Chinese New Year 2007

A usual Chinese New Years Eve dinner was a lavish affair....so much food for 4 adults and one baby.

Abalone, Celery and mushrooms...

The obligatory but politically incorrect shark fin soup with crab roe...what the heck, it taste good!!!

Cleo's inherent artistic abilities resulted in this "masterpiece"...

Ancestral prayers...

All dressed in red for 1st day of CNY...

Even Fong Fong and Cleo were dressed in red...

Fong Fong receiving "ang pow"...

Refusing to be carried....

Fong Fong loves "playing" the piano...

Ladies dressed in their finest...

Family photo...

Toronto CNY 2

On Saturday, we hosted another CNY dinner for my Canadian Family - The Roach Clan. Mr. Bill Roach was my Program Director at Taylor's College when I was studying in the Canadian Pre-University Program. When I went to Canada for my undergrad, coincidentally, he returned to Canada as well. So we've kept in touch and I've spent every Christmas with them ever since. They really are family, and am really happy to celebrate CNY with them.

I cooked Popo's Stuffed Chicken, Keng Woon (Hainanese Mixed Vege), Tilapia marinated in ginger, garlic and soya sauce, stuffed mushrooms...etc. Sorry no pictures... forgot to take close-ups.

PARCEL from HOME
Every year, my parents send me a CNY parcel. It is full of goodies that I can't find here, and I greatly anticipate its arrival. This year's parcel finally arrived today :) YAY!!!

The parcel really warms my heart. It's a piece of home that I can hold on to. They also sustain me through mid-term exams, the dreary winter months and now job interviews. There's nothing like some keropok while you are burning the midnight oil. Although my parents ask me what I want, they always put little surprises in them :)

My parents are pros when it comes to protecting items that are fragile. Look at these bottles!!!

And the kerepek (love letters) and jam tarts arrived all in tact this year. Not even a crack! Previous years, sadly they arrived almost in powder form!



THANKS MA & PA :) I love you :)

Hi folks! This is Wei Lynn, William's younger sis. My Koko has agreed to share his blog with me :) In line with the title of the blog, I will share my life in Toronto with you through this blog. I did think of creating my own blog, but that meant you (readers), especially relatives, would have to keep track of yet one more blog... so I thought that I should save you the hassle and just "tumpang" on this blog-loh :)

This is my first Chinese New Year in a proper house of my own, sharing it with the love of my life. Instead of having a reunion dinner, we spent the day grocery shopping and preparing for the New Year Lunch for the 1st Day of CNY with our friends. It is madness to shop on the eve of CNY. The atmosphere is much like home with lots of CNY decorations, music and good wishes. The difference is that instead of sweating, I was freezing!!! We're in the thick of winter here... cold enough that ice sometimes forms INSIDE of the window.

Anyway, we had a dim-sum sort of CNY lunch where my guests made their own Spring Rolls. We made

my mum's Spring Rolls,

"Fa Cai" Stuffed Mushrooms(above & left), Honey Garlic Pork Ribs(below),


Siew Mai, Edamame (far left), Agar-Agar (pic to come)& my aunt's Honey Joys (below). Note that there is only one Honey Joy left... they are THAT GOOD :)
Even though this wasn't your traditional CNY Feast, we had a good time preparing the food, catching up with friends and welcoming the Golden Pig.

Hope you had a wonderful time with family and friends as well. Here's to a Happy, Healthy and Properous New Year! Xing Nian Kuai Le! Gong Xi Fa Cai :)

Anthony's Pics...

Ok, I do apologize to all of you for not updating my blog. I have been transferred to a subsidiary and have been busy assisting the COO in business planning. I don't want to go into details, but it has been crazy... late nights and not seeing Anthony for days on end...anyway things are settling down (hopefully)...

Laughing Buddha...

With my brother in law...

With my parents...

Trying to "scale" my stomach...

He can now sit by himself...

He can now hold his own bottle...

Father & Son...

Anthony's Baptism 18th June 2006 Sacred Heart Church KK, Sabah

In total there were 61 babies to be baptized. I was praying very hard for Fong Fong not to cry...imagine the noise...61 babies crying at the same time...


Anthony was fast asleep when the priest blessed him with oil. The cute little girl in the picture is Joanne our god daughter...


Changing his clothes after being baptized. He cried for a short while as he was startled when some of the holy water got into his eyes.


Incidentally, Joanne's parents (Cleo's Sister Carol and Husband Roland) are Anthony's godparents.


Newly baptized babies...do they look alike?


Clifford, Joanne's brother wants a piece of the action as well...

Golfing in Kota Kinabalu

While in KK I had the opportunity to play some golf. Cleo's cousing took me to Sutera Harbour which is rated as the best golf course in Sabah. The course is very well managed and rather friendly to the average golfer with its wide fairways, however having said that fairway bunkers are everywhere.


I reckon this is the best hole of the Sutera Harbour course...this is hole 5 on the Lake Course which plays as a par 4. From the tee box you get a fantastic view of the ocean, if I am not mistaken the island in the background is Manukan Island. I find this hole quite challenging as you will be teeing off against the wind. I can't wait till December to get back to KK and reacquaint myself with this fantastic hole.


I also had the opportunity to play at Kinabalu Golf Club which is regarded as the oldest golf club in Sabah. It was established in 1933. The pic shows the view from the club house which is overlooking the first hole.

It is a walking but short course. Although the first hole has a rather generous fairway, the rest of the holes places a premium on accuracy. This is a course where you definately do not want to get into the rough. The rough is very "rough", I used a 7 iron with the intention to "whack" my ball out of the rough but only managed to get 10 feet of distance....

I am now counting down the number of days left before I set foot in KK again...

Poring Hot Spring, Kinabalu Park
While in KK we decided to take a drive to the Kinabalu National Park which is roughly two and a half hours drive from Kota Kinabalu city.


Visitors are greeted by a sign indicating that Poring Hot Spring comes under the management of the World Heritage Site.


Initially I wanted to visit the bat cave and the waterfall, but a look at the board made me think twice. Walking more than 3KM while carrying a one year old todler is definately not practical!


After paying the entrance fee of RM3 per-person (foreigners pay RM20), we headed towards the hot spring entrance.


After the main entrance we had to cross a bridge...


After crossing the bridge, we headed towards the open air bath...


Basically, we had to choose an empty bath...wash it and fill it up with hot water.


While waiting for the bath to fill, I visited the hot spring pool. Notice that there is a sign behind me indicating that one should not soak in the pool as it is really hot. The pool is so hot that one can actually cook eggs in it!


Clifford seems to enjoy the water...I certainly did, I have to admit that the water has done wonders to my eczema infested skin...the redness and itchiness has disappeared!


Cleo insisted that I take a dip in the rock pool...the water was soooo cold...imagine jumping into an ice cold pool directly from a hot tub!!! I don't ever want to do it again, I was hyperventilating like mad!!

Anyway we spent about 3 hours at the hot spring before driving back to KK. The drive back was not really pleasant as it was raining heavily, further visibility was bad due to the mist.

Updates...

To you readers out there...sorry, have been too busy lately to blog. Don't even have time to go to the range to practice, I guess the showdown in KK will be a walk-over. I am not conceding defeat but just being practical...so I will just play and enjoy my game.

Well I have been home alone for one week plus now, Cleo and Anthony went back to KK and I am due to join them on the 15th. Did I enjoy being alone?

To tell you the truth, initially the first 2 days were ok...no crying...good sleep...drinking beer and smoking cigars...

But after 2 days of "freedom" I got tired of it!!! I miss my family!!!

Gosh I must be fully domesticated now...

Thoughts...

Well its been a pretty busy couple of weeks, I still have lots of work regarding the planning and establishment within the new set up. I am now responsible to develop and kick start some business initiatives. I am now in the phase of "decision tree" drawing in my business planning process.

Anyway, family wise it has also been challenging, Anthony really demands attention!!! Somehow must figure a way on how to "not carry him so much"... he likes to be carried...when we put him down he starts to cry...any advise?

Cleo and me watched the Da Vinci Code a couple of days ago...verdict? the film follows the book exactly in terms of storeyline as well as some of the actual conversation. I don't really get it...why are people so hyped up about it? yes I know its central theme is that Jesus maaried Mary Magdelene and they had a child...but hello?? its a work of fiction laaaa...

I mean I actually laughed/sniggered during the movie where Robert Langdon proclaimed to Spohie that "your actual surname is Plantard...which means you a descendant of the Merovingians...you are the sole living direct descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdelene..."

The movie/book has not shaken my faith in the Catholic Church/belief.

But what has really shaken my belief in humans is the senseless murder of a 7 year old boy...sigh what has our society come to?

What a day...

Sigh...its been an interesting day, finally I know what my boss's business direction is as well as what he wants me to do. Basically I am supposed to lead in business development and innovation, job function? To basically develop new products for our target industry....

The other interesting occurence in office is basically I had a disagreement with a co-worker over something that I cannot really remember now, anyway I got myself really worked up and just stormed out of his office fuming.

Anyway I went back later to apologize but he did not want to accept the appology...don't really blame him actually...

Not too professional on my part, but I stormed out as I did not want to say something that I would regret later...I just needed to calm myself down.

The damage has been done, I feel bad about it...actually I feel very bad...very very bad as I consider him a friend as well. In retrospect I should not have stormed out of the room.

If you are reading this blog...I know you sometimes read it...I humbly apologize.

Yong Tau Foo

Decided to try cooking yong tau foo by myself today, my mother-in-law taught me how to do it a couple of weeks ago.

Mince up roughly 200gm of meat. Season with some salt, pepper and corn flour.

Basically stuff various types of bean-crud, vege with the meat. Make sure that the meat is tightly lodged into the bean curd or vege, otherwise it will fall out during cooking. I bought the fried wan tan from the market...as I could not find fresh wan tan skin.


Deep fry the stuffed bean curd etc on a low flame so as to ensure that the meat stuffing is cooked.


For the gravy, I use salted soya beans(?? not too sure what type of beans it is). Mash the beans up and add half a cup of water plus half a tea spoon of corn flour.


Fry the gravy...do not add salt as the beans are already very salty...add water to decrease the saltiness...

Pour the gravy onto the stuffed bean curd and vege...serve piping hot...The roasted chicken in the picture is from ayamas given to us by Cleo's cousin for their daughter's full moon.

Baby Pics: 48 days old

Our first family photo...it took us roughly 20 mins to get the right picture...still not perfect as Anthony keeps on getting distracted...he is so curious now, everything is interesting to him!

Consultation = Peace of Mind

When bathing Anthony yesterday we noticed that his navel was bulging!! At first we were not worried but when Anthony started to cry the bulging navel was quite hard to the touch. I started to do some research on the net and concluded that it must be a condition known as umbilical hernia from the literature, this condition is apparently not harmful and will improve from age 5 onwards or towards puberty.

Quite statisfied that it is a not a harmful condition we never thought much about it until Anthony started to cry, whine, scream etc... thingking that it must be due to the bulging navel we took him to the pediatrician today.

The doctor took one look at the navel and said "oh, he has umbilical hernia...it is not harmful etc etc..."

Cost of consultation?? 50 bucks, oh well I am not complaining. I mean I am not a pediatrician, no matter what I read online there is still the niggling doubt..."what if I misintepreted the information...what if it is not umbilical hernia...what if etc"

So I guess paying the 50 bucks is worth it...at least it gives us peace of mind

I am not going to post a picture of what a Umbilical Hernia looks like neither am I going to describe it in detail...

You have to pay me 50 bucks consultation for me to do that!