Gong Xi Fa Cai!!

GONG XI FA CAI!!! Happy Chinese New Year!!

Let's all welcome the year of PIG... Oink Oink :)

This is the 5th year I'm celebrating Chinese New Year in London... but it's probably one of the most chilled out one since quite a few people went home (you lucky ones!!) or have family members visitng (another lucky batch of people!!)... Not to mention, I'm actually staying in today to do a bit of studying (horror!!! no wonder I lost money in poker yesterday night!! hehehe...)

Nevertheless, I still did have a good time with those who were around... since I can't have a reunion dinner with my family, a reunion dinner with friends was the next best thing!! I really hope that everyone had a good time!!

After labouring in the kitchen since 11am in the morning, this is the end result - steamboat for 12 for our reunion dinner! But I forgot to take a picture of the chilled mango sago that I made for dessert. By the time I realised, it was all gone!! (My only consolation: at least everyone liked it!! :) hehehe)

One for the group picture album - shall we put this in the Yahoo Group photo album?? I tried to make everyone wear red (it's CNY after all!!!) but you can see that I've not been very successful with it... Anyway, thanks to Chun Yuan and Pei Juan for putting in the effort to be in red!!!

After few games of Hunter while we wait for midnight to approach, we braved the outdoors cold to put up some fireworks... (since fireworks are banned back home, everyone was really excited about it!!)... hahaha... but you can see that we were all amateurs at it... everyone was giving their two cents worth of how it should be done... naturally, the guys were all flexing their male ego by arguing who is right... hahahaha

The failed rocket that exploded on the ground... I guess two years in the army does not teach the guys how to light up fireworks!!! But nevertheless, it's still a pretty sight.. hehehehe :P

Finally... we managed to get them launched in the air!! Well done everyone!!

Hehehe... my turn to try launching one... One, two, three... light it up and run for your life before it explodes!!! Hahaha... okay... I exaggerated a bit about the running part...

There you go!! My first firework!! And it's red :) hehehe... it was definitely fun!! Too bad we can't have the red firecrackers (you know those red thing that you burn during CNY when you have the Lion Dance performance)... but oh well, you got to make do with whatever you have!!

With that, we stepped into the Year of Pig to leave behind the Year of Dog with a big bang!! (And I mean it literally!!) And how can a Chinese New Year goes by without involving gambling?? We're all Chinese after all... gambling is in our blood!! Hahaha... so, that's where the poker game came in although in the end there were only a few of us left playing!! And yours truly ended up walking home a few pounds poorer than before... I need my ang pau now, desperately!!!!!! :P