#Pink's Chinese New Year's Eve Celebration

Hello everybody!

How y’all doing? How’s the weather at your place? After almost a week of hot weather it finally rained again today, twice! (I wrote this a few days ago, the weather here’s consistently cool ever since, especially today, brrrr) Totally pouring! It’s pretty weird how it was super dry and hot around Chinese New Year Eve and actual CNY. I can’t decide whether it’s a good thing or not. I mean, it’d certainly be troublesome if it does rain, with all the going round and house hopping that we did, rain would be very inconvenient. But at the same time I always heard how it’s good if it’s raining on CNY, more blessing coming our way LOL. Whatever lah :p, I don’t actually believe in all that, was just wondering out loud LOL.

Anyway, I went through the pictures, both the ones taken by KC’s expensive camera and my modest point and shoot, and I must humbly say… It’s never the camera that’s being used, it’s about the skill of the one taking the pictures *ROFL*. Sorry ah KC, but I must say his angling all super crappy ones zzzz. He took super horrible pictures of me *recoiling in horror*, so I’d be featuring super small amount the pictures taken with his camera (none on this entry, it’ll be present on the next entry, the actual CNY report), most would be the ones I took myself (although there are some blurry ones, sorry) okay :p. 

Since the pictures would be super a lot, I decided to separate it into two posts, the CNY eve and the CNY itself. Gonna start with the CNY eve one obvi, but lemme tell you a little bit about earlier on that day first (and I’m also gonna throw more traditions and what to and not to do around CNY hihihi, I know most Chinese descendants who are not living in China/HK/Taiwan’s mostly not practicing or not even aware of those traditions so I think it’d be fun to share). 

CNY fruits and cakes (with CL's feet i was unable to crop out :p)

So, I actually thought I was gonna spend the afternoon lazing around, tidying my room a bit (it’s a must to tidy and clean the whole house before CNY, on CNY itself nobody in my family’s allowed to do any household work *and work in general*, but honestly most of the household works are done by our maids anyway :p), pampering myself and stuff. You know, using hair mask, do pedicure, use hair removal cream on my legs, the whole nine yard? 

But what can I do, pretty early on CL (my sis in law) BBM-ed me, forcing me to go to GM to make a payment for some ducks she ordered for the next day’s CNY dinner at my sister’s. I asked hunny if I  can stay in the car and wait for him there and he said “NOOOO, you must accompany me!!!”, really this guy is so clingy sometimes only paying for an ordered food I must go with him? Sometimes I don’t even… zzzz. (suddenly heard #Undecided’s voice saying “When we were younger we called that love, bb…”)

So, I went, with my glasses on (why bother putting on my lenses? It’s only gonna be a five minutes in and out right? If I wear lenses I’d have to put on some under eye concealer! With my glasses I can skip any eye make up and not look half dead), wearing the first thing I see (a black jumper which is a bit too short for my liking, been thinking of pairing it with a legging to make myself more comfortable wearing it), only slapping on some Pigeon pressed powder to avoid looking like an oily wok, and scurried off.

I remember belatedly it was Saturday and the mall was PACKED -____-. Seriously, I looked like hell and all hayah, lucky we didn’t stumble into anyone we know!!! Anyway, the Duck King waiter and waitress was like super confused and panicky, I guess they received a lot more orders for CNY eve than they could handle so there was a lot of confusion. We asked for an order by the name of Cathalia (yeah, that’s CL’s real name, but I like to use CL here because it’s shorter LOLOL) but they came up with orders of Ira, Mira, Natalia, etc etc… GYAHHHH!!!!

 Ended up having to wait for quite a bit until they managed to find one. And CL didn’t give us enough instructions, she said to make a payment, and the waitress said ok but we’d have to wait an hour for the order to be ready. And I couldn’t contact CL for a bit, haiiisssshhhh it was super hectic and confusing lah. Turned out the order’s for the NEXT day, dunno why the waitress was super confused one zzz.

Anyway, I am always disoriented when I wear my glasses out (even more so because this is a new pair of glasses I’m wearing, not because it’s CNY lah but because my last pair was so battered one of the lenses popped out and couldn’t be popped back in, it’s quite old and I’ve not been gentle with it so…), I’d be super confused (and often mistaken steps as flat ground, and vice versa), it was hot, I was uncomfortable with the short pants *kept on pulling it down* and I was PMS ing BIG TIME (told ya my period was super late so my PMS was like double force one, it was super late I was beginning to think we’re about to get a daughter or something *delusional*) I was ready to burst with annoyance -___-.

Then out of the blue I announced “I want a frozen yogurt!”. Now tell me how am I supposed not to be suspicious of myself? I don’t usually have crazy cravings like that (okay I have cravings for sweet things while I’m PMS ing). Anyway, we went down to the frozen yogurt place and while doing so we passed one of my fave stores, Gaudi. And when we did, hunny (who very very rarely do so) suddenly said “That’s pretty”, pointing to one of the mannequin. I stopped on my track, amazed. Because he really was pointing on something pretty (even rarer!!! Because his taste in women clothing is.. er.. not so good LOLOL), a black floral cape! A bit baroque and quite majestic! 

But guess what, he was talking about the dress underneath the cape kwaaaa kwaaaa… LOLOL. The dress is mediocre and I’m being kind. He encouraged me to try on the cape, and since it was on sale (CNY sale, 25% off using Mandiri credit card for normal priced items) and I’ve missed a few items that I liked (thinking it might go on a discount but instead they disappeared *sobs*) already, so I did. And once I put it on, I knew it had to be mine zzzzz. It was IDR 171.000 after discount, okay lah for such a pretty thing. Quickly went to get my frozen yogurt (I was eyeing a lot more stuffs in Gaudi but (un?) fortunately my glasses’ making me dizzy so I could stop myself then) and withdraw money for hong baos (red packets), and then hurried home.

Since we’re having CNY eve feast at my (parents) home, I didn’t bother with much make up, I put on a bit of under eye concealer and powder, and slick my lips with VOV lip color and care (yes, brand new :p, dunno why they called it lip color since it has no color whatsoever), here’s my ghostly pale face to scare you.

In my family's tradition, new clothes must start to be worn on CNY eve, new sleep wear, new undies. My mum told me not to wear my sleep wear (why? My sis did, and she came from her place, I just came from my room!) so I panicked (because I don’t really stash new house wears, I hardly ever buy any, they just seem so… unimportant) and dug through one of my closets of shame to find clothes casual enough for a house wear (you don’t understand, my family’s full of critics. If I wore something too fancy I’d be commented on endlessly, really!), fortunately I went through a phase of loving loose racer backs (and as usual whenever I like something I hoard them) and I found this cute Minnie Mouse one.

Like I said, bloated, so no sleeveless top for me (seriously, I can feed an entire village with my arms’ fat. Just cut them off, please) so I paired it with this bright red cardigan (plus I thought it’d be nice to throw in some red since it’s CNY eve already), and then I remember my Bali hauls and the skirts I bought there! So I put on the baby blue one (I love it and it’s pretty enough to wear to the mall, and I did yesterday LOL) and I think everything goes together pretty well (if I may say so myself LOL). Everything’s brand new, obvi.

Not wearing make up (except the lip care thingy) but I must wear a new fragrance *yeah, weirdo, I know*, but didn’t want it to be too heavy since we’re just staying at home so I brought out my Bodycology’s Body Mist in Shower Petal.

Definitely one of the heaviest (in term of the scent) body mist I’ve ever worn, it lasts very long. I can still smell it vividly on myself after a few hours. The smell reminds me of something I cannot quite place, I guess I used a body lotion with the same fragrance before. Not my favorite smell actually, a bit too floral and musky for me, but I don’t mind, I can wear it for not-so-special moments *LOL*.

I got a BBM from one of the online shops I frequent, telling me my PO orders arrived and I freaked. Another tradition in my family, you HAVE to settle any debt you have before CNY (or you’d be full of  debt for an entire year, how scary), and you shouldn’t buy anything (recently my mum got more lenient and said it’s okay to pay for food, in the past she was stricter and forbade us to even eat out on CNY) on CNY (you shouldn’t spend on CNY or you’d keep on spending the whole year LOL). As I said before, I prefer to honor the traditions to be safe *LOL*, so I quickly dragged hunny to take me to the ATM *sigh*.

Not much story on the actual CNY eve feast, but I have some pictures for y’all, they said a picture’s  worth a thousand words right? LOL. And in this pictures you can also see our home (well mostly our backyard lah hehe). This year we’re going back to our root, the last four or five years we spent CNY at fancy hotels and restaurants, and we got bored (actually I got bored after the first time, seriously.. what’s the fun in listening to old Chinese songs (dong dong chiak, dong dong chiak), etc zzzz… and I don’t even like Chinese food…) so we did what we used to always do, intimate family dinner. 

Meat, chicken and salmon for Korean BBQ

Ingredients for Bibimbap, shark's fin's soup, Chinese fried noodles

 There were a few other tables full of food but i apparently forgot to take pictures.

KC and hunny handling the BBQ

Hunny making his signature fried salmon on the BBQ LOL

My brother KC, looking like a satay seller haha

Oh, you can see a glimpse of our garage there, hello

Not sure what’s the theme of this CNY eve dinner because there were some compulsory Chinese traditional foods like noodles (a must for CNY, to represent longevity) and steamed fish (another must), my mum also cooked shark’s fins soup (I don’t t like shark’s fins -____- I don’t understand what the fuss’ all about) over loading on the fins, KC said “this is not soup containing shark’s fins, this is shark’s fins with a little bit of soup” LOLOL. But the real star of the night was actually Korean foods LOL. We love Korean foods and since the Korean food chef extraordinaire CL’s here, she went all out LOL. 

We got Korean BBQ (you know, where you wrap the meat with lettuce) with all kinds of meats (they are usually super expensive in local Korean restaurants so we gorged ourselves silly that night LOL, it was really good actually, although the guys overcooked some of the meats LOL), also Korean Bibimbap.

Chef CL *LOL*

Busy preparing peach teas and honey lemonade

My sis CW getting herself some drinks :p

Readyto be sat on

Busiest station of the night, Korean BBQ

Nom nom

KC looking like a lost child (especially with his wrongly-cut hair)

These three ladies finished off the last of the Korean BBQ :p

It was super hot that night, the air was totally still too, no wind at all. We were sweating bullets, I can feel sweats dripping down my back -____- totally crazy. Oh, did you see the discs hanging on the trees? LOLOL. They are there to cast off bats. We have some mango trees (which produce super fat and sweet mangoes) and the bats flocked there. We actually have a sound device to shoo them away too but really, the sound’s super high pitched and loud it’s disturbing US too, I swear I’m going crazy whenever my dad turns that damn thing on zzzz.

Dunno why Bb's flapping her arms like that but it was the only acceptable picture hunny managed to take of us so i don't have a choice :p

Oh, also so sorry for the messy backyard LOL, it’s full of hanging clothes poles. Our backyard used to be super pretty, complete with huge fish ponds and a mini waterfall (really!), but we got rid of it because of er… some ghost stories lah ROFL. We used to have lots of parties back there, I remember when I was little my birthday parties often held there, it was amazing. Nowadays we simply couldn’t be bothered I guess, parties are also always held in hotels and restaurants since it’s so much more convenient *sigh*. But if the CNY dinner’s open to more people I’m sure my mum would order all of the maids to get rid of the clothes racks and poles but since there’s only our immediate family (my parents and all of their kids and most of the kid-in-laws and  grandkids) I guess nobody’s even paying attention. Not much pics of me since I was so pale and I took most of the pics anyway LOL.

I coulnd't stand the heat so i sneaked off to cool myself in my old (now Baby Boy's) room a few times LOL. 

Baby Boy entertaining himself with his brand new super expensive fighting remot controlled robot, grandpa and grandma please stop spoiling him already zzzz!!!

Oh, while we were chit chatting in the family room, i got distracted by this :

Before

After

Peeing cherub!!!! LOLOLOL!!!! I found it to be super hilarious! My crazy nephews bought some. I think i want one too but i kept on forgetting to get them zzz.

After we ate until we almost burst, my mum dragged all of us to my eldest brother’s brand new house (he needs to stay there for two nights on CNY, another part of the tradition. On normal days he stays with us since all of his family’s in Irian) and I got bit by ants and lots of mosquitoes there *howling* they itches until today, damn y’all ants and mosquito!!!

After we got back home we spent the night (you’re not supposed to sleep before midnight :p, but I’m sure my mum slept already anyway LOL) wrapping hong baos. The most important ones for me are the ones for my parents (and hunny’s mum), Baby Boy and my nephews and nieces. Obvi they contained the most money, for anyone else’s they’re mostly just for formalities anyway :p.

Bought special hong baos for the kids but I was short of one for the boys so my eldest nephew (who’s 17 so he really wouldn’t care anyway) got a normal looking one haha.

My 3 fave packets, so cute!

And remember i told you about the "new" tradition of buying a small amount of gold (or a lot, whatever) before CNY to invite more prosperity on the new year? Yeah, my mum forced me to buy this :

So tiny yet costs quite a bit

I also managed to paint my toes finally, painted them bright red (Xin Jia mah, must infest as much red as possible), the nude nail polish on my fingers were still okay looking so I didn’t bother removing them (I’m the kind of girl who waits until the nail polish’s really fugly then I’d remove them LOL. Then I usually give my nails a day (at least) of breather before putting on another color on. I will make a review on the red nail polish that I used soon :D.

So, that’s how my family’s Chinese New Year’s eve went this years, how’s yours? You can leave me link of your family’s celebration on the comment section below, I’d love to read them! That’s all for now, Chinese New Year celebration report coming soon! With LOTS of pictures!