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A happy Chinese/Lunar New Year to each and everyone of you.

This may be a late greeting but a greeting non the less. I haven’t had the time or energy the past few days to post my greeting post due to my being in my grandparents house celebrating the New Year :D

A note to all who have received empty SMSes from me, I’m sorry. Why? Because my little nephews have been playing with my handphone and they have accidentally sent a few empty ones to some of my contacts. You know who you are ;)

Anyway, how is everyone on this good/bad/stormy/fine day/night? I hope you’re all having a blast the past few days and will continue to do so for the whole year.

I’m doing fine myself. I even got a fair amount of RED packets (ang pau) from my parents, grandparents, and relatives. Lots have happened these first 4 days of the new year. Do you want to read about it? No? Too bad, my friend. It’s my blog so what I say, goes.

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On the eve (Wednesday), we went back in the evening since my family had to do last minute decorating, cleaning, washing, and preparing before the year blows away with the stroke of twelve. After all the preparation, we all went to bath (individually, of course) and off we went to my grandparents house. Reaching there after about 20 minutes, we were greeted with the sight of a full house. It seems that everyone had arrived before us in the mood to celebrate. We were to!

What a lot of commotion my family makes. What with all the people grouping and chit chatting, the young people with the other young people, the older ones with the older ones and the little ones chasing each other. What a festive day indeed! Not to mention, everybody handed out and received their red packets on that day. I myself received a total of 10 that day myself ^^

Approaching midnight, everybody started to get restless. Each and every one of us staring at the old grandfather clock which had seen us go through life, from infancy to adulthood. And when the hand strikes twelve and the clock started chiming, some of us looked out the window with index fingers hiding in our ears, the firecracker went off!

IT WAS SO LOUD THAT WE HAD TO SHOUT AT EACH OTHER TO BE HEARD OVER IT! EVEN THE KIDS GOT OVER THEIR FEARS TO TAKE IN THE NEW YEAR. AROUND THE HOUSE, FIREWORKS STARTED GOING OFF IN ALL COLORS. WHAT AN AMAZING SPECTACLE!!!!

And at last, the firecracker stopped making noise after it has coughed it’s last “CRACK!” With that, everyone started to say goodbye to my grandparents in preparation to go back to our own homes. As we stepped outside the house, we witnessed a BEAUTIFUL sight. A fireworks display was shown to us by neighbors where all sorts of different kind of fireworks lit up the night sky. Some were spinning, some split into a circle, some split into circles and split again after that. The fireworks went on for 15 minutes. And then we were off. Tired but happy we didn’t fall asleep before 12am (There’s this superstition that if we slept before 12am, our parents will have a shorter life span).

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Thursday – The first day of New Year! My family (my parents, my siblings, and myself), I woke up the EARLIEST today thinking that we had to go off early thanks to my parents saying that we were going to go back to my grandparents house again at 8am something we woke up early to take a family picture in our newly renovated part of the building upstairs. We all even wore new clothes to usher in the new year. After the photo taking session, we started moving to go to my grandparents house and we are of course, LATE!

So rush we did. But nobody really cared that we were late because we don’t start our house visits until late in the afternoon since we are the host at my grandparents house in the morning until it’s our turn to go visiting the guests (extended relatives) who visited us earlier. We also had glue (it’s a kind of sticky food with mushroom, noodles, and some other sort of ingredients that I paid no heed to). My parents said that the glue was a sort of ultra-super-ultimate-forever-kinda glue that would stick the family together. A tight bond that will never break.

Our first day visiting was a TRULY HOT day. Just like every new year in previous years, it was smoldering hot. Only visited two houses (5th grand-auntie and 1st grand-auntie) on this day. But it was good since we only get to see the extended family during the new year :D I have to say, my grand-aunties still looked as old as ever :P

After the visits, we went home early without dinner at my grandparents house since my dad was already exhausted. But of course, as soon as we went home, we were to awake to sleep, even my dad! So we gambled :D (yes it’s a tradition to gamble during the new year ;) ) and sadly, I lost my pants! a whole lot of money :( and that was it for the 1st day of new year.

While on our way home, on the road, just like last year, we saw a COBRA in the middle of the road! It was smaller than last year but a Cobra nontheless. My dad said that since last year was the year of the Pig, the snake had to be larger since the cobra needed to be bigger to tackle the pig lol. And this is the year of the Rat so a smaller cobra is sufficient :D

Not a bad day either since I received another 5 red packets today.

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Friday – the 2nd day of new year is the busiest day like every other 2nd day of new year for my family since it’s the day where we go to all the houses we haven’t visited yet for the whole day! Altogether, we visited…mmm…6 houses (2nd uncle, 4th grandauntie, last grandauntie, my own house, 3rd grandauntie, 1st auntie)! We had 3 pit stops while visiting. The 2nd house where everyone had breakfast (satay!), the 4th house, which is my house for lunch (luckily my house is big or the family won’t be able to fit lol!), and the last house where we had dinner (KFC!! Yum!).

Received another 6 red packets today.

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That’s about all I can about about the interesting days. Today wasn’t all that exciting since all I did was stay in my room to do my research proposal. Also, I watched Rush Hour 3 and My Super Ex-Girlfriend. And…that’s about it :P

Well, have a happy lunar new year everyone and may this year be a good one for you and myself ;)