1st 2 Days of CNY

Chinese New Year is the single most important festivity that the Chinese everywhere celebrates. And usually, it is very easy to determine if Chinese New Year's just around the corner. Why? Cos' just about everything and anything sold during this period will have some form of red splashed all over given that "ang" (the colour red) is deemed auspicious by the Chinese.

Although one could spend monthsss in preparation for CNY (think: spring cleaning, stocking up of CNY delicacies, home decorating, shopping etc etc), CNY comes and goes fairly quickly. Gone were the days where companies close shop for the entire 15 days to celebrate CNY. These days, you'll need to take your own annual leave if you wanna enjoy the holidays longer. I for one will be starting work on Chor Sei (4th Day of CNY).

Thus to me... CNY celebration centrals around 4 important days... i.e. the first 4 days of CNY and here's an account on how I spent the first 2 days:

Nin Sam Sup (Day 30th)
Chinese New Year celebration officially begins with the reunion dinner where family members near or far will make it home for the reunion dinner. Special efforts will also be put in to create dishes with special meanings in Chinese:

After dinner, we would then proceed to drinking... Nah... don't be deceived by the photo, these are for collections only... we had red wine, white wine and also sampled some rice wine... yup, you guessed it right... I was kinda tipsy after that...

Nin Chor Yat (1st Day of CNY)
The first day of CNY is usually the best time of the entire CNY and is especially true for those who are unmarried (like me). Chor Yat is usually the day where relatives will be visiting one another and every year my house's the gathering place for all my uncles and aunties. This means that:

(1) There'll be plenty of moolahs to collect... in the form of Ang Pau's (usually given to kiddos and those unmarried). Although relatives tend to say "last one ar, last one..." to me (on a yearly basis), I don't see anything wrong in me receiving Ang Pau from them. In fact, I will never be ashamed to receive Ang Paus from practically anyone and will usually be the first one to holler out Gong Hei Fatt Choy to relatives... hehehe... it's afterall moolah you know... and day 1 of CNY... I've already received over RM1K of moolah (evil laugh):

(2) Plenty of laughter over another scrumptious CNY meal where everyone takes turn to makan at the dining room...

(3) Monopoly Sessions. Gatherings of relatives (young and old) would only be complete with a game of monopoly or two... Yours truly won 140 monopoly currency this year... Note: No picture of us playing monopoly...

That was how I spent the first 2 days of CNY... more about CNY after this...