CNY is in the Air

after two weeks of raining non-stop, the skies finally cleared up. So we took the opportunity of a weekend to explore the streets filled with stalls for CNY. We jio-ed two of our kakis out as well.... since its like their first CNY after 3yrs of being in bitter cold Brussels. But they could only come much later due to work commitments.. so with some time to kill, Ad and I took a LOOONNNGGGG dinner!

At a old favourite hunt, that sells pig soup, salted veggies, minced pork with chestnuts, rice, barley drinks.... for two for only $12! super worth it!


At one of the junctions promoting festive "drinks" besides the usual skimply dressed promotion ladies, there was also a 財神爺 "minister of fortune" all dressed up in red and long beard, almost like the western version of Santa Clause ha ha ha... yeah, they r both dressed in Red with long Beard and mostly with a HUGE tummy. Santa goes "Ho Ho HO" while the 財神爺 goes "財神到!" (good fortune is here). but this 財神爺 is abit shy, he din liked to be photographed, so he ducked behind the beer promo lady while my camera hp was up in the air. Maybe he din wan his day-job bosses to know that he's part-timing?? Later I overheard his conversation with the beer promo lady saying that he was "fast" to duck cameras "Heh Heh" kinda attitude. Did he really think that he was that good looking? It was all in the spirit of CNY to build up the festive mood. If he wasnt ready to be the "spokesperson" of the occassion, maybe he should not be standing there in his custom....


notice the Da Dong signage behind his head? This resturant used to be a open air dim sum shop where my grandfather brings us to have morning tea on saturaday mornings. I can still remember the smell of the yummy push carts of glutinous rice, the face of the waiter-uncle with a white towel over his shoulder; who watched us grow up over the years (mostly in amazement how my grandfather can squeeze 10 grandkids into his Benz... I still wonder about it today... how, just how did we do it??) Its great that the makan place is still around, but the looks, the feel is all different, I doubt if our kids will ever get the chance to enjoy that kind of free & easy atmosphere of having dim sum with abit of occassional chaos as the carts run into each other....

back to CNY mood. We moved along the stalls with moderate crowd, cool spring breeze in the air, definitely a great night to be out on the streets! The usual CNY goodies are seen displayed everywhere, looks like more people are interested in looking then buying hee....

the sweeten preserved fruits like lotus root, plums, dates, part of the teochew tradition.


the preserved meat of pork, duck, part of the northen china tradition to save the best meat for the new year.


auspicious fruit that can only be found during this time of the year, to ursher the new year with good blessings....


cherry red decorations to deck up the house, spice up the colors to kick start the new year with bright colors


this one is one of my favourite goodies! The 年糕 (new yr cake) which also sounds like 年高 which means promotions or growing in the new year. Its some brown sugary thing that we only eat it once a year during our birthday. Yes, on our birthday... (but how to control everyone's birthday which spans throughout the year??) ha ha ha... on the 7th day of the CNY, its called 人日 that means everyone's birthday! Yeah, so you can to celebrate your birthday on the different calenders and onto of that... you get one extra birthday hee... no presents though! Its good enough for me to have this yummy, it hardens over the CNY period, by the 7th day, its hard enough to be sliced into thin slices and stir fry with beaten eggs. The coat of eggs make the whole cake super fragrant!

But this year, we were early at the 大中國 store to buy their lengendary 年糕!

see the stacks and stacks of them by the side? they have all been ORDERED! so much to go!


Yeah, Ad making purchase for our first CNY goody!!! Super cool! They are still using their traditional paperbags with strings as handles.... super nostalgic sia...

as for goofing around... this is also the best time! since the crowd is growing, shopkeepers are too busy to keep an eye on every customer, that leaves us with enough time to try out some of the cute stuff hee... like this?


another colorful feature of CNY are new plants in the house, this year, they have take special efforts to add colors to these:

i still prefer them in their original silvery tone....

Finally, we've reached one of our destinations.... the lengendery baked meat stall...

the normal queue for this stall is about 2-4hours..... but on this cool night, the queue is short and bearable, wonder why....
afterall its

the patron infront of us was curious as to the short queue (see lah, singaporeans like to poke at everything, short queue also not happy.... how to please them??) but thanks to his curiousity, we found out that the queue was short because all their big full size square pieces of pork are GONE! all SOLD out! at 7pm!! ARGHH...... What's left are their corner pieces which sells at 20% cheaper.... and luckily still have Bacon Bak Kua! so good for us, we are in the short short queue, we're still happy with their corner pieces of Bak Kua....

At the counter, the gentlemen who picks up the meat with his tongs and puts them on the weighing scale took our orders and quickly got into action (bet those behind us in the queue was not pleased with our orders...) 4 kg of corner meat and 3x500gm of the bacon bak kua...so 7 packs altogether. While waiting for our meat to be packed, the guys behind also came up and they were foreigners from Thailand! They've in Singapore for the 3rd time and certainly knew what's the BEST bak kua around. =D The cashier uncle overheard our praises for their bak kua to the foreigners and rewarded us with a piece of Bacon Bak Kua straight out of the oven! So happy!


hmm... its getting late... our kakis still trying to make their way here after work... thankfully the cool spring breeze and the beautiful moonlight gave us much comfort....


so while waiting at the traffic junction, managed to capture some CNY lightings and mood which is my hp wallpaper now hee...

but it keeps me wondering why is the dragon so much bigger then the doggies... since its a doggie year soon... hmm....

AHHH... I din know that all these years of eating the bbq squid during the CNY bazzars that its from Korea! ha ha ha... No wonder i eat alot of the same thing in Seoul as well!! (but those in Seoul tasted much nicer! the squid slices were thinner, the baking was with charcoal, adding more flavour to the meat.. yum yum)



Nope the korean fever did not end there with food.... but also with many children's hanbok for sale!!

so cute! I'm sure the real authenic hanboks are far more superior than these in quality, color, workmanships etc and maybe the Koreans will spit on these fake hanboks... but being trend-chasing Singaporeans, I'm sure parents wont mind the difference hee...

So we walk and we walked... ate and ate.... our tour ended at 1am after surveying another innovative feature of the CNY bazzars... the Auctions! heh.... I've great respect of these men who holds the microphone the whole night and manage to coax the crowd into parting with their $$ easier with some crystal ball, crystal dolphin, gold statues, vases.... a real skill i say!