A happy Chinese New Year...

This was quite an exceptional Chinese new year for me - many unexpected things occured, mostly pleasant surprises though.

Reunion dinner - at my eldest uncle's new place. Very nice and beautiful house, decorated in good taste. He cooked the entire dinner like a chef in the restaurant, crabs and all, each dish coming up one by one, and even spoiled us with 3 different dessert courses at the end of it all. It's always nice to have a dinner with my extended family, especially now that all the kids (me included) are more grown up and can take part in conversations with everyone else. First time I cycled to a reunion dinner too.

First Day (early noon) - Woke up super late, and after a short visit to my real aunt's (my mum was adopted, and my extended family usually means her adopted family's siblings) place, we went to Tan Tock Seng Hospital to visit my grandma. She went to the hospital after the dinner the night before, feeling nauseous and apparently unable to pass urine; the doctors are suspecting kidney problems. Her mind was on her discomfort when we visited her, but I hope our visit gave her some measure of comfort, nonetheless.

First Day (late noon) - My whole family visited my father's sister's place (what do you call that?), and his younger brother's family was there too. Except for my dad, we didn't keep in touch with them for like, more than 10 years? By now my nephew is now a gangly lad in SP, and one of my cousin got married with 3 kids, and the other just married last month too. My goodness, what a world of difference I see in them, and them in me too I suppose. Realised that, one will have to expect to see relatives go through with life's cycle with each year, getting attached, then married, then in some other following years with kids, and it makes me conscious of my age all of a sudden.

First Day (evening) - We're finally back at my uncle's place after the previous night, where the extended family usually congregate in each year in the noontime to exchange angpows. It feels strange to meet everyone this late this time round, but good food and talk makes it more memorable actually, because now there's no pressure for anyone to run off visiting other places.

First Day (midnight) - Gambling! A new year custom that can't be missed! Visit to a place where all my sec school mates meet up, and played mahjong and cards after that. Won over $80, how cool is that.

Glad to know that while some things will change and move on with each year, other familiar and comforting things never do.