1. Visiting on DAY 1 ~Lunar New Year~
Weeee~ I have the whole afternoon to stay at home and blog as much as possible before I meet up with my family in the evening for dinner to celebrate my grandpa’s birthday.
Actually, I doubt that it’s really his real birthday but we’ll still have dinner anyway.
Back to the topic…
Every year on the first day of Lunar New Year, my family would go visiting. It’s almost like “Trick-o-Treat”ing except that we don’t play tricks or wear outrageous costumes (though that would be so cool!!) or visit strangers’ homes. We visit homes of relatives to clear their homes of goodies!! :P
For this year, we woke up at like 12pm?? Sleep is important y’all know~
Had steamboat (again) for lunch. This time, the fare was much simpler because we were basically having leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. Furthermore, there were no guests so who cares?
After lunch, we dressed up (not in costumes, like I said, but in new clothes) and went out to visit. Ain’t my shoes cool? I think I’ve gotten one size too small because it’s slightly tight at the front and I don’t really feel comfortable in them. Oh well~ That’s what happens when you don’t buy shoes frequently; you don’t even know your own shoe size.
Rena came along to go visiting with us too!!
Busy woman still on the phone; probably calling Laura to ask where the hell she was.
There she is~ I love what she was wearing, by the way. But I know of another pair of shoes that Sheena has that matches the look even more. Laura just came back from visiting Yong Xiang’s family and was just in time to go for her second round with us. This photo was taken from the top of the multi-storey car park to “celebrate” her arrival.
Off we go on my father’s van to the first location~
The roads were pretty packed on Day 1, probably because everyone’s out visiting relatives and friends. I think that a Lunar New Year without visiting is meaningless and no fun because I’ve been doing that since my very first new year when I was just a baby and it means a lot to me.
And we reached our first location; my grandma’s house along Marymount road. This terrace is really old (I think since my mom’s times). This whole pile of literally trash is collected by my grandfather, much to everyone’s dismay. The entire house is filled with trash and random stuff which my grandfather refuse to throw away. He has a bad habit of collecting nonsense just for the sake of keeping them. Weird hobby much?
We were pretty late… But oh well~ We had been late for the past few years because we are such sleepyheads. And no, that clock was not picked up from some garbage dump, much to popular belief.
The back of my grandfather and my adorable grandma… I think they were discussing how much money to put inside the ang pao or something in our presence. Not very subtle right?
You know what’s really cool about my grandparents’ house? They have a jackfruit tree that they had planted many years ago (probably decades) in front of their terrace and it actually bears fruits! Vera is enjoying one of them. Apparently, the tree plays an important role in my mom’s childhood because they used to play around it or throw things at it (so they said…).
You’re on candid camera!!
When my grandma is seriously watching TV…
If I’m not mistaken, I did blog about Lunar New Year on this blog last year, did I not? Or was it on another blog? Oh heck~ Anyway… Every year when we visit our grandparents’ terrace, we will be praying that it doesn’t rain because we will always go for our annual photo shoot at the playground. This is the re-interpretation of one of Leon’s older photos.
And Rena re-interpreted one of Vera’s older shots with a more cheeky face. :P Well, this is one of the 5 (I think 5…) interpretations that Rena did. The rest of them are on facebook (restricted to friends only :D), if you want to see.
See-saw made of metal. I still remember the days when see-saws were just made of a single plank of wood in a sand pit.
A few years back, we managed to squeeze like 6 of us inside that hut but now, squeezing 4 adult-sized teenagers into this hut meant for kids proved to be a challenge.
Vera’s look for Day 1. Somehow, it looks nicer on photo than seeing the look in person. I don’t get the top and the “Ali-baba” pants because the overall shape is all over the place.
Leon and Vera. Just to claim some credit, I helped Leon with his sleeves~
Nick has been offering his butt for photos these few days and I think it deserves a good kick. :P
There’s this big web structure at the playground where kids get to weave through it and climb up high. Nick did that and didn’t get stuck (surprisingly). For the more arty-farty version of this creative, visit: http://broylim.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/webbed/ (Yes~ I’m shamelessly promoting nega+ive all over the place)
Despite breaking his arm, being hospitalized and being temporary disabled once, Leon still went ahead to do this “flag” thing. I’m not staying in the hospital to accompany him if he ever breaks anything else again. >:)
Well, here’s me and probably the only me you’ll see in this post. I think photographers are more interested in taking photos of others than themselves. Anyway, this year, I chose to wear shorts because they are so much cooler and they are more ME. I hate wearing jeans because they are uncomfortable and their pockets are too small. :P
LOVE THE LIGHT!! Laura’s look consists of this “dress”, accessorized with a belt and heels. If you remove the belt, the whole dress looks like an oversized denim shirt.
Something like this.
Laura and Rena.
Cool eyes no? In case you didn’t noticed, Laura has a weird issue with her eyes because one of her eye has a double eyelid while the other is single. That makes the shape of her eyes slightly different. But she sure can smile with them anyway~
Time for group shots!! When Chua Ying Ying was looking through the photos on facebook, she said I managed to steal the limelight in most of the group shots. HAHAHAHA~ Must be because of the outrageous poses. Anyway, my Kaka helped to take the photos using a tripod and remote.
Ain’t my legs slim? :P
Another one…
That’s the advantage of wearing shorts; your legs won’t get restricted and they draw more attention to yourself!
More shameless legs…
The only group shot where I didn’t manage to steal the limelight because there were no legs. :P
And how could we be so mean to leave my Kaka out? Took this picture despite my father constantly calling me to go back to my grandma’s house because we were about to leave for our next location.
After cam-whoring, we went back to my grandma’s house and before we left, we went upstairs to my uncle’s bedroom (which is on the third storey) to say goodbye. We are well-mannered people, no? While walking down the stairs to the ground floor, I took this photo. Did you know that even my mom is afraid of this staircase because it’s so narrow, dark and steep? And it’s also filled with trash, just like the rest of the house.
Off we went to the second location of the day. Aik Hin went with us for the first time and he drove, which was convenient for my sister. They didn’t know the directions to the next location so they followed behind my father’s van. Managed to take this photo of my sister from the back of the van.
I don’t really know where the second location is but it’s one of my mom’s aunt’s house (or so I believe). Laura gave this diva-ish pose with the bag of tangerines and her face is funny.
Rena loved my mom’s aunt’s house simply because she can clear the stock of the Ferrero Rocher there and she wasn’t shy to announce it to us when she said “YES! 有Ferrero Rocher吃了!” And the few of us cleared almost the full box of Ferrero Rocher!
And every year, my cousins, aunt, uncle and nephews will visit this household too. Somehow, we are always able to meet up with each another here and it’s one of those rare moments where we actually meet them. Few years ago, they were all single but not available but now, they are all married and that means more ang paos! :P This photo is my cousin-in-law and cousin with my youngest nephew, Javen. :)
Vera did her hair in a messy bun. Well, it’s beats letting her monstrous hair down.
The aunt knows that we love our Ferrero Rocher and brought refills! :P So kind of her~ *pops one into my mouth while typing this sentence*
This is one of my favorite shots of the day! Blissful mom and baby who has no clue what the hell is going on.
BAAAAAABBBBBBBYYYYYYY~~~~
In case you think I’m showing favoritism to the youngest nephew, I’m not because the elder boy was playing with his father downstairs when I went shutter-happy. Managed to get a splendid shot of grown up Javier and his father just before we left for our third location.
While waiting for my father to drive his vehicle down to pick us up, Laura was first like this…
Then she went like this… Evil look~
While I was on the van, lying down on the freshly spread cardboard and cushions, I managed to take a very blurry yet ghostly photo of Rena and using Lightroom, I made her inner monster shine~ I told her to set this as her display picture or something as deterrent.
And we arrived at our third location; my father’s uncle’s home at Ang Mo Kio, just across the road to my old house (which is now gone). I LOVE THIS POSE by the way~ The angles, the legs~~
This looks like some shoe advertisement. The photo is not posed because She was really trying to get her shoes on. Just look at the feet that’s on the ground; the shoe’s undone.
I don’t think I showed off Rena’s look for Day 1 yet right? She wore this white dress with heels that were chucked in the darkest corners of her house and had finally gotten to see daylight for once.
Happy people.
This looks like an ad for some casual boutique~ Again, Laura’s workin’ it!!
Queen of Unglam meets Explorer of under arms.
This is a little Rated R, don’t you think? :P
There are times when you suddenly feel like there’s nothing to photograph of and that’s exactly what happened at my father’s uncke’s (which is also my uncle, what am I talking about~) house. Sometimes, I get discouraged by bad lighting… But this little bunny cheered me up a little.
We didn’t stay long at this uncle’s house because there were nothing much to do. So basically caught up a little, sat down and entertained ourselves a little and eventually left for our next location which was just a couple of blocks away. Took this photo from the reflection of the ceiling of the elevator and realized that I was using the wrong lens so only I got caught in the frame. :P
More Ferrero Rocher!! Visited a distant relative house and just sat there and stuffed our faces some more. Lunar New Year can be translated to “You can’t help it but get fat”.
My father complained that I’ve been snapping pictures of everything but him so this photo is to make him happy a little bit, using Vera as a prop. :P
If you followed me on twitter (shame on you if you didn’t!!), you would have known that I took family portraits of people I barely know. Heck~ I never even talk to them at all!! But my father went around telling everyone that I can take family portraits so okay, here’s one!! And I actually like it because of the energy and radiance from every single one of them despite them not knowing who’s photographing them.
But~ I do know that they are SOMEHOW related to me but you know, family connections are complicated so I rather not learn about it. Some of them are uncles that I’ve seen before while some (especially those cool looking teenagers), I’ve never encountered. Well, if you’re one of them in the photo, don’t be a stranger! Tag in my tagboard and tell me!! :)
And the last location of every Lunar New Year; my aunt’s/grandparents’/little monstrous cousins with their matured sister’s home. That’s where I had white hair noodles called mee sua for dinner. Honestly, I think Kaka makes better mee sua because there’s more veggies in it. :P
How the mee sua looks like with the soup, minced meat, mushrooms and sausages. It’s not bad but where are my veggies?!
Basket of tangerines by a pomelo. If you don’t know what a pomelo is, google “Lime Cat”. The pop culture internet meme has a pomelo on its head and it’s so ADORABLE!!
We didn’t stay long at my 小姑’s house because we were all tired and stuff and besides, we normally reserve the whole of Day 2 (Stay tuned! I’m still rushing the post out!!) just to chill and nap at her house. So, we left shortly after dinner to retire back at home. Well, my family retired while I was rushing out photos until 3am in the morning…
Before ending, I shall show off the amount of red packets I got on the first day which amounts to around 2 ayumi hamasaki Love songs limited edition. :P Not much as compared to those rich ass-es out there who receive over a thousand bucks annually but good enough for me. :)
And when I knew that my finances are good, I hit pre-order for ayumi hamasaki’s ayu-mi-x 7 LIMITED COMPLETE BOX SET, set to be released on the 30th of March. So excited!!
Well, shall end here and take a break before I continue on to Day 2~~ Must finish everything before I book in tomorrow morning… Not looking forward to it… :(
