Chinese New Year 2007

Longest time stopped blogging so far.

Chinese New Year, year of the pig is almost coming near to its end, but to most of us, it's considered over. I used to love this time of the year darn a lot. I think most of us feel the same way. The tradition and "feel" of the festival evolves with the changing times though. Now, it's more about responsibilites and filial piety, instead of having an "all hell broke loose"kinda time.

I'm not complaining though. Seeing how happy my parents in law were to have all the family members gathered round the dining table and creating chaos in the whole household, I could feel it's worthy of our time and effort to make sure we were home for the occasion. It's part of the job function, roles and responsibilities right now, as an adult, as a married person.

I just feel a bit sad this year, ok, more than a bit, maybe, that I didn't have the same family gathering with my own parents, brothers and their families just like them. It seemed like a few years in fact that we didn't had that gathering. Well, what can we do? With the school going children, they had no choice other than flying my parents some place else to spend the occasion together.

This year, with the children bigger now, we (just 2 of us) stole time to go for a short stint of holiday in Bangkok. Apart of missing them consistently while we were there, I must say I had a pretty good time having a "honeymoon" with him alone, after all these years.

On its first day, we only had an afternoon to spend, so we walked around, had a massage, and met up with my brother and his family for a goody yummy delicious Thai dinner soon after.

We then joined a day tour to visit Ayuthaya, an ancient city, designated as a world heritage site by UNESCO for its historical value. We were taken back by a cruise on the Chao Phraya river with a lunch onboard then. Our tour guide with an excellent command in English kept guiding and informing us about the various tourist spots with this "On my left hand side, you can see ******, very famous for its tourist attack...". (Oh, my! For awhile, I thought, which one had just been bombed by terrorists, then later, I only realised he meant "tourist attraction".... Sigh... say propery la, can heart attack one la..)

The next day was spent in the car most of the time, to and fro from floating market. It was a good experience on the boat though, but not a very good experience after where we were stuck in an awful traffic jam and I was, (sob! sob!), having an aching tummy pain waiting to get relief in a loo.

Much later, we went to Chatuchak. I thought this time I would be able to get more stuffs home from the last time, as we were free from "distractions" (read: children), but ala, how wrong I was! Pretty pissed that we looked like "waterfish" and quoted "bukit bintang" prices for "petaling street" stuffs. I went home swearing never to go there again. KT said next time we go shopping at high class malls, got air conditioned one... (Listen first la). We signed off our short holiday with another massage session, and woke up early to fly back home to the arms of our children, safe and sound.

Pictures... will be after this. Hope it won't be another month long apart again..