No, I did not get a lot of visitors this Chinese New Year, just a few students from one of the schools where I was teaching for 9 years after 5 years in Kanowit. I spent the rest of my 30 years in service at a boys’ school here in Sibu, the longest but unfortunately, none of my ex-students from that school dropped by.
Just when I had almost given up hope of any of them showing up, I received a message from Raphael, telling me that he would be coming back all the way from the US to spend Chinese New Year with his mum and family and he hoped we could get to meet. In the end, I invited him to just drop by my house which he did, with Teo, another student of mine – his classmate in school, home from China for good…
Both of them looked good but unfortunately, there wasn’t much in the house to offer but they did enjoy what was left of the very nice, super-intoxicating fruit cake…
…from my Bintulu cousin that day and all the cookies and stuff. We sure had a great time chatting, catching up with one another’s lives.
As always, Raphael brought back a whole lot of stuff to give to me. There were these boxes of Annie’s pasta…
…that my girl loves a lot. We can buy them here but of course, imported from the US, they do not come cheap. Well, Raphael gave me so many of each so I am pretty sure those would last a very long time.
I never had the chance to stop by any Spanish restaurant anywhere to try their paella but we did cook our own once…
…or twice…
…just that I was not sure if those were anything like the real thing and I never got to try the one from this chef here at his restaurant that had since closed down for good.
Much to my delight, Raphael gave me a packet of this…
Hopefully, we shall be able to use that to cook our own version of the paella and fingers-crossed, it will be very nice and very much like the real thing.
Thanks so much, Raphael and thank you to you and to Teo, as well, for dropping by. Ah well! I guess two is better than none, wouldn’t you agree?
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
Wow, both of your students from far away dropping by to visit you during CNY. See how great this teacher is. Never give up hope as some like to give surprises when you least expected…. 😂😂. With all the pasta you have, I bet I will be seeing pasta post soon.
No, my girl has been buying and cooking these instant pastas regularly – you probably would know San Remo, that would be one of them. She enjoys them a lot but I’m just so-so with them so to the most, I would try some of what she had cooked. Don’t think I’ll be blogging about cooking and eating any.
I never tasted paella. Look forward to you try and blog about it. So nice to catch up with your ex-students. I also didn’t do much visiting this year. Just my parents and an uncle’s house. One by one, we got sick. What a start for the year…..
Oh dear! Hope you are all better now. Thank goodness all of us were all right, weather was good too but no, we did not go to anybody’s house. Just stayed home.
That fruit cake is certainly a bonus!
Nothing beats own homemade ones, Golden Churn butter…and I heard she even used Omega 3 eggs, not those ordinary ones!