CNY in Medan

Happy Chinese New Year!!! Gong Xi, Gong Xi.



I love CNY, always love it. Reason for celebration, gathering and FOOD.... LOL.

But this year CNY is especially dear to me because I brought my husband and baby to parents' home for 5 days, from 27th - 31st Jan 2009. Not exactly the first Lunar New Year Day, in fact, it's the second day, but it's better than nothing.

Since this year CNY falls on Monday and Tuesday, the celebration started as early as Saturday after work for sure.

CK's SG sister was back with her whole entourage on 22nd Jan 2009, and imagine the noise and excitement. Mind you, this is only the first entourage, we are still waiting for another 2 to arrive. :)

As usual with children during CNY, Shandy is a must to have. CK lets the children to have fun at our home with the Nintendo Wii. See how serious they are here! Each with a free treat of Shandy + ice cream + bak kwa + chocolate cookies. I supposed CNY is always the best for children.



On Sunday, I made use of my newly learnt skill, making spring roll. Heheh..., quite proud of myself with the result, since everything finished during dinner time. I also cooked Chicken + Chinese Sausage dish (but sadly, it turned out not as successful as I hoped). Anyway, I am quite happy with my contribution for this celebration. :D

By Monday morning, CK's youngest sister arrived with her entourage (hb + 3 children), CK's third sister and his first bro-in-law, etc...etc.., I lost track.

My MIL has a total of 21 grandchildren, and put them together in a house, guess what is the result? Hhehe.., nothing disastrous, only they split in groups according to their age. So I can predict my lil gal will have no group and will only be the one to fetch things for the older groups. *chuckle*

Mooi brought lots of things for CNY, fruits like dragonfruits, pineapples, etc. Seafood like fish, prawns, squids, etc. She even brought along birdnest! The birdnest was homegrown, so no chemical and lots of feathers.

Took us almost full day to clean up the feather.

When we just started, it looks like this


Final product suppposed to be like this


Before the day was over, we were all cursing Mooi for the birdnest. LOL


But then when we were savoring the birdnest, we all praised Mooi.

For the reunion dinner (since everybody has arrived by then), what else if not steamboat. Dump everything together, let it boiled for a while, and everybody is happy with full tummy.

For steamboat, we really gotta thanx CK's youngest sister and hubby. They supplied us with EXTREMELY fresh seafood, like a 70 - 80 cm long saltwater fish, dancing prawns (OMG, I really love this!), meatballs, sotong and the rest.

It's been a long time since I had fresh seafood as this. Yummy~

With the excitement and noise level for the past few days, it's understandable that bb can't sleep well. And pity her, the next early morning, around 6am, I had to wake her up to get ready for the flight to Medan.

Our flight was at 8.25am using MAS. Oh yes, traveling with MAS for 3 of us, return tickets, cost us RM867.00. I was quite surprised as this is even cheaper than AirAsia (which was RM880.00 exclusive of the express boarding + meal/beverage + luggage check in, etc *did I leave out anything?*)

So excited when I reached Medan, the flight arrived earlier, however, Pop + Anton and Pipi were already there to pick us up for breakfast at Selat Panjang. We had the Bakmi Khek as most of the shop were not opened for CNY.

When reaching home in Cemara, Mom and Pop were busy fussing over bb, and then the angpao started to exchange hands. :D

It followed by lunch at Da Shanghai with Aunty Luan and family, but since I woke up around 5.00am KL time, I was exhausted after lunch and slept like a babe after my bb naps (she was clearly exhausted, and became quite fussy).

CNY next year, as promised, will be celebrated in KL. I kind of impatient to see how my bb grows by then. :D