Chinese New Year of Monkeys, Food and Cactus Plants

Published by simon on February 23, 2007

Wow, what a Chinese New Year week it has been for me.

In the past 8 days, I’ve:

• Traveled more than 750km up and down the country;
• Ate lots (and lots) of good food;
• Went jogging in the blazing hot sun almost everyday wherever I was (and prolly lost a kilo of sweat while at it);
• Watched lots of TV, too. Good TV and bad TV.
• And got to spend a lot of time reading.

Anyway, as a recap, here’s a short log of my trip, plus some pics. I should have taken more pics, I know…:

Friday, The Day Before CNY Eve:

It was a long 2-hour drive back to Johor, not helped by the hot weather &%#$% road expansion works on the PLUS Highway. Traffic wasn’t bad though, except for some suicidal speeders cutting in and out of the construction lanes…

Upon reaching home, I did the usual post driving ritual – sleep it off. Evening – jogged a few miles in the sweltering heat. After that, a visit to the famous monkey park. If you come to my hometown, you MUST go there in the evenings. We feed them bread skins from my mom.

Saturday, New Year’s Eve:

By the second day, my kids are tired of playing with my old matchbox cars in my mom’s glass cabinet. Didn’t help my their dad (that’s me) keeps telling them “this is the fastest car I have… this one can open the doors one…” Hey, matchbox cars were a LUXURY for us back then, okay…?

Jogging again, Monkey park again (I think the primates are getting tired of us). There’s nothing really good to watch on TV during CNY, but I caught some Premier League Snooker. Checked my mail on my brother’s ancient PC (some parts missing).

Here, monkey, monkey… the whole park is one huge rubbish dump after all the food they feed the monkeys with.

At night, my wife made dinner, plus shark fin’s soup. We bought the ingredients from Tesco here in KL for a very cheap price. Yes, I know finning is cruel, but Campbell’s Soup just doesn’t feel festive.

My mom’s collection of prickly cacti which we use to torture our neighbour’s cat.

Sunday, First Day of the New Year:

We stopped going back to Malacca for CNY for a long time, so we just stay at home these days. We went round looking for a lion dance performance, but sadly we didn’t find any.

Watched MORE television. And Kung Fu Hustle for the 15th time already.

Dad b’day cake. We scoured the house for cake decor, so guess what did we use…?

We celebrated Dad’s birthday, he was born on the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year. He’s probably wishing for a THIRD grandchild.

Monday, Second Day of the New Year:

My cousin comes to visit enroute back from Malacca to Singapore, and after that, it’s back to KL. My mom follows us back to the city for the week. Probably to escape the dreariness of small town Malaysia.

Next: Journey up north and some real photos, i promise…

Technorati Tags: Chinese New Year, Malaysia, monkey

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