Gong Xi Fa Cai ~ Happy Lunar New Year !

oh well, in the part of the world i live in, the lunar new year is a BIG deal .. more celebrated than even Xmas and the new year of the gregorian calendar .. preparations for the New Year start weeks before, with the ladies all stocking up festive food and grocery .. days to the new year itself, you see the prices of the lunar new year special, literally sky rocket .. my favorite box of pineapple tarts, a season special goodie cost four times the price i saw it two weeks back .. but well, this place had never looked this festive, ever! this year, the golden yellow and red did not feel like an overdose, and i did enjoy the shopping around with my east asian colleagues .. there were endless specials on TV and every shopping mall played the (in) famous "Gong Xi Gong Xi" song - Gong Xi Fa Cai, i believe means smthing to the effect of may you be more prosperous =)

To me chinese new year symbolizes (usually) a time to realise that its 6 wks into the year, and invariably nothing much wud be accomplished work wise .. so its a time of realisation, if not correction and reform .. most of all, its a good two-three day break from the normal grind, so more than welcome .. then of course the festive season keeps everyone around you cheerful, and i guess, naturally eases any tension that should surround you .. on more casual note, there's all the chinese new year tarts and goodies, various teas and colorful tit bits .. =D

this time round, i had planned to get off this place, tk a flight out to one of the holiday spots close by and spend a quiet few days with a couple of close frenz - turns out quiet is not quite destined to be me, and close frenz .. nopes, none free enough to take a trip out (assuming, i can tk it they'd want to go otherwise) .. a couple of my frenz did go, but i'd be like the sore thumb stretching out in their group, so gave that a miss .. so when i started the lunar new year break all i looked fwd to was a two day break, with no assignments, no meetings - just to relax, sleep and be by myself .. turned out, my life's never quite the way i plan it to be .. so ended up on a wild goose chase at this far off shop where we decided we'd cook some ethnic food .. so we had shop for everything, starting from the utensils and cereals - for one thing 'cos we'd never attempted anything like that - cooking was just so not my thing to do .. and for the second, we were just terribly inadequately equipped .. so there, we spent like more than half a day at what would probably have been the only grocery store open in the whole country picking out things we thought we'd need after a quick perusal of some online recipes .. then began the process - yupz, was putting my (almost non existent) cullinary skills to test as i cooked dinner that evening, well well well .. the verdict - turned out not so bad .. infact, it was pretty damn good! so much so that i was invited to make lunch the next morning =) awesome eh?! my mom wouldnt believe i could actually cook, that too without her being around telling how much of what to put into what dish .. hehe .. but, yoz .. this was done! =) by late evening on the second day however, it reached some kinda summit, where i said enough was enough and ran out to the nearest kentucky's to grab some fries and fast food .. topped it up with some nice dessert before settling in to deep slumber again, for the lunar new year break was over, and it was back to normal, work and toil .. not for long though, for it was friday already - and the weekend was almost there ..