Salt and Vinegar: CNY 2009

Wa lao the amount of pics i had to edit~so tedious~ i dun understand how some ppl have the time to photoshop their pics. Even trademarking my pics also i dun bother to do cos cropping the pics are already tedious enough for me. So as promised these are some of the numerous CNY pics which summarized my wonderful Chinese New Year week~

Plus i cant stand having my youtube vids overlapping with my sidebar~ damn ugly so i'm using this post to push all the videos down.

This new year no dragon dance to greet me~bloody economic crisis~ just some guys dressed as dolls??Anyway had the dong dong dong chiang atmosphere so better than nothing la.

Squint and you just might see it~

Next up off to 2nd uncle and his ang moh wife's amazing antique garden house.

The usually lonely 'couple and one maid house' becomes filled to the brim with relatives.

No such thing as being shy shy in the Ho family. Everyone just terus make themselves at home and helping themselves to the food while waiting for the 'Mee suah' to be ready.

Aunty and maid hard at work preparing mee suah with the works~ pork meat, intestines,garnishes and chinese wine can all be customized into the mee suah and chicken soup.How come my ang moh aunty can prepare this traditional dish while i a true blue chinese cannot? Note to self:must learn next time.

The garden keeps getting prettier~

Xiu Hui is back from New Zealand for good~

Damn nice house~ looks so Peranakan. I think this is a 'Little Nyonya' fans idea of a perfect home.I have friends who actually travel to Mallaca to enjoy the 'Little Nyonya' experience.

Next up my house for lunch~ we left the uncle's house to go ta pao KFC for the kids and when we came back all the relatives have already started menyerbu our house.

Nice dragon uh.. ornament thing

Latest addition to the family~ dunno her name la but everyone calls her 'liang liang'

Preexisting kiddies. Not hard to tell which are sisters yeah?

Cousins~the one next to me is my malay-chinese cousin who studies in a chinese school so her bahasa melayu and mandarin is more fluent than me boo hoo~ Farosha is like the most popular girl in school i heard

Must take more photos of the new addition

This is Ziyi or is it Ziying? Anyway she is damn cute. She still looks the same as last year but now she can talk! Love kids who are fluent in mandarin cos the way they pronounce the words are so cute. So anyway she took a piece of KFC on her polystyrene plate carefully balances it and plops herself at the foot of the stairs and starts walloping the drumstick.

Caught in action~

So as per tradition dinner was at my auntie's wooden double storey kampung bungalow which nowadays unfortunately have become more of a foreign workers living quarters.

Anyway still love the charm of old wooden houses.

Ziying overseeing the gambling session. Daniel posing as are everyone in the background.

I have loads of gambling pics but dunno can put up or not~ you noe la its illegal to gamble bla bla bla~

And i love the random fireworks that go off on CNY. This pics was taken after a particularly glorious fireworks display.

Instead of going to Desaru on the second day we staayed back and went to my 2nd aunties house for her new year lunch~ haha but din take many pics. Just this one of Dan enjoying the massage chair. I think the chair was overworked that day.

On the 4th day on New year we went to Desaru~ after going to Kuala Rompin for 2 years.

Compared to when i was young, Desaru have gone downhill with so many hotels and resorts closing down~ but the beach is still clean though and thats all that matters no? And i heard Desaru Impian(the resort with a theme park) is reopening next year so definitely looking forward to that.

But i'm afraid my dad has really taken a liking to the chalets we stayed at this year. Ha ha managed to book one of the few superior chalets available in Desaru Holiday Chalet. Initially had booked a family chalet or super double chalet (only RM160) but does not come with a TV or hot shower!! cos all the superior chalets were fully booked.

But due to an apparently last minute cancellation, we managed to get a superior chalet (300 bucks) which does come with a TV and hot shower- very important cos the sea was rough and the wind blew right into the chalet ler.

And a jetty was right in front of our chalet no 6.

Cheapest beach front view ever~

The beach taken from the jetty.

Oh and there was a little river/pond between the chalets and the beach.

Initially we were given superior chalet no 2 but the toilet was not working so since check in time was 3 pm and we were there at 12pm Daniel asked to see the other chalets so she gave us keys to chalet no1 which was worse.

Luckily my mom went scouting around and noted that chalet 5-9 looked newer and cleaner and that no6 had an astro dish. So she asked whether anyone had moved in those chalets and the reception girl said no. So to cut a long story short we took no.6 which had a functioning toilet and dark wood balcony. The interior is the same la~ Malay kampung house style with no frills but it was comfortable and clean enough.

Superior chalet no 6.

The view from the chalet~

When we first reached Desaru Holiday Chalet the water pipe had just burst so no one had any water so it took a while for the cleaner to clean our place and for them to fix the burst pipe.They managed to fix it by 4pm though and meanwhile we took in the sights.

Neither of us can swim but we were just being wuliao~

It was like our own private beach~

Ha ha and a walk away was a river connected to the sea with a romantic bridge and boat and all.

With some wooden structures at the shallow end which we used for survivor type challenges.

Posers~

The sea is connected to the river like so~

The shallow end was nice and clean and clear with baby tilapias(which we tried in vain to catch) swimming around but shall not comment on the deep end~ looks filthy.

Mandatory climbing up coconut tree pose.

Love my sunnies~

As do Daniel~

And Ben

Give me back~

Pebble beach~ collected loads of pebbles for my Dad's fish tank

My mom and me

The interior of the Desaru Holiday chalet superior chalet for anyone who is interested.

I could not find any pics besides the official sites of the inside of the chalet so was apprehensive to book it initially. So i'm now sharing this for ppl who wanna research on where to stay in Desaru.

Pikachu

The backyard looks really nice

And at the far end are the cheaper chalets which are ok i guess if u dun mind cold showers and no TV. We went to survey at night~ and everyone was BBQ ing . Like they came with droves of people so it was like a perkampungan orang cina so i guess TV to them was secondary. Imagine a small single storey house with a sea view and u get the picture. The atmosphere was great though.

He he~

Like our house liddat~

kaka~

Cos there was rain that night and it was high tide the water from the sea overflowed into the river which hada blind end. So the fish was stuck there till the next high tide.So the clever uncle started fishing at the shaded jetty~this is his catch in 20 mins