This year, decided to go big and celebrate as excessively as I can. As far back as I can remember, CNY = eat + gamble + angpau/laisee (red packets) + new clothes + TV.
My DVD player blew a fuse, my TV had no S-video outlet to connect to a laptop and the video-jack method was of mediocre quality, so watching loads of CNY-themed TV (i.e. Chinese kungfu/mahjong/comedies) was out.
The new clothes tradition had been dropped by my family at least 10 years ago. Way too much fun to buy and wear new clothes throughout the year instead of only during CNY! I did however manage to buy 3 new plates (meant to signify more food hence prosperity), altho after the first day of CNY had already passed. Hope it still counts...
The red packets only work if I have married couples around me. Being away from the extended family and also parent's friends meant only one angpau this year -- from Aunt J. Still, it was thoughtful of her! I spose its partly a good sign too that my friends are not married...yet.
Gambling is really not a celebration unless you win. In a nutshell, I don't. Nuff said.
So, the only thing I can really do to celebrate CNY is to...eat. 15 days of it!
On CNY eve aka Reunion day, traditionally, everyone gathers at their hometown or a family member's house to have dinner together. On Feb 17, did that twice but in diff manners and settings: lunch at Restoran Malaysia with Jits + friend Jason, Poi, Ed. The place had been renovated -- gone was the barebones look and in its place, a romantic setting with dark wood furnishings and low lighting. However, the same reasonable pricing remained. Ordered rojak, hokkien mee, mee hailam, beef rendang, roti canai, teh tarik, char kuey teow. Mostly authentic except for two dishes. Beef rendang was nicely presented but on the less-authentic side, while mee hailam was flavourful but paled in terms of authenticity when compared to the hokkien mee. However as a whole, yummy. Poi and I agreed that the freshly made roti canai takes the cake! For dinner, DLee had kindly invited me to his 'small' family reunion -- which turned out to be larger than anticipated! Much food was to be had, of course, with dessert by NML.
On CNY day itself, called home and had the whole pass-the-phone experience...it was good to hear everyone so happy though. Dad seems to have taken over the role of 'fun adult' cos he was going to take LLL and her bro out to get ice-cream. Ah, to be a kid again -- LLL's dad used to take bro and I out to get KFC and whatnot. Later at night, dinner at Bombay Bhel at Yonge-Sheppard with MarcL, Poi, Jits, Nat, Nic, Xian, Mishy and bro. They forgot our order...and had us waiting for an hour before the food finally arrived. It was only ok....so I don't think I'm going back again.
A week later on Feb 24, received a call from Aunt J who offered me a free ticket to the Malaysian Association of Canada's annual CNY dinner gala. Having never been, I said yes. NML and JCh were there, and MelT was hosting. It was a ten course meal at Diamond Banquet Hall at Hwy 7 and Woodbine...unusually for a Chinese dinner, we were not too too full. In addition to food, there were prizes drawn, and also entertainment in the form of numerous Mongolian dances by a particular Mandy Xiao, and a couple more by a Chinese female dance troup. Also, a couple of songs by a Filipino singer (forgot her name) and MelT's co-host Michelle (a former HK TV anchor). The Filipino singer (who btw, was really good) then performed a couple more duets with Fa.
At the door, they had someone dress up as the God of Fortune (Choy San) and give out angpau with chocolate coins. They even had a Lion Dance with the accompanying drums and 'choy'/lettuce finale to kick the whole event off, but somehow it feels muted when performed indoors. :o| Still, can't fight the weather, can we? MelT was right when she said the event was for the older crowd to enjoy themselves though -- 'aunts' and 'uncles' periodically got up to dance to the songs, and at the end of the evening, all of them got on the dance floor. I'm glad to see ppl happy, but I'd hold off on actually joining them. :P
The next day was Sunday, and I showed up early at DLee's place to help get ready for the open house. NML looked at me like I was crazy to offer myself for what essentially boils down to manual labour. Well... perhaps she's done it too often to appreciate it, but my CNY's have always been about helping get the house ready for guests, and then serving them when they arrive. So I had my own reasons for wanting to help out -- to somewhat get closer to what I'm used to doing back home. It was definitely work though, esp with all that standing (the back of my knees ached by the end of it) -- perhaps NML does it too often that it's become tedious.
Took away leftovers that lasted a week...hahahaah.
Thursday, went over to Mirchan's. Alan W + gf Loretta, JCh and DLee were there as well. Menu was grilled pork chops, Hainanese chicken rice, prawns steamed with ginger and soy sauce. All delish. I was not bursting with fullness yet satisfied.
Friday, Mirchan's again for games night. Mirchan + cousin (?) Alicia, JCh, DLee + friends Sam and Aleysia (?), Harold, Kelso, Andy S + gf Carmen, Alan W, NML. Two simultaneous games: poker and Cranium -- I played the latter, teaming up with Mirchan and NML against Harold, Kelso, Alicia and later on, Andy S. Our team won, at the expense of my voice which gave out from trying to outyell Harold. Wine probably didn't help either, altho I only had a little. Midnight snack of spaghetti bolognese ala JCh was yummy though. Followed this with a small bowl of cereal. There's something about eating at an ungodly hour that makes even cereal seem special. :P After the end of Cranium, JCh and Kelso tried to 'dong shim' random ppl but mostly each other. Then they played Jenga for a bit before startng into the 2nd round of poker -- at which point I called it a night.
Reason was because I was meeting Hil and Jas for lunch on Saturday! Along with Nic, Nelson, CH and Ed, we went to Diamond Banquet Hall for dimsum. It's been a while since I'd talked to everyone (plus, Nic and Ed were late!), so we hung around for almost 3 hrs and caught up. On the way back, started into a convo with Hil and Jas that didn't feel finished even when we got to our destination aka Jas' place, so we decided to chat some more while checking out his apt.
Made it back in time to join Mirchan, DLee and JCh for dinner at Korean Village (?) on Bloor West, then watched Breach. Got home around midnight then started cooking -- bro woke up the next day surprised that I did what I said I would i.e. cooked before Sunday morning. :P
Reason being that some foods need to be stewed for a while before they taste good! Sunday was the 15th and last day of CNY celebrations, and I'd decided to put some effort into cooking something festive. MarcL and Xian arrived the earliest followed by Nat then CH, then JBong then finally Kimi. The menu was beef curry with potatoes, steamed chicken with Emperor herbs, stir-fried baby bok choy, mixed tofu with black fungus and glass noodles, sambal-ed fish, stir-fried pumpkin with dried shrimp, stir-fried prawns with ginger, chili, coriander and green onions. Nat made brownies and served them with vanilla ice cream. The prawns and fish were a success, the chicken less so -- MarcL and I thought it was prob cos we left it sitting on the table for 2 hours...and the lack of humidity probably resulted in it being a little too...gamey. And it looked so good when it first came out of the pot too!! :(
Watched Disney movies for a bit and also the tail-end of Bridget Jones' Diary on TV, then Nat, MarcL and I went to The Rex for their 7pm show with Kira Callahan headlining. She was ok...ran through some classics like 'Heaven' and 'Devil May Care' -- somehow altho I know she sang well, it didn't suit her style very much. I preferred the one Jobim song she performed (about loneliness -- didn't catch the name) and the Cole Porter ones ('Easy to Love' and 'It's All Right with Me'). She unfortunately could not or would not do my request ('In the Still of the Night')...citing that she didn't know it well enough to perform it. As I was thinking up another song request, I also noticed that she didn't do anyone else's requests either as far as I can tell...made me decide not to ask again.
Also decided to stay for the second band -- the Kirby Barretto sextet. Very different kind of jazz: funk/acid-ish compared to Kira's old-school style. MarcL thought the drummer was good, and they had a blind bongo-ist (for lack of better description) as well as a double bass player named John Mayer! No, not THAT John Mayer. A young feel to their music, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about this sub-genre of jazz...only able to evaluate based on the overall sound and the technical skills I can imagine myself NOT being able to do e.g. guitarist's fingers flying over the fretboard etc. Heheh.
The next day, fell sick. Boo. Stress from working in audit? Or too much eating and going out? ;)
In any case, New York bound this Friday evening, followed immediately by Miami! Gotta get well in 2 days! *crosses fingers*
