蛇年：Reunion

新年快乐 everyone! I hope your start to the year of the snake has been a good one!

I'm starting our annual re-count of a fairly hectic season with one of my favourite parts of Chinese New Year -- the Reunion.

We continued a tradition which we started the last year, with us hosting the reunion at our place. It's not that big a deal really, since it's just DD's immediate family, but I was pretty happy to have the opportunity to do steamboat my way. That means soup stock the way I like it -- chicken carcass with dang shen (党参) and wolfberries -- chicken rice, and all my favourite ingredients.

Naomi, she was happy to have soup and corn, and Noey, he only had eyes for the yu sheng! He's always been fond of yu sheng, but I think he really discovered it in a big way this year. The boy LOVES that stuff. Like put-aside-mango-pudding-to-have-more-yu-sheng LOVE. It was enough to make him enthusiastic about going for gatherings if we told him that there was going to be yu sheng. And because it was CNY after all, there was a lot of it everyday!

Lo Hei! We're mid-way through tossing and Naomi is already eating.

Total concentration on getting that amount of yu sheng onto his plate...

When there's a will, there's a way. Nomi looks on as Noey does not let having to use chopsticks stop him from eating his yu sheng.

The steamboat was great, if I may say so myself! Pity I totally forgot to take pics of the spread.

There was just enough time for us to veg out a bit before we headed over to my parents' for reunion dinner with my Dad's rellies. I was actually really happy that I would not be missing the annual gathering of my uncles, aunts and cousins on my Dad's side of the family, only to learn that this year, they decided to take a break from tradition and organise their own gatherings instead. Boo. Fortunately, my parents had still gone ahead with inviting three of my uncles over so while it wasn't everyone, there were still folks for us to meet. And lo hei with too, naturally.

Snacks and TV. That is the life!

Lo Hei again! Jiu jiu tries to help Nomi get in on the action but she's had enough.

There is an amazing amount of food which I again forget to photograph. (I'm not very reliable with the photos on big occasions because I'm usually too busy, erm, talking.) There was 2 big bowls of pencai, a big pot of fishball-abalone soup, a huge steamed garoupa, some roast meats, stir-fried vegetables, and, a little incongruously, some beef rendang. The latter was brought by one of my uncles and I must admit I ate some gratefully.

Nomi cleverly arrowed Kong Kong to feed her. I thought Kong Kong volunteered, only to find out that she told him to feed her. Haha. She clearly knows who to pick!

Bak Kwa face! The kids discovered bak kwa this year and ate a lot of it when I wasn't looking. Sigh!

Little Miss Cheeky with her favourite Yiyi

It was pretty late by the time we got back, no thanks to DD being somewhat taken with the Chinese movie that was screening, and me having to make a late night super last-minute trek out to get some yu sheng for the next day. It was the first time that I didn't order one before hand and there were some heart-stopping moments for me before I finally got one. Whew. Lesson learnt: no more last minute ordering for me!

Still I was glad that I was afforded the opportunity to meet with extended family that I don't often see. That's the point of a reunion, isn't it?