The waiting is over…

It’s here – the Year of the Goat…and to welcome and usher in the new year, in keeping with the tradition and to preserve the heritage, we had our mee sua (longevity noodles)…

…first thing in the morning.

After that, we headed to my parents’ place and after that, to my mother-in-law’s, to wish them a very Happy Chinese New Year and to pay our respects. Then we went back home to wait for friends and well-wishers to drop by.

We served them drinks, cakes…

…cookies and everything else that we had prepared for this special day. I did mention in an earlier post that my missus did not make any cakes this year – we just went and bought our favourites at my regular Malay kuih stall at Bandong and the nice lady even gave me this kek batek mocha…

– not the usual batek cake but one with a difference, thank you so much. Some liked it a lot but my favourite this year would be the kek belacan.

We also had the very lovely fruit cake…

…that my cousin in Kota Kinabalu gave to me when he came to town and that was indeed very nice as well.

There was a steady stream of visitors the whole day, starting with my girl’s coursemates and a friend of theirs…

…who were so sweet and thoughtful as to bring this…

…along to give to us, thank you so much…and thank you too, Azlan – my friend from the radio days with Mag & Pat in the afternoon on TraxxFm for this “gift of gold”…

…and then, there was my godson, Andrew, home from New Zealand, who dropped by with his family…and an ex-student of mine working in Kazakhstan at this point in time but was also home for the festival. As always, Andrew did not come back empty-handed and this time around, he brought me these…

Hmmmm…interesting! I never knew that “sweet as” is Kiwi slang for awesome or good one. A big thank you to you too, Andrew…and I  also would like to thank everyone who took their time off to drop by and extend their Happy Chinese New Year wishes – that was so very nice of you all and I really appreciate it a lot.

The last group on the 1st Day left at around 10 something…and it was past 11.00 p.m. before we turned in for the night. We had a great time entertaining our guests and I would say that it sure was a wonderful start to this brand new year.

P.S.:
My ex-colleague dropped by the 2nd Day of the New Year and she gave me these –

– her mum’s own-made peanut cookies and some jelly powder. Nope, please ignore the bag – there was nothing in it that would be of any use to me, not that it would help one bit…but obviously, my ex-colleague is a regular customer. I had not seen her since I retired over 7 years ago and it seems that she got a transfer to Kuching soon after I had left the service and look at her now – so much younger, her skin so fair and so smooth! Ok, my friend! Don’t you think I deserve a special treat for that? Hehehehehe!!!!!