Chinese New Year Carnival at Box Hill

Saturday, 24 January 2009

Johanna and I drove to Box Hill on the Saturday before Chinese New Year to have a look at the Chinese New Year Carnival over there. We had witness the Vietnamese one at Richmond one week ago and was expecting something bigger and better as Box Hill is literally a "Chinatown", where the whole town is full of Chinese - from the people to the shops, etc.

However, to our disappointment, the carnival wasn't that great. Other than some stalls selling food, there wasn't much to see. We left after only one hour.

Police force entertaining the crowd




Lamb satay - most likely from Xin Jiang











More photos at my Flickr.

新年快樂 万事如意

Happy Chinese New Year to all Chinese friends and readers of this blog.

The 4 characters in the Chinese couplet above reads - nian nian you yu, meaning abundance year by year.

Merry Christmas

Christmas Day Dinner with Alex and Hui Min

Christmas Eve Family Dinner

Happy Deepavali

Inniya Deepavali Valzhtukkal :)

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

Happy New Year 2008

Due to limited bandwidth, I've avoided blogging recently.

2007 had been an interesting year for me and Johanna. Our stay in London had been really great. Despite not gaining as many exams as expected for my actuarial profession, it still feels great to have cleared 3 more papers in one year.

2008 is a year of new challenges as I'm still looking for a new job and settling down in Australia - either Sydney or Melbourne depending on the job offer I'll be getting. The weather in Melbourne had been extremly hot and dry for the past few weeks. On New Year's eve, it touched 42C, the hottest weather I've ever experienced in my whole life. On New Year's Day it touched 41C. The hot weather is worsen by the irritating bush flies which feed on sweat. Makes me miss British weather a lot, even though it is cloudy and rainy most of the time. At least the temperature and humidity is bearable and British summers are great (not the 2007 one though).

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope there will be more tolerence and less violence worldwide.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

... to all Malaysians and my Muslim friends all around the world.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋节快乐

Some facts on Mid-Autumn Festival, pronounced as zhong qui jie.

• Also known as Lantern Festival, Mooncake Festival
• It's a celebration of abundance (usually linked to harvest) and togetherness dating back 3,000 years to China's Zhou Dynasty
• Falls on 15th day of the eight lunar month of the Chinese calendar, where the moon is usually at its brightest
  
• Food link to this festival - mooncake and pomeloes

There are also some Chinese mythical stories linked to this festival, the most famous one involving Chang Er, the "woman on the moon". Many versions of this story exist, the most popular one involving an archer Hou Yi.