Woof! Woof! Wanderings For CNY 2018

Celebrations are aplenty in a year. It just depends on whether you're up for it. In fact, Malaysia has too many public holidays, and the employers are not too happy about it. This is really a 'what to do?' case because we have been bestowed an abundance of holidays to celebrate life but the happiest country in the world is Bhutan instead? Are we not happy with so many days of rest? Why are we still not happy? Did we choose not to be happy despite the good Life that we have? Don't we appreciate the little things in Life? Anyways, I chose to celebrate my love on 14th February and the daughter (why is she present on our dinner date?) shot this photo for us. That's how we began week 7 of the year 2018.

2 days later, it's the Chinese New Year. The drive back on the eve was a breeze and I was a bit disappointed that I wasn't caught in the gridlock jam as my fellow countrymen took part in the annual exodus back to their respective hometowns. Ho ho ho! The morning began with 3 hours of packing stuff into the boot of the car, in batches as everyone took turns to wake up. The dinner for CNY eve was held in an impressive school hall, by a restaurant which rented the space. I was awed.

The red packets were quickly distributed after the clock struck 12 midnight. The noise of fire crackers and rockets blasted in the background as we stood outside to appreciate the start of the festive air. After a couple of hours of shut eye, relatives arrived for the 1st day lunch gathering at our place. Instead of having steamboat like in the past couple of years, mum decided to prepare Penang laksa and rojak buah instead.

It may seem strange to serve a tangy dish for lunch which will make anyone hungry but it's a good break away from the norm. Being older and more frail as age catches up, it's a simpler meal for mum to prepare. However, no worries about that. The dinner later in the day made up for that. And there was another dinner the next day, both treats by an uncle from Singapore and a cousin respectively. All in all, I had 5 yee sangs throughout CNY 2018.

After the dinner on the 1st day, proceeded to an auntie's house to continue the catching up session. The restaurants were too noisy an environment to have a comfortable chat. It's good to see everyone, albeit a year later, as features and forms change after a year. A drive through the housing area in the morning, reminisced how we ran through this expanse of padi field in our kid days. Now, that same expanse is replaced by houses, and there's no more ponds to catch fish or grids of land to play kites after the padi harvesting period.

Then there's the old village where we grew up as kids and spent time during weekends and public holidays. Kampung Hailam, is a thing of the past, as the entire Chinese village had been demolished to make way for development. No race based party saved the quaint Chinese village from destruction and the sea shore has been replaced with this embankment to prevent erosion. This project wasn't carried out when the villagers were still staying there though.

A drive down the road further away, where the 'Long Beach' at Pantai Puteri was, I decided to capture this shot of parents. We're too busy in our fast paced life, with the kids and their activities. Sometimes, we just need to pace down and appreciate those around us. In their twilight years, having spent their best years of their Life bringing us up, parents deserve to have this moment of time recorded and so, the photographer in me captured this portrait of them for CNY 2018. In a natural environment, there's totally no need for portraits in the boring studio, right? Trips to the sea side always meant sand in the car, sitting on newspapers placed on the seat to keep our wet butts from making the seat wet and having bottles of plain water to wash the sand before entering the car.

The day and journey throughout the day continued with lunch preparation. The traditional fried waxed sausage and spring onion dish is always there as a prosperity meal. With everyone gathered at the table, it was really good for chats as we don't really eat together during our regular meals. We normally eat at different times and even carry our plates to the living room to watch tv. I'm lucky to have meals with my late paternal grandfather though, as I made a decision to return to Malaysia in 2003. He left about 4 years after that.

All in all, a good CNY 2018 as we had the chance to keep up to date with each other's progress in Life. As everyone catches up in age, we also can't eat much already. The younger generation will pick up from here. Till the next CNY, hope everyone will continue to have a good one and stay healthy and don't forget to take part in Life's adventure.