Hiee.. we're in the midst of Chinese New Year but the main celebration and 'bai nian' process with relatives are mostly over. We had an extended weekend for CNY this year and the best part is that another long weekend is coming up, so that we can follow up with friends that we haven't visit. There's so many invitations to go to so many houses this year that I'm really surprised too. Also lots of gatherings up with friends (secondary school, NP, Kayaking, even Hock Sui's frens) and meetings and so on.. The last time I've been to work was on Wednesday last week and I'm only expected to report for work on Wednesday again, so that's one whole week of hols. Yeah.. this month I really 'earned' my salary without much effort, considering the fact that I have the least classes to teach in FC. Though CNY hadn't been really as exciting/happening as I hoped it had been, well.. I'm still in the holiday mood. =)

It all started on CNY eve when I went for reunion dinner with my father's extended family at this restaurant at Allson Hotel at Bugis. As far as I can remember, we haven't done that for reunion dinner for a long time, and for the past few years.. had been going to Msia for reunion dinner with my mum's family instead. When age catches up, I think I quite appreciate such opportunities to see my grands and cousins again, even though I haven't got much things to say to them. Right after dinner, I walked over to Esplanade to join my friends for countdown. The whole CNY mood was right there as it was where River Ang Pao is, and the fireworks lasted for around ten minutes. It was really a treat! Still quite missed the first few years when we went chinatown for CNY countdown with Woon woon, the response from the team was much better but now there's only left the few of us every year who's still doing that. After esplanade, the plan was to go Chinatown to 'squeeze' with the crowd, but Casey left with Zhirong and Iela left with her boy boy as they're feeling tired (mrt service extended till 2am that morning). It was only left with Teck wee, Nicole and me..and I was feeling really tired as well. It was quite weird when there's only the 3 of us at Chinatown, so we left very quickly after we've gotten what we intended to buy from the night market. We stayed for less than an hour at chinatown and the crowd was still going strong after midnight to snatch all the very cheapo new year stuff. Teck Wee offered me a fun ride on his bike back home, and think I really enjoyed being a pillion rider even though friends and mum warned me that it's really dangerous. Heh.. I wouldn't mind getting free rides occasionally whenever Shan (teck wee's gf) is not around but guess I will be worried if Hock Sui really got a bike one day.