I always find myself being sentimental around Chinese New Year, mainly because I'm away from home and I'm missing all the great food you get, like yee sang and Peking duck. I try to go back to Auckland for Chinese New Year at some point during the 15 day celebration - even if I do miss the actual day of Reunion Dinner, we usually do have one and its meaning isn't diminished in any way.

This year, though, my parents are back in Malaysia and I was feeling a bit lonely when my flatmate suggested I do something special for myself. And that snowballed into making my own Reunion Dinner. I've never cooked for that many people before but it turned out well!





I know these may not necessarily usually be associated with Chinese New Year foods but I'm not that great a cook :(

To top it off for dessert, we had vanilla ice cream with Alphonso mango puree, and Jono's chocolate birthday cake.

In any case, wishing you all Gung Hei Fatt Choi in the year of the Dragon!

Today is the 15th and final day of Chinese New Year, and I thought it would be appropriate to share a soppy love song at church this morning, so two weeks ago I recruited Jono and phonetically taught him some Mandarin and today, with all our friends watching eagerly and the church congregation not knowing what to expect, the two of us sang Tong Hua.

So nervewracking. I actually stuffed up in the middle of the song but thank goodness I managed to hit the right note to keep going.

Anyway, last night we were at Arashi celebrating the "end of Chinese New Year" ¬_¬ and it was just great for everyone to get together and catch up over a nice meal and an awesome dessert.

Strawberry Fare has three new desserts on their menu! I wanted to try the Chocolate Bleeding Heart which was chocolate pudding with Baileys in the centre, but unfortunately they had run out so I tried the Lime Tart which was absolutely delicious. Beth tried the Flourless Cake, which was a gluten free chocolate cake with some berries, much like the Raspberry Drenched Cake.

We were approached by a lady from a nearby Hen's Night table who was seeking a random guy for the bride-to-be to kiss and Dave volunteered, with hilarious results. We continued to analyse Dave's love life using the wine bottles, wine glasses and salt and pepper shakers to illustrate various people.

Last weekend I was up in Auckland for Hsin-Yao's wedding, so it was really good catching up with all my school mates at the same time. I figured I would leave the people photos for someone else to handle (I'm looking at you, Mat) so all you will see on my blog are food photos. You'll also notice we went to Sylvia Park to kill time between the church service and the reception, and I stumbled upon EB's shelf of Rugby League 3 games! \o/

On Sunday, I randomly turned up at KCC and attended the young adults bible study, before having Chinese New Year dinner with family and friends, before an 11 hour bus back to Wellington...

Happy Chinese New Year to you all, and wishing you wealth and prosperity in the year of the tiger! A bunch of us from Sidhe had yum cha at where else but Majestic Cuisine, where we proceeded to devour plates of dumplings, rice noodles, tarts and buns. Of course, I made everyone have the durian tart, and much to their surprise, it was tolerable! It was unlike anything else they had ever eaten...

It was good that Chinese New Year was yesterday and not today, because today was Epic Fail Monday. Fail #1: car rear ends another car in moderately heavy traffic outside the bus stop. Fail #2: I spent the entire day trying to get a build done to our level designer, only to have the machine have a major spazz and refuse to work. Sigh.

Nevertheless, I did manage to complete a build and deliver it, at approximately 6.45pm. It means I wasted the whole day on this instead of finishing my prototype which needs to be done by Friday... SIGH.

Okay yeah, I've been pretty much working on the BIG SECRET EXCLUSIVE SITE every night of the week, so of course that means blogging gets pushed out.

Anyway, Friday Fail is a term used by our senior programmer, Steve, on Fridays when we meet for our daily meeting at the couch area at work, and browse FailBlog. Steve left us on Tuesday, and now there is a failure of Friday Fail, and as a result, team morale was lower than usual and heaps of things ended up breaking.

Last week, in recognition of Steve leaving, we booby trapped our game for his last Show and Tell. He demonstrated our progress on the game and spoke about the various changes we made. As he wrapped up, we got him to go back to the main menus and *bam*, we sprung a picture of him in his "underpants costume" from Halloween (this was from his old work place), accompanied by Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On". Needless to say, his mouth gaped open for a good half minute and he scurried off stage. We'll miss you, Steve.

Show and Tell usually happens on a Friday, but as you're all aware, last week was Waitangi Weekend, so immedately after Show and Tell I had to rush to the airport and catch a flight back to Auckland. As tradition stands, I made a beeline to Momo Tea in Mt. Albert, and hung out with my youth group, having some hearty food and some delicious drinks.

Friday morning I had music practice, and following that, Bob's unsurprise barbeque at Ray's place. This pretty much lasted the whole day, with some awesome food and lots of Rock Band. No Stephen, this was the PS3 version so we didn't play Still Alive. We played some outdoor badminton too, until we started getting attacked by the mosquitos. Towards the end of the night, we hung out for more drinks at EasyWay and played last card, until we were pretty much sick of last card and headed our seperate ways.

On Saturday I pretty much lazed around, but in the afternoon I met up with Mat and Will and took a stroll around Albert Park, just observing the lanterns and inhaling the wonderful aromas of the roadside food. It was a gloriously hot day, and I am often reminded about the surprisingly large temperature difference between Auckland and Wellington.

I spent Saturday night with family for our reunion dinner, which I would say was the main purpose of the trip. I dunno, I kinda feel very sentimental about these things, I was a bit disappointed about missing Chinese New Year last year. Family's important to me, and reunion dinner is just one of those symbolic meals that you share with family, a bit like how Christmas is so important to some people.

Sunday was pretty much church and lunch at (where else) Ha Long, before I caught up with my sister, who insisted on showing me various painted windows, her coffee table, her new laptop and her photo board. And before long, it was time to head back to the airport and start the journey back to Wellington. Sigh.

Wishing you Gong Xi Fa Cai in the year of the Ox!

I just got back from Parachute 09, after a mammoth seven hour car ride from Mystery Creek, Hamilton. It was an absolutely fantastic weekend, full of sunshine, friends, fellowship and worship. I saw the likes of Late 80's Mercedes, Luke Thompson, Dave Dobbyn, Nathan King, David Crowder, Kutless and Casting Crowns. Saturday night was full of excitement and adrenaline, and Sunday night was full of praise, worship and fun.

Definitely one of the better Parachute events I've been to - looking forward to the big 20th Birthday Bash next year!

PS: Photos to come.

Edit: Been having some weird server config issues that locked me out of the admin panel. Anyway, photos are up.

Wishing you all a safe, prosperous and peaceful year of the Rat in 2008!

Anyway, I finally got my new pair of glasses today from OPSM. They feel very light and...omg I can totally see everything now -.- So for future reference, in case I forget, my powers are 150 left and 100 right.

Also, I walked home today. Health++;
In jeans. Comfort--;
Via a scenic route. Health++;
With lots of hills. Comfort--;
But it was nice and sunny (a huge change from the last few days) so overall, it was a good walk. I doubt I will be doing that again, at least not in jeans.

Anyway, it's nearing the end of my first week at work. I'm still training - I've just been programming a competency test and revising/refactoring my code so it conforms with company standards, and also learning how to make it well structured and extensible and all that jazz. Got to meet a few new faces today (because I have to report to the HR Manager tomorrow with their names).