian meal for me. I think I was the only one hehehe... They even asked me to bring the leftover vegetarian food back home so that I didn't have to trouble myself thinking on what to have for dinner.

Suan Pan Zi or Yam Abacus Seed

She made and cooked the Hakka traditional food called yam abacus seed or suan pan zi. It was made of yam and tapioca flour, cooked with cuttlefish stripes, mushroom stripes, and seasoned with some sauces and black pepper. It required lots of work to prepare this dish.

It's said that by eating it, people would be good at counting money,  which preferably own money (hopefully had lots of money to count) hehehe...

Since I couldn't eat it on that day,  they put aside the balance and was given it to me. Hehehe... I felt pampered though. Thank you Aem for your kindness and care ^^

Deep fried Ngoh Hiang

Same thing when we went to my hubby's grandma's house. The 2nd Uncle cooked dinner for us. Since I was vegetarian,  he prepared two types of vegetables with mushroom especially for me. He also gave us 4 rolls of his handmade frozen Ngoh Hiang, mixed of minced pork, prawn, crunchy bangkuang, some flour and egg, rolled with beancurd skin so that I could eat it the next day by deep frying it at home. Thank you 2nd Uncle! I really had 'kou fu' wor!!! ^^

At both places we chit chatted and mouth busy chewing some snacks and tidbits. Hehehe... It's time where we usually gained weight eating high-calorie and fattening food, such as: rou gan or bakwa, pineapple tarts, fried crackers, etc.

2nd day of Chinese New Year - We spent the day to rest at home. Usually people could visit friend's or other relative's house. My brother and families had gone back to Indonesia, so did my Indonesian and Malaysian friends. So I didn't have any place to go.

The weather was very hot too, made us lazy to go out. Therefore, we spent our time fully staying at home - eating, reading, sleeping, eating, watching TV, reading, and sleeping again hehehe...

Journey to the West - Conquering the Demon (pic source: Wikipedia.org)

There were few Chinese movies that we watched. But there were two that I enjoyed so much. I will introduce the two of them here. First one: "Journey to the West - Conquering the Demon (in Chinese: 西遊·降魔篇)". 

This is a 2013 film directed by Stephen Chow and Derek Kok. Many of you should have heard about "Journey to the West" before. It's a Chinese literary classic stories written by Wu Cheng En, a very famous stories. We watched the long series since we were very young but they made it as movie in action-comedy style here. The Ost song title "Love of a Lifetime" or "一生所爱" sung by Shu Qi 舒淇.

The Sorcerer and the White Snake (pic source: Wikipedia.org)

The second one, also based onthe famous Chinese legend, "The Legend of the White Snake", a movie titled "The Sorcerer and the White Snake", a 2011 movie. This one was directed by Ching Siu Tung and was played by the famous martial artist, Jet Li, now a Singaporean. This film depicted a sad love story between human and demon. It was really sad la.... :'( The Ost song - "Promise 许诺" - sung by Raymond Lam and Eva Huang was very nice :)

If you have any access to watch it (by buying the DVD or downloading it online somewhere), go and watch it. I think you will love it too :)

Kwan Im Temple @Bugis

Day 3 of CNY - We went to Bugis, had our lunch at the hawker center, and prayed at Kwan Im Temple. Many stalls were not opened yet. We had to queue for quite some time to get our food and drinks. Prices were deliberately increased too during this time as they knew many stalls were closed and we still had to eat and drink. I ended up buying Fried Chicken Briyani rice from the Indian stall where I didn't have to queue hehehe...

The temple was very crowded. People would usually go there to pray, especially in the beginning of the year. Many stalls were there such as: fortune telling stall, donation stall, flowers and joystick stalls, etc.

We went up to 2nd floor of the opposite building to pray to Tai Sui. "In Taoism, those whose Chinese Zodiac is offended or by their sign conflict or clashes with the Tai Sui of the year are advised to go through a prayer session with a Taoist Priest to ask for blessings in obtaining Peace and Good Fortune throughout the year." - source: Wikipedia.org

This year, those who were having Horse, Rooster, Rat, and Rabbit Zodiacs were advised to pray to Tai Sui. We just went there, and they knew already our purposes. We paid around S$17-19 depending on types of praying that we needed to have. Just told them our horoscope and how old we were. The person would prepare few things to pray. One auntie would be there to pray for you. At the end we could give some money for them as a token and there would be one red packet filled with a card which was believed to protect us throughout the year. Just hope things would go smoothly and we would be blessed with good health and safetiness throughout the year.

Once it's done, it was shopping time! Hehehe... Quite lots of shops had been opened. We walked and had our dinner then went back home. Tomorrow I'm going back to work like usual and will be busy for month end closing. Well, hope all of you had enjoyed your weekend too! Wish you all the best for this Wooden Horse year! Jia you!!! ^^