Happy Lunar New Year! It's the Year of the White/Metal Tiger now.
In accordance with Chinese tradition/customs/practices for the Lunar Chinese New Year, I
(a) bought new clothes to wear on the first day
(b) have new red undergarments
(c) spring-cleaned my office
(d) spring-cleaned my bedroom
(d) made sure that I had a full tank of petrol in the car entering the New Year
(e) sent my car for a good wash
(f) did my utmost to clear as much work as possible (wasn't possible to clear my inbox tho'); and
(g) tried to clear my "debts" (whatever owed to others);
That's My Precious after the car wash at Caltex at 5pm today. There was a horribly long queue and the 3 mins carwash cost SGD 8. After I got home, I had to clean the inside of the car myself and also, apply rainact solution on the windscreen. Unlike my previous car, a charming little Daihatsu Sirion which I nicknamed The Toad because it was green, I have never, until today, cleaned the car myself. It was always easier and cheaper to send it to a car wash for just RM8 when I go to JB (and that car wash vacuums and cleans the inside of the car too!). Maybe I should start cleaning the car myself as a weekly workout - I do so like the gleam after the wash. I would have pumped petrol in JB and washed the car there too this week if not for the horrible massive jams I've been hearing about- A lot of Chinese Malaysians are beginning to start the journey back to their hometowns for Chinese New Year.
Of course, per tradition, we had the reunion dinner this evening followed by rummy-o. My mother cooked curry chicken, chap chye, braised shitake mushrooms and scallops, sharkfin soup, cod fish and stewed pork. Frankly, I don't think losing weight is a very real possibility, given how much of her good food I've eaten and given that I have two buffets scheduled for tomorrow's lunch and dinner respectively! Argh!
The pic below is of the second Lo Hei I've done this CNY and at home at that (the first was at the
department's lunch)! My mum usually frowns upon having Lo Hei at all because of the mess - one uses the chopsticks to lift the ingredients as high as possible while uttering auspicious Chinese phrases and the end result is that the ingredients are strewn all over the table or the floor. It's fun, but there is a lot of cleaning up to do! I've heard that this Lo Hei tradition started in, and is unique to Singapore (but has since spread to Malaysia). Each ingredient in the dish is suppsoed to symbolise something - for eg, the sweet sauce is supposed to be mixed in when one is uttering a phrase to do with sweetness in one's life, and the crackers are supposed to symbolise wealth ie the Chinese traditional gold nugget.
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