Gong Xi Fa Cai Makans!!!

17 Feb 2007, Saturday - Reunion dinner in AU...

We started the morning with shopping for ingredients for the night's dinner at Kuku's place. All other place in Brisbane (except Chinatown) has no CNY festive mood, except Market Square in Sunnybank. It was so SO PACKED!!! Especially in Yuen's, the Asian grocery shop.

All the aunties, ah mahs are out in force to buy CNY goodies. I saw an aunty and uncle grabbing a basketful Bak Choy, almost clearing out all of the Bak Choy for sale... Esmond had a little cultural shock coz it was just so crowded, just like in SG! (he's going to be in for a lot of shock when we are back in SG in April....)

So after we have done with our grocery shopping, we proceeded back home to start cooking. I cooked a "vegetarian dish" and a sweet soup for dessert. Once the cooking is done, we (Esmond, David and me) set off for the northern suburbs to my aunt's place.

Midori Lemonade sucks! Tastes like cough syrup!

My aunt and cousin had whipped up soy braised chicken, szechuan prawns, cucumber salad and a very wicked chocolate cake.

Our sumptious spread!

We had literally stuffed ourselves past our limit, to the point of bursting!

After dinner, we returned to the south side back home for a little rest.

Close to midnight, we set off for Chung Tian Temple and was quite surprised that there's still a fair number of crowds there despite the wee hours in the morning. We made some offering, toll a wishing bell, tour the premise and shopped! As it's close to "end of business day", the stalls were having massive sales! We had a free cup of "冬瓜茶” and bought some cute paper clips for $1 each!

People queing up to toll the wishing "bell"

Our turn....

Part of our purchases....

When we got back home from the temple, seeing that it's past midnight and the new year (Year of the Golden Pig!) has arrived, we for the first time, gave out Ang Pows! We gave one each to Kelvin and David - our two housemates.

It has been a memorable CNY eve. Though it's totally different from what we would have if we were in SG / MY.