CNY 2013 in Penang

so here comes the chinese new years post. :)

i came back on the 8th of feb and chilled at bro's house the whole day coz most of the hawkers were closed already. :(

and then on cny eve, we had our family reunion. this year we gathered at flamingo hotel coz grandma is getting old and its so troublesome to prepare all the food for reunion dinner. so this year we had buffet dinner instead.

it's pretty nice to see everyone again since i only come back to penang once or at most twice a year. but because i dont see them often, and the huge age gap between us cousins, we dont talk as much as we used to when we were kids.

we have a really fun family tradition whereby all family members (buddhist ones, my family has many religions LOL!) would gather before midnight on eve of cny and then go for our 7 temple hopping. every year the same 7 temples and the same arrangements. it's prayers for health and luck.

we usually start at 12plus and then finish by 3am. pretty exhausting because we need to wake up early the next morning for chu yi. but overall, it's really really fun to do it together as a family despite the eye tearing smokes and burns from joss sticks ashes.

on chu yi (first day of cny in mandarin), we gathered at grandma's place and waited for relatives to come visiting. and then we went visiting in the afternoon. at grandma's place we all looked through old pictures of grandma and grandpa when they were really young. and also pictures of daddy dearest and his siblings. with a lot of oooooh and ahhhhhhh...followed by laughters. 

then at night i went out the "once a year gang" where the four of us only meet each other once a year. had really nice lebanese food before heading to rasa sayang for wine session.

and then on second day of cny, i practically stayed home till night for dinner. coz mummy had her own plans while bro and sis-in-law went back to the in-laws family side.

and at night we get to see pretty fireworks from the brother's balcony.

third day of cny, we continued our visiting.

this is all for cny in penang. the rest was pretty boring coz either we stayed home or went over to cousin's place. this year no gambling with the family. and i came back to kl on the fifth day of cny.