oh wow…..I’ve realized I’ve not updated my blog for 3 weeks already. Maybe this blog fever has vaporized in me. A friend of mine, Yin Wai, asked why I haven’t write anything on my blog. I’m surprised that anyone in fact reading this blog…hehehe….and she especially asked for more Dhamma topic, which I’m very glad to hear someone is eager to read it. Of coz I have 2 Dhamma topic, it’s actually a Dhammadesana (Dhamma talk) that I heard from 2 different monks that came to our temple.
So now..what have I done for the past 3 weeks? Lets see….
Week 1: The Start of Chinese New Year
- Hub and I had our ‘big’ dinner at home at around 4-6pm coz we were invited to a friend’s house for the BIG finale. Since I’m following mom’s instruction, just like others, I made steam fish (keep the head and tail for the next day), made steam white rice (keep next day too), and fish ball soup (also keep next day).
- Then I made preparation for the glutinous rice ball. This time I made 4 colors since I’ve bought the food coloring.
- On the morning time, we went to Vihara for the usual praying service. Once back home, I rushed to make the Huat Kuih/Kue (not sure on the english name). Not bad, it tasted quite ok but jst bit hard coz I didn’t use Sprite. So after we had our simple ‘big’ dinner, we went to friend’s house for more meals.
- Night time falls, at around 1am, we prayed to Chai Sen Yeh (another of my mama’s tradition). We offered fruits (appel, orange, pineapple, pear and grapes), some candies and that chinese brown cake (that normally you fried it to eat it. It’s sweet, gooey and sticky).
- On Day 1 of CNY, I deep fried that chinese cake for our breakfast, cut each of the fruits, boil that glutinous rice ball and re-heat the huat kue. Also another friend of mine gave me that pineapple cookies (again I dunno the english word for it).
- At around 4pm we went out for big dinner with bunch of friends again. We had buffet Korean BBQ. I think there were around 14 people. The crazy thing is..we were at that restaurant at 6pm and left that place at 10pm. nuts!
- Then we proceeded to one of the friend’s house and chat until 1am. Hub and I were beyond exhaustion coz our sleeping time is normally 10pm max. Hub need to sleep coz he has to work the next day. Poor baby.
Week 2: Chinese New Year Celebration at our Vihara
- So since our temple has small community, especially the committee. Hub and I helped out a lot on the preparation of the CNY celebration in our temple.
- We cut, clean, decorate, and etc. I made hub cut some of the chinese bamboo tree from our garden and bring it our temple. I later decorate it with small small chinese lantern ornaments and some empty red envelope.
- We stick some of the CNY decorations on the wall, ceiling, door, etc. It was fun.
- On the day itself, there were quite a number of people came to celebrate, but not that many unfortunately. But it’s okay. Nevertheless, we had lots of fun and memory.
- And yeah..hub made me write an article about that celebration to post it at the Indonesian Magazine here in LA. That really scares me..but thankfully I managed to write a simple 1 page of it.
Week 3: Normal Week
- On this 3rd week nothing much amazing happen actually.
- Followed hub to office when I’m bored, cook, clean, and as usual went to temple on weekend. Nothing exciting.
Anyway…here are some of the pictures to share.
our little 'big' dinner
our CNY breakfast
CNY Day 1
Some of us went for Korean BBQ
The korean bbq
Chinese Bamboo
The Altar
CNY Celebration at our Temple
Loving this picture