Monday, January 26, 2009
New Year's Eve 乙丑年
First of all, we should just put the topic of spring cleaning aside.
I began the day with a round of prayers to ancestors. Luckily, everyone that we needed to pray to were all happily clustered together in Nee Soon Columbarium. My maternal grandfather is actually in Lim Chu Kang, but when my maternal grandmother passed away, they had his name inscribed on the tablet in Nee Soon Columbarium as well in preparation of when his grave will be exhumed. So we ended up just offering prayers to him there as well.
It's quite a gathering. My paternal grandfather, his parents, my maternal grandparents (and my uncle on my mum's side, if you hadn't heard the story) and my mum's maternal grandmother.
7 people, so although they were all in the same columbarium, it still took a while because they were in 3 spots in the same columbarium and we had to go round setting up 3 times.
After offering prayers to our ancestors, got back home and did my usual new year's eve clothes shopping.
Bought 2 pairs of jeans at $12.90 and 9.90 each. A microfibre shirt at $8.90. 3 Baleno polo shirts at $25 (the cutting is a lil off). A pair of islander slippers at $14.95. Not a bad haul for this year. All within $100.
Reunion dinner at home is usually steamboat and food we used for prayers that morning. This year we didn't have the steamboat but the food hanging around for us to eat was still alot. Dinner consisted of:
Braised duck
Soup with sotong ball, fishball,some vege and quail eggs.
Tofu fried with leek
Pork
Burp! The duck was yummy and I was happily whacking away at the eggs and sotong balls. We've never eaten outside for reunion dinner and especially after the fiasco where one guy who works in a hotel's kitchen called into a radio station and described how they handled festive meals.
One of the examples that stick in my mind was that they salvaged lobster shells from the bin and then fill it in with some meat to serve up. Anyway, I guess when people are really busy, things happen.
Ooooh what is a reunion dinner without an Ang Bao?
After dinner, my father actually wanted to go to Loyang Tua Pek Gong to watch the fireworks, but he fell asleep till about 0010hrs. In the end, we set off for Loyang Tua Pek Gong at about 0030hrs. It was really crowded but I think the crowd has already thinned out since it was past the fireworks.
Incidentally, I'd just like to point out that 初一 does not arrive at midnight. It had arrived at 2330hrs.
Chinese timekeeping states that the new day starts at 子时, which is actually 2300hrs. So you can actually say that a new day has started at 2300hrs. However, if you are obssessed with punctuality, you can further say that in Singapore, a new day arrives at 2330hrs because we had previously adjusted our clocks to match Malaysia's time.
Now you can be a little bit more smart ass too!
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First of all, we should just put the topic of spring cleaning aside.
I began the day with a round of prayers to ancestors. Luckily, everyone that we needed to pray to were all happily clustered together in Nee Soon Columbarium. My maternal grandfather is actually in Lim Chu Kang, but when my maternal grandmother passed away, they had his name inscribed on the tablet in Nee Soon Columbarium as well in preparation of when his grave will be exhumed. So we ended up just offering prayers to him there as well.
It's quite a gathering. My paternal grandfather, his parents, my maternal grandparents (and my uncle on my mum's side, if you hadn't heard the story) and my mum's maternal grandmother.
7 people, so although they were all in the same columbarium, it still took a while because they were in 3 spots in the same columbarium and we had to go round setting up 3 times.
After offering prayers to our ancestors, got back home and did my usual new year's eve clothes shopping.
Bought 2 pairs of jeans at $12.90 and 9.90 each. A microfibre shirt at $8.90. 3 Baleno polo shirts at $25 (the cutting is a lil off). A pair of islander slippers at $14.95. Not a bad haul for this year. All within $100.
Reunion dinner at home is usually steamboat and food we used for prayers that morning. This year we didn't have the steamboat but the food hanging around for us to eat was still alot. Dinner consisted of:
Braised duck
Soup with sotong ball, fishball,some vege and quail eggs.
Tofu fried with leek
Pork
Burp! The duck was yummy and I was happily whacking away at the eggs and sotong balls. We've never eaten outside for reunion dinner and especially after the fiasco where one guy who works in a hotel's kitchen called into a radio station and described how they handled festive meals.
One of the examples that stick in my mind was that they salvaged lobster shells from the bin and then fill it in with some meat to serve up. Anyway, I guess when people are really busy, things happen.
Ooooh what is a reunion dinner without an Ang Bao?
After dinner, my father actually wanted to go to Loyang Tua Pek Gong to watch the fireworks, but he fell asleep till about 0010hrs. In the end, we set off for Loyang Tua Pek Gong at about 0030hrs. It was really crowded but I think the crowd has already thinned out since it was past the fireworks.
Incidentally, I'd just like to point out that 初一 does not arrive at midnight. It had arrived at 2330hrs.
Chinese timekeeping states that the new day starts at 子时, which is actually 2300hrs. So you can actually say that a new day has started at 2300hrs. However, if you are obssessed with punctuality, you can further say that in Singapore, a new day arrives at 2330hrs because we had previously adjusted our clocks to match Malaysia's time.
Now you can be a little bit more smart ass too!
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