26th to 27th January 2009
Today is the first day of Lunar New Year. I woke up afresh since I fell asleep last night pretty early. First thing when I was up is to wash-up and then grab two nice and big Mandarin Oranges and give blessings to my mum. She had woken up much earlier than me and the rest of the family members. My brother and sister-in-law are still sleeping and thus I will have to wait to give them blessings with the Mandarin Oranges.
While waiting for them I prepared my clothing to be worn later while visiting my elders. I had actually prepared them yesterday night but it was crumbled again after I left them on the bed and slept on it. However, it was not a difficult task since I am pretty good at ironing nowadays, thanks to wifey.
When my baju is ready my brother and sis-in-law are up as well. I gave them the blessings and they in return gave me a red packet. Now I have 9 red packets in total just from my family. There after I went kitchen to take breakfast. The whole family will be eating vegetarian in the morning to show respect to the gods that we pray.
I went back to my room waiting for wifey's call wondering if he has got a good night's sleep. My brother and sis-in-law had gotten dressed and drove the kids to the in-laws to give them blessings and greetings for the Lunar New Year. This is the routine yearly and it usually takes about 2 hours. Thereafter they will come back and drove me and mum together with all the kids to visit my elder uncle and my aunty.
By the time the visiting is done, it was about 2.00pm in the afternoon. My sisters are also on the way to our house to give mum blessings, which I have to give them too since they gave me red packets. All my siblings arrived one after another and by around 3.30pm, most of them are here except for my 2nd sister and 3rd sister. Since my condo sis is here I borrowed her car and proceed to fetch wifey.
Wifey had done up the hamper he prepared for my mum. It is very beautifully done and I am so proud of him. When we reached my house, I have to proceed to give blessing to my other two sisters who arrived during my absence. Wifey gave the hamper to my mum and use the Mandarin Oranges I prepared for him to give blessings to my mum. Of course he was given red packets by my siblings and my mum also.
After that we joined my siblings for a fun game of blackjack (money involved). Since wifey is not suppose to gamble, he sat beside me while I play. Once in a while he will take the cards and play as well. It was fun as this is the only time the family hold no prejudice against one another and money is not the main issue of quarrel.
At the end of the game, we did not win any money neither did we lose any money. The situation was a tie for us. My condo sis loses the most while her winnings are mostly channeled to my eldest sis's kids who are playing with us.
Around 6 plus my siblings had to leave since they will need to get home to prepare in case there are people visiting them. Also my brother planned to go Chinatown for a walk with my mum and all. Me and wifey have our own plans so we proceed to the kitchen to have dinner first (steamboat again).
After the dinner me and wifey head out to his place as we need to get ready for a night of clubbing. As we leave, my aunty came to visit my mum. I did not stay back to entertain them as I do not really like them as well. ME and wifey just head straight for cab to his place where we prepare our baju and also rest for a short while.
We took a cab and pick up Brendan on the way, there after heading to St. James. It was the last night for Fabulous before they relocate. There is a long queue despite the fact that we reached early around 10.30pm. Luckily my colleague Matthew and his boyfriend are already in the queue and we joined them, saving us some time.
While waiting wifey saw my friend Kai-Xin and her husband. Wifey recognize them as he accompanied me to their wedding dinner. Guess the secret is out when they saw me and wifey together as well as Matthew and his bf. However, they did not ask too much and this seem like nothing to them. Very obvious as Kai-Xin's friends who are with them are both PLUs and their manners so telling people that they are.
Matthew's bf is an ang-mo but he is very friendly. Although the queue was long, he waited patiently with all of us. However, he was unhappy about the service quality as he has to wait 20 minutes to get his bill when he purchases a jug of vodka lime. He told me that this is very unacceptable as it is way too slow and inefficient.
Later on as we want to go dance floor he had also refused to join us. In the end only me and wifey and Matthew are on the dance floor. As the place is very very pack, we hardly get to dance happily. Matthew went up the platform to dance. He wanted to drag me and wifey up but we are too shy hahaha. Left him alone while we dance to each other. Matthew appeared after about 45 minutes later and proceeds to look for his bf. Guess his bf did not enjoy Fabulous much as they left pretty soon after that.
Me and wifey stayed and we also bumped into Kai-Xin again where they offered us shots (big glass) and vodka. They always like to make me drink and get drunk like the old times. Luckily this time round wifey can help me finish the drinks. Me and wifey head to another room where he ordered long island drink. We took pictures together with Kai-Xin and her husband and one of their friends. Then we proceed back to their table. When we reached, they are about to leave thus now really left me and wifey alone to enjoy the night.
We head to the dance floor and this time round we did not leave the place. We dance to the music (sometimes nice only) and there are a few times when they pop stripes of paper on top for party effects. The highlight is when the balloons on top are released, that makes the crowd goes crazy. I managed to catch one of the balloons to give wifey which he held on to dance.
We also saw some gross men dancing on the stage. We classified them gross because firstly they are definitely old and not attractive, secondly they got no figure, and lastly they are dancing ugly!! One of them with a tummy even wore his jeans to low that when he came down the stage, everyone can see his half-exposed butt-crack.
When the music comes near to an end, we head out of Fabulous as we want to beat the crowd to the road. I guess most people do that thus in the end we still need to wait for cabby with a lot of the crowd waiting as well. Luckily for us, one of the cabbies only wants to go Tampines, which is the way for us and thus our wait for not long at all.
We went straight to MacDonald and had breakfast there before we head home to sleep. We will be having another long day thus will need the rest. It did not take us long to fall asleep beside each other until morning 10 plus then we wake up.
Once we are up, we laze around for a while before we washed up and get ready our clothes. We will be going my 3rd sister house at Tampines for food and game. We have another round of steamboat lunch this time before we start the game of blackjack where wifey sat in front while I sat behind him on the right. He has officially joined our family of gamblers and he is enjoying it.
There is a lot of laughter during the game since we did not emphasize on the money but on the process of playing with family members. We did lose quite an amount at first but managed to recuperate our lost and win a couple of dollars. When the game ended around 6 plus, I accompanied wifey to take cab home. Then I proceed back to my sis house and play TABOO with my nephews and nieces.
Wifey needs to go back early partly because he has to rush his projects and also MIL will be coming back from Batam tonight. I have spent a very happy 4 days and 3 nights with wifey (23rd night to 27th evening) and I really feel so lucky to have such a wonderful and sociable wifey by my side.
“Wifey Shaari, thank you for the wonderful time.”
“Nahigugma ako kanimo”
Hubby Roger

