Year of the Golden Piggie

Last year was the year of the Dog in the Chinese zodiac sign calendar. The ang pows that I gave away was specially custom-made to feature a picture of my Coffee baby on it (coz it was the Year of the Dog mah!).

I am back to using normal ang pows this year simply coz I do not have a pet piggie; although I have to admit that I am very tempted to put my bro's face on the ang pows (coz he was born in the Year of the Piggie wah!). Heehee!

I have been spending my Chinese New Years in Malaysia ever since I got married. The Hubby is Malaysian from this small town called Kluang in the state of Johor (and no, it is NOT Johor Bahru - they are two different places!). It is the annual challenge we have to go through to get across the Straits in one piece and arrive in time for the Reunion Dinner. I remember there was one year where we arrived in time for the Reunion Supper! Ha!

Anyways, we had more flexibility this year since CNY eve was a non-working day. We left our house on Saturday morning (at 2am!) and I wanted McDonald's breakfast. But since its only 2am, they were still serving non-breakfast food; so I had to be contented with a Fillet-O-Fish. Went to pick up my sisters-in-law at 3am and by the time we reached Kulang, it was 530am!

You would be surprised but there was actually a short line-up at both sides of the immigration and customs at the ungodly hour! So there are other Singaporeans/Malaysians that are as crazy as us. But I guess all we wanted to do was to avoid the horrendous jam during the "normal" hours. There was once we spent 2 hours stuck in the jam; which is about the same amount of time it takes us to drive to Kluang.

I didn't do much (or a lot depending on how you look at it) over the 4 full days we spent in Malaysia. I jogged an hour everyday. I finished 5 novels. I used my mama-in-law's sewing machine to alter a blouse (and saved SGD15!). I watched enough TV to last me for the whole of this year. I ate tons of Chinese New Year tidbits and had lots of nice yummy home-cooked food. Yum! All in all, its a nice break to be back in Malaysia and be away from all the craziness that is usually associated with the Singapore Chinese New Year.

There is going to be more feasting when I get back to Singapore after this: lunches and dinners with different groups of frens and my family. I need to continue my daily jogs....