Happy Chinese New Year!

11:38:00 PM

Helloooo peepsss..

I gotta wish y'all (who celebrates) Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year!!! Hope this rooster year brings us all success, prosperity, health and happiness!!!

Gong Xi Fat Cai from #Pink's family!

No no no, not late at all, you know that Lunar New Year is technically 2 weeks long right (so i had to google this, i thought it was a month long *LOL* but then i remember that Cap Go Meh signals the end of the new year celebration??? Geez, i'm not sure actually #fakechineseanyone ) so it's still very on time for me to drop by and greet y'all :p.

Honestly i was not even planning to blog about this. Why? Coz i haven't feel so dispassionate about Lunar Year in such a long time. FYI, i've never been a huge fan of Imlek (maybe when i was young and unmarried because i'd be getting hong bao instead of giving them away... But nope. Not even cash made me crazy about Imlek. I always found it to be stressful) mainly because as you should know by now, i am an introvert and i don't like being around strangers. That's exactly what happens every year since my parents always hold an open house. Hordes and hordes of strangers pour into our house, mainly hunting for hong baos. I can't even remember their faces, let alone names (the people who i hand hong baos to) so they are-and always will be-strangers to me.

Most of the time i just hid in the bedroom and wish they'd all go home soon so we can start our hong bao giving ritual (among my family only). Even this is stressful for me because i don't like the "bai nian" gesture and it always embarrass the shit out of me when i am forced to do it. Which is basically what we do the whole day-on repeat. I am such a bad Chinese, but then again i just don't like weird poses or be told to do certain gestures because it makes me feel awkward. Remind me again why i am a natural "Disgust" (referring to the Disney Inside Out movie, ofc).

ANYWAY. Now that you know i am such a huge fan of this celebration *rolls eyes to the heaven*, i feel even more dispassionate this year for some reasons. Reason one, it's just too damn close to the New Year (usually it'd be at least a month after), we're just over the celebrating mood and i had NO time to recharge. Even worse is because we just got back from Japan in less than 2 weeks prior-i LOVE traveling and i can't wait for my next trip-but i need like... A month of down time to get my system back to normal. I had no time for that. Financially i also always feel broke AF after a trip (actually we are not broke obvi, but i don't like spending a fortune on various occasions in short proximity to each other, it overwhelms me) and the thoughts of spending crazy amount of money on top of that (my Japan credit card bill made me cry *not literally*, it was so much worse than i expected WTF)... Is just... Cruel.

AND THEN, we have this annual family fight over WA group chat on how and where we're going to spend CNY eve at. This has been going on for years and yet, nobody seems to want to stop. It's exhausting and it's stupid. I'm so over this shit.

All of those reasons rolled together : if there's a skip button for this year's CNY, i would hit it FTL. Just get me to the next day, thank you.

Because of that, i guess i already set myself that i am not going to have a nice time at all. And it started awful -____-. My mum was being even more hyper and crazier than usual (she was like an energizer bunny on steroid, it stressed me out so much i thought imma burst), i spent the night wrapping hong baos (hunny didn't even help me this year, he just kept on playing with his stupid new PS 4 Pro and i just couldn't be bothered to yell at him to help) and then needed more time to unwind. Which resulting in us having a very late night. Only to be woken up rudely at 3 A.M by my mum because the effing stove is not working (a recurring problem. This has happened about 5x in the last month only).

I have very bad insomnia and the hardest part for me is falling asleep. Imagine how bad i feel in the morning. I was totally zombie-like, and my mum still had the gall to yell at me because we're supposed to wake up early on Xinjia (there are so many MUST DO during Xinjia it's driving me batshit crazy, yet another reason why this is my LEAST fave holiday. EVAH!!!), she was like "You know you have to wake up early on Xin Jia! Why did you to go and sleep so late that you can't wake up early???". Eh hello, we'd be able to wake up fresh if we're allowed to actually sleep through the night, not getting yelled at at 3 in the frigging morning, i thought we were effing haunted!!!

Well, obviously i was very tired in the morning. And my mood just got darker when people was like "Why you take so long to get ready". I just wanted to yell "YOU didn't get woken up at 3 for a stupid stove so SHUT YO MOUTH BITCH!!!!" (FYI, i am super hormonal as i am typing so excuse all the drama). Then i had to deal with scorching hot weather, non stop leaking eyes (i couldn't even wear eye makeup, i just slap on some falsies to hide my tired eyes and call it eye makeup), my energizer bunny on steroid of a mother and mobs of strangers.

Things couldn't go worse, right? Yes, thank you they didn't. I actually started to have a nice time, better as the day progresses. And i ended up having a great time laughing my ass off in the evening so i feel like the day was not a total torture. Thank God because Chinese believes that the CNY day would reflect the overall mood of the entire year (that's why we're not supposed to be sad/cry/curse/fight during CNY)! Oh and one accomplishment : Little O managed not to cry this CNY. YAY!

God, i really didn't mean to rant-i guess there are just a lot of things in my chest weighing me down, and i feel so much better after sharing it with y'all!

In conclusion, i had a much better CNY than i expected. Hopefully that means imma also have a much better year ahead than i expected. Fingers firmly crossed.

Now let's get with the photos and lighter stories, shall we?

We ended up having Chinese New Year's Eve dinner at J.W. Mariott's Pavillion restaurant (which is a buffet. This is called compromise, my friend. Coz some of us just want a chill day at home and some want a glitzy night and spend a motorcycle worth on one table-dinner, so this is the mid).

KC ordered some wine, and some of my nephews and niece are legal this year (my eldest nephew-who was born when i was 11-actually graduated from uni already) so we actually had two bottles.

There was a time in my life when i was quite a heavy drinker. I was a party girl and i drunk alcohol like they were water. Those days are long gone. Nowadays i try to avoid alcohol and have very little of them (i did drank a lot of Sake in Japan because it made me warm) when i have to-this resulted in me having very low tolerance in alcohol these days. Plus, i never liked wine (i'm more of a cocktail kind of gurl. Tia Maria was my BFF) in the first place. I literally told my hunny that this pose is so fake in so many levels (it's not even my glass of wine, it's hunny's and i am just borrowing it and stole some sips from it) coz i just want a "certain image" for my Instagram. LOLOLOL. Yes, i am disgusting like that!

I haven't seen BB for so long, we had a bit of a heart to heart talk that night. Not gonna spill any beans, but i just want to let her know (if she ever reads this) that i am proud of her. She's always been mature for her age, but she is still a very young girl-for her to be able to stand up for what she believes in, i seriously admire her for it. I think she inherit her realistic POV from me #ahem

What's a CNY without Chinese dragons, rite?

CW insisted to be in the pic while i was trying to snap a pic of Little O -___-

In the past years, i always prepared my outfit for both CNY eve and CNY months before that. I obviously don't actually need to buy new clothes for CNY, if i am being honest i can wear new outfits every day for a year (actually more like 5 years probably) just from my own wardrobe because i have SO MANY new clothes. Thing is, i don't like red! Oh, i like red lips, but i am not a fan of red outfit. I love black, white and pastel colors-so if you hear me saying i need to buy a new black dress, i am definitely lying (i must just be too lazy to rummage through my closets) but red... I actually, truly-don't hoard red clothes.

Alas, i was about to wear whatever red i could find in my closet of shame for CNY eve, but then i found this beautiful red kimono outwear on sale in Magnolia while i went out shopping with L a few days before CNY. I didn't actually like how it looks like on the hanger, but it was on sale (i prefer another kimono that's similar to this one but made from lace material) and it was red so i was like "Okay, i'll just throw it on and see how it looks, and i fell madly in love :

Yup, i feel that my CNY eye outfit was on fire. Oh, i was wearing a black lace jumpsuit (brand new but i bought it probably 4-5 years ago in Singapore *LOL*) underneath and my belt and shoes are old. My little Chocolate Coin purse is from New Look - i think the gold color, the chocolate coin shape are just perfect for the ocassion

Found this giant Teddy Bear at the Lobby

My other niece Au is so awkward, i am happy that i at least have BB who are always up for silly photo sesh with her aunt!

With my parents, my siblings, nephews, nieces

Then the next day... I took very minimal photos because like i already explained (in details)-i had quite a rough start of the day and i was too zombie-like to care.

With the same crew with extras *LOL*. That's L's grandma, uncles and aunts (also my uncle and aunts, ofc. And my grandaunt)-whilst L and her family ran away to Malang *LOLOLOL*

Errrr.. Took the usual endless pics of us queuing up, bai nian-ing and hong bao giving... It's the same thing every year, just different outfits so no need to post lah hor *LOL*. Speaking of outfit, i was even less enthused about the actual CNY outfit. You can see in the pic that most of us were wearing uniform Batik clothes that we ordered online haha, i got myself a skirt made of the same material and i found a maroon tee in my closet randomly so i just threw it on. Such an uninspired outfit that i didn't even bother trying to snap an OOTD pic.

Oh. Yeah. I was forced to sit and pose like this by my bully of siblings. Usually Little O would be sitting in the middle, half-crying because he doesn't want to take pics. Apparently i used to do that too. So here i am, forced to re-enact the whole thing. WTF.

Ofc we also went to my in law's place... We stole some time sneaking to ECC with KC and his fam coz i needed coffee badly... Starbucks to the rescue :p... We also managed to rest a bit before going to CW's place for CNY dinner.

I admit... I overeat epically that day...

Everything looks serene in the pics-but we ended up spending the last hours making idiotic Boomerang vids. Sigh. I bet we'd still be doing it 10 years from now. I guess being around your family turns you into juveniles again.

And to end the day on a high note