Chinese New Year 2008

Today is already the second day of CNY and it has been busy and tiring so far. Day 1, we visited Yong Soh, my former landlady and benefactor. Her youngest son was at home with his 2 kids, along with her sister and mum (93 years old this year!!). The younger kids had a rabbit and a white hamster which they proudly showed to Alex and played with them in the garden. Sad to say, after we left, the rabbit and the the hamster were left in the garden in the extremely hot sun and died that day. I feel so bad that we had somehow contributed to the demise of those poor creatures.

As usual, the next stop was at my brother in law in Bandar Sri Damansara. The other bro-in-law also went there. After a couple of hours, we went home as the sun was really beating down. HOT!!!

Which was a good thing, as, unlike past years, we started having visitors right about lunch time. Most years, visitors only come on the second day. In the past 2 days, we have had the Tham uncles and Tham cousins (2nd uncle, 3rd uncle and 5th uncle), Tham aunts and spouse (7th aunt and 8th aunt and spouse) and of course my brother - the first time he join us for CNY.

Elaine and family also visited on the second day. So did Frankie and family, Lee cousins and uncles. Even 8th Uncle in law's brother in law and family turned up!! Chinese families and their relationships are complicated!!

I prepared steamboat for visitors on the second day and it was well received. Mostly seafood (variations of fish paste, fish balls, fish anything) and vegetables (which includes mushrooms). The preparations were minimal and it was easy to cater to the different times that the visitors popped up. We had steamboat available from 11.30am to almost 6pm.

The most interesting visitor was an eagle looking bird that decided to checkout my chiku tree. The tree has been very popular with a variety of birds these past few weeks as there was an abundant produce of chikus - really sweet despite it's smaller size this year.Anyone know what type of bird is this??