Monday, January 26, 2009

Chinese New Year

The day has finally arrived. Phew! i thought it would never come......after weeks of cleaning and painting for just ONEEEEEE festive celebration. I still don't get it. What is so great of this celebration until we need to undergo extensive cleaning. Spring cleaning, that's what it is called. But I think it sounded a bit too lenient. From this year onwards, I'll call it hardcore cleaning. Fits better.

Well, I slept at 1am this morning. I woke up before 6am yesterday (awaken by mom) and started off my day with a visit to a jam packed market. I was still semi-stoned, eyes could hardly open, blur-blur and dazed, we walked to the market. Can you imagine..at 6:15am the market was already filled with the Ah Soh's and kakaks and also people like me who fall as victims to the crime of a festive season.

Then I went home with further cleaning. The last minute cleaning was the kitchen because in the morning, mom still had to cook as offerings to the Mah's ancestors. It's a tradition for every family to provide offerings to the ancestors on the eve of the Chinese New Year.

Washing and scrubing the kitchen, followed by bathrooms and several rounds of sweeping and mopping the floor till the eleventh hour. It was said that on the first day of Chinese New Year, we cannot sweep and mop the floor. If we do so, we will sweep away all the good luck.

So much of superstitions.

No great deco this year. Mom decided to cut down on the flowers.

The alter with offerings to Buddha and ancestors.
Part of the living hall.
Mom was pretty disappointed with the pussy willow. We couldn't find any nice ones despite surveying at a few places.Bonsais...the treasure in mom's heart. She just love them to bits. Here's one of her masterpiece.
We couldn't leave Mac out of this celebration. Last night we decided to make him a bow tie. We had it on his collar but when we woke up this morning, as destructive as he is...we found the red ribbon bitten to pieces and lying on the floor. So we made him another one and quickly capture a few snapshots of it. As at this hour 2335hrs..the bow tie is still intact on his collar. Quite a record, it has lasted on his collar for more than 12 hours.

Our handsome Mac.

Then relatives came. Later I visted one of my uncles. His daughter has just bought a toy poodle a week ago.

Meet Bruno....he is so cute. At 6 weeks old, he is still too small to climb up the steps.


I slept during late afternoon. I feel so refresh after a few hours of sleep. Finally managed to get a good rest (though it is still insufficient) after weeks of hardcore cleaning.

I hope all of you had a great time too. Gong Xi Fa Cai.

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