Sweet lunch

There are days when I don't feel like eating due to the hot weather so I'll have an orange for breakfast and a block of chocolate ice-cream on a slice of wholemeal bread for lunch. I'll start with the ice cream and after I have finished eating the ice cream, I will eat the slice of bread with melted ice cream on it. This way, my plate stays clean and not a single drop of ice cream is wasted.

Postcard

It is so thoughtful and nice of Wenn to send me the following Athens postcard from Ipoh. Thanks Wenn! :)

Ten hours

It has been more than a year since I last been to Penang so it is about time to go and visit my brother there and we did just that recently. The three of us - my mother, sister and I decided to do it during weekdays so that my brother and my sister-in-law can still have their rest days on weekends instead of needing to show us around.

All three of us can't remember when the last time was that we took a 5-hour bus trip to anywhere and since we can't remember, we took the bus this time - 5 hours from KL to Penang on day 1 and another 5 hours back on day 3. And we concluded that this is our last long distance bus journey.

Even though the double-decker bus was clean and comfortable but we are too old to withstand the swaying of the bus. This post is to remind us to never take the bus again. Previously we either take a flight or self-drive.

For the 42 hours that we were in Penang, we spent 12 hours sleeping and only 30 hours sightseeing and eating but we are satisfied because our purpose is to visit my brother and sister-in-law.

A big thank you to them for putting us up at their lovely place and buying us dinner. Will it be another 1 year before we visit you two again? Perhaps.

Early morning sun

Took bus 102 here on Day 2

My apple ..

.. is my stainless steel tiffin carrier as shown in the photo below. I find the individual portion of meals served by restaurants to be too much for my one meal so when the food is served, I will keep half of it in my apple to be eaten later at home. By doing this, I prevent any wastage of food whenever I eat out and can't finish my food.

Shiny apple

Compartments

Kalanchoe

CNY celebration is officially over and I am back to my daily routine. It has been four days now and I kind of miss the festive mood. The malls have taken down their CNY decorations, restaurants have stopped serving yee sang and I have finished eating all the cookies.

How was your CNY? Did you enjoy it?
I did and I hope you did too. :)

Kalanchoe plant my spouse bought

Lion dance

Six more days to go before we conclude the 15 days of CNY celebration. As both my spouse's and my hometown is KL and both of us live 10 mins away from my in-laws and my mother, we did not have to travel far during CNY.

Our normal CNY routine is we eat reunion lunch with my mother and reunion dinner with my in-laws during CNY eve. Then on the 1st day of CNY, we will go to visit my in-laws with CNY greetings (pai nian 拜年) in the morning and then visit my mother in the afternoon.

This year my brother bought us dinner on CNY day 3. One of the dishes was salmon yee sang. This year I find the price to be pretty steep - RM48 for half a portion. An added bonus: there was a lion dance in the restaurant when we were halfway through our dinner and we have a good view of the "stage" from our table.

After performing the traditional lion dance, the two lions and the joker then proceed to perform O.G. Style dance - the currently very popular (O) ppa (G) angnam Style dance. It was very entertaining. Too bad I did not capture a video of the dance. I just took some blurry photos. It was a fun dinner, all thanks to my brother!

Salmon Yee Sang before mixing

After mixing

Two lions and a joker dancing (O) ppa (G) angnam style dance

A very entertaining dance

恭喜發財

Another one day to go and it will be Chinese New Year! Here's wishing everyone who celebrates Chinese New Year, Gong Xi Fa Cai (Mandarin). May all of you have a prosperous year!

Here are the (foc) ang pow packets that were given to me. I have yet to fill them with money to be given out during CNY. This new year is the year of the snake but only two packets have snake-related design - one with cute snakes and one with a scary looking snake. I like the pink one best.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Red, Pink, Brown AngPow Packets

Cute snakes design

Scary snake design

****Updated: I did not realise that there are 3 different colour schemes for this pattern until I took them all out. So nice!