Have been MIA! but not really. Because I've been... preoccupied.

Well, technically not with this. This is just to tell that my favourite from Snowflake has changed from Best Seller to the Lemon Jade Jelly with Taroballs!♥ Its lemony goodness is more then I can resist. But I might try the Sea Amber Jelly next, so we'll see how that goes. But on to the more important stuff. Why I've been preoccupied~

Well, I've been baking! Technically, just cooking in general. Because watching Junior Masterchef makes me feel so inferior to those 9 year olds and 12 year olds who can cook stuff worthy of five star restaurant dishes. =.=

But I can cook too! Sort of. xD This is what I do after I feel way too inferior from a round of Junior Masterchef. This one is Grape Custard Pie with a Chocolate Drizzle!

and this is just a random turkey sandwich I had for dinner the other night. Turkey is♥

More results from inferiority complex. Mashed Potato with Cream and Feta Cheese. ^__^

Main point? I've been so consumed by food for the past few weeks, I'm going to turn in to a round ball before the sem stars. Oh, and CNY is just around the corner. Yay for family time! More food? *groans*

Chinese New Year is around the corner! And yes, I'm delirious. If you've been following my blog long enough, you'll see that Christmas is just another holiday for me, and New Year is just like any other day. Chinese New Year? Thats a different matter altogether. I love the period.

Angpaus? Money? Not really. To be honest, I can live without the ang pau's. Not that I'm not wanting them of course, and I risk sounding a little shallow here, but who wouldn't want money? But if you were to ask me, would I celebrate CNY as much, if I wasn't given the money? I can answer you immediately, yes I would.

To me, it isn't about the money or the food, not even the new clothes we get to buy. The money is just another thing for me, and the food I can get anytime. Even new clothes, I don't exactly have to wait till CNY to buy it. But to me, CNY is a time for me to go home. Home where my grandmother lives, where my cousins and aunts and uncles will all come, and we'll all be under one roof, all 30+ of us.

Its about gathering of the family, how I get to hear my younger cousins scream with laughter as they play outside. Walking to the living room to see the adults all talking, in to the room to see my cousins all sprawled on the bed just chatting about nothing at all. Chinese New Year to me, isn't about the money or the material, but about the time spent.

Its about how our CNY dinner would need three tables to fit us all, and subsequent dinners on other days need about four cars to ferry all of us out. How ordering food is a chaos, how we're all under one roof. What money? I'm very content as long as I get laughter, love and family. That, to me, is the essence of my Chinese New Year.

Empire with the mother the other day! She had to go for her facial, so I just sat at Starbucks for an hour or two waiting for her with my scone and black tea latte. xP

But ah, you see. There's an ulterior motive for me to go there. I actually wanted to use up her RM120 Parkson voucher to get me my new Anna Sui stuff. *maniacal laughter* ...But! Couldn't find what I wanted there that day. D: So was postponed for the next day, where we would go to Pyramid. Again. For the gazillionth time. At least its a new year! xD

Dinner that night consisted of all my favourite stuff! Like this sweet and sour pork~

Caeser salad with dressing recipe stolen from Mel! xD

And seaweed soup~♥

Oh! Random picture from dance day out with these two and Lisa and Lind. xD Doesn't she look like she's teaching hip hop? xP

Movie day with the family! We watched Tangled, which was... epic awesome. Reminded me of the magic of Disney all over again, and I can't get enough of that♥

Apple pie at fusion cafe, which the girls got me addicted on after sleepover that day. Its goooodddd.

Pyramid the next day! Mother was hungry, so we went to that new Japanese cafe for tea. Their green tea is so cute! And their cups are adorablee.

Shiratama dango! Which is basically the tang yuen balls you see in the Azuki gravy... which is red bean paste. And soft ice cream! Best, epic, ever.

Now, normally tamago sushi would be egg on top of rice? This is rice stuffed in egg. xD Which is cute, but I think I prefer the other one. Cause the egg is so huge, its dry. D:

And salmon teriyaki bento! I loveee the onsen egg. xP

And now for the main reason we came to Pyramid. Well, actually to shop for the mother's CNY clothes. But while we're at it... Anna Sui's Forbidden Affair! I've been pining after this ever since it first came out, and I got the mini bottle too!

Got the eyeshadow too, cause I need new ones anyway.

And their hair treatment oil! Honestly, I don't usually use hair oil. But I like this one! It smells heavenly~

Cause I spent over a certain amount, I got this whole set too, including the travelling case, which is really useful!

And this is my current Anna Sui set~♥ Expensive, which is why I don't buy it often. But oh, so prettyy~

In my second aunt's house, in Penang. Yes, almost the whole family was there, save for a few, and I love the chaotic mess that comes with it.♥

We headed down to Gurney after shopping Queensbay the day we arrived. Gurney was the next day, and my cousin brought us to this adorable concept cafe called Clinic Cafe. I think you can guess what concept it was. I would show you pictures, but I... accidentally deleted them. Dx It was so cute though! Tomato sauce in syringe, stuff served up in those metal plates the doctors use to put syringes and medicines. More tolerable then T-Bowl, but still a bit iffy. xD

Random picture of cousin in another cousin's night gown. Don't ask. We do a lot of stuff you don't want to know about. xP

Steamboat on the 31st of December! Because we don't want to deal with the hassle of getting caught in a jam with the rest of Penang to go countdown somewhere with sweaty bodies and loud music. D:

Honestly, I think I enjoyed the steamboat much, much more♥

Golden mushrooms! My favourite♥

So much food to eat! And all very good, of course. Steamboat's always awesome when you have it with family♥

I think we ate for about 2 hours, talking while eating. I sorta gave up after one hour though, cause I was so stuffed, and ended up taking pictures of the night view. Pretty, no? Perks of staying on the 13th floor on an apartment building, I guess. xP

After about an hour break, we had this for our second course! Tang yuans, with peanut and black sesame filling♥

And this was our last course at about... 11:55, just in time for the New Years!

Quickly cheers, and then headed out to the balcony to watch the fireworks from all over the island. I think we saw about three or four firework shows going on at the same time, some huge and some we know is home put. The longest one was the one at Straits Quay I think, but the biggest one was, according to the parents, the government one. Right in the middle of the island. No pictures though, cause we were too far away and it was very pointless to take pictures cause they would be too tiny on camera.

Had to leave for home soon. D:

Random cousin music at lunch at Ipoh!

The fat, stubby taugeh which differs so greatly from the one we find in KL. Omnomnom♥

Tender, juicy chicken as always from Ipoh!

Guess what I've been doing since I got home. The stepdad got a new camera, so I took his old one and... left my useless Kodak one to collect dust in my cupboard. But the Ixus looks so manly! So I prettified it. ^_^

It took me a whole day! But all worth it, cause now my Coralline looks all pretty. ^_^

Midvalley on Sunday before the cousins went home! This was on Christmas Eve, and to find a parking was horrendous. It took us 45 minutes. D: The decorations there was gorgeous though, and I loved these pseudo merry-go-round horses! They looked so much like the music boxes I saw in S&J, and I loved those. xP

The bears they had on decoration was huge too. Like seriously, HUGE. The leg itself was the size of the beanbags we had in school, except less fat.

Dinner at Madam Kwan's was alright, but I love the veggie the mother ordered. It was... so aromatic, though the portion they gave was a bit too tiny. It was reallyyy good. But then again, Madam Kwan's cost a bomb, so it'll probably be a while before I go back there. A while meaning a couple of years. xD

Again, not much shopping done in Midvalley, cause I think we bought our fill already. But we went grocery shopping! Cause it was Christmas Eve, me and the cousin wanted to make Christmas Eve supper. xD

Pastry, potatoes and eggs to make pie, pizza and potato salad!

We even set the table prettily for the clock to strike 12 and invite Christmas in. Even if we don't usually celebrate Christmas, but me and the cousin just wanted an excuse to cook up a storm. xP

Mango and berries yogurt as the drink, which we made ourself.

Pizza! I tried to copy what Dave's did, and used mayonnaise for the base spread, instead of tomato paste. I think I like it that way. xP

Pretty table all set and waiting for the clock to strike 12. ^_^

And the clock strikes 12. Merry Christmas to everybody and then we omnom'ed all our food. well, not all since it was so late and we couldn't finish everything at once, but we ate with gusto anyway, cause we had dinner early. xP

Headed back home to the Grandma's place in Kedah on Monday! Time spent with cousins is always awesome, and even more now that we don't have to harp on our parents to bring us out these days. xD

The younger batch. xD We were burning the bullet ants outside of the house when it started raining, and of course the younger ones can't bear to be away from the action, so we gave them an umbrella. xD

And the older batch. Yes, we get an umbrella too. Though unlike the kids, we don't all fit under one umbrella. xD

Cousins' birthday on 29th! So we celebrated it for her on the stroke of midnight. Surprised her actually. I was holding her captive and unknown in the backroom while the rest of the cousins prepare in front, so the pictures were taken by cousin's osm DSLR outside. xD

Group picture! Not everyone here though, cause it was late and some had went over to my uncle's house, but good enough for now.

again, eating. We tend to eat at all hours of the day somehow. Dx Not good. But Chocolate Indulgence was good!♥

The next day, her birthday, I promised her I'd make pizza for her. So I did. At 11pm. Because we went out to eat Jawa Mee at 4pm, and we weren't hungry during dinner. xD Speaking of Jawa Mee, I'd post up pictures of all my favourite food back at home, but I can't! Cause I stupidly, accidentally deleted all my pictures. T_T But stuff like Jawa Mee, Hokkien Mee, Wantan Mee, curry mee... all the stuff I don't eat here, I'll take them back at Penang. Because they is epiclly good there, somehow.

Found this butterfly outside gramma's house! Again, DSLR takes osm pictures. xP

We headed off to Penang Island on my third last day there, because its like... some tradition or something. Oh, of course we wanna eat the food there too. But before that, pictures with the gramma and grandpa!

Random pictures of the cousins all piled up on one another. As usual. We're usually on someone's bed or other, all piled up in a bundle having a 'meeting', as we call it. xD

Ambushed the grandpa in the kitchen boiling water. :p

One last picture before the lot of us headed off to Penang Island!