Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner

Oh my, this is the first time celebrating CNY without the family. Hmm..... Although it's sad but at least I'm doing fine here.

Had this year's reunion dinner with hostelmates at a nearby izakaya (Japanese-style pub + restaurant). Kinda sad but only 5 of us had it together, 4 guys surrounding 1 girl lol. Poor Caphy.

It snowed a little when we're going out. Thought of going by bicycle but ended up on foot with umbrellas.


We ordered the set course in the middle, but too bad they ran out of the crabs. In return, we had roasted beef which uses Wagyu (和牛, top class Japanese beef).


Jia Yi & Cong Jie, hostelmates.


Me & Caphy, she's busy making phone calls back to KL.


Video.... which I commented Caphy's speaking alien language lol. She's actually speaking in Hakka dialect which I'm not used to hah.
[Link]


乾杯！！


Appetiser. Shrimp salad, avocado salad, bread pieces, and soy sauce-marinated eggs.


Sashimi!!! Clockwise: Katsuo tataki (かつおたたき), Madai (真鯛), Salmon, Buri (鰤), Hotate (帆立).


Hot pot dish. Nothing to comment on it as it lack of the "flavour bomb". In other words, not much taste. Don't let the colour fooled you!


Fried prawns.


Halfway through with the dishes.... and Caphy's still on the phone.


Pork ribs and chips!


Actually I'm kinda disappointed to see the portion of the roast beef, thinly-sliced. The sauce was good though.


Some gunkan sushis. Negitoro and Ikura.


Star!


This is something interesting. Normally during CNY dinners there'll be the 捞生 "lousang" tradition which we would mix the dish together.
This time we replace the usual plate of "lousang" with this mixture of rice, 2 raw eggs, seaweeds and some weird sauce.


The process....
[Link]


Yong & Caphy.


Cong Jie & me.


Me & Caphy.


Guys. Jia Yi, Cong Jie, Rui Yong, me.


Drunk'd lol.


Down and out!



This whiskey tasted rather diluted. Now I realised my father's collections back home tasted much better!


We went to the izakaya at 10pm, and chatted all the way into the early morning to 4am! The izakaya closes on 5am so we butted out and went to a local McD which operates 24/7.

Still kinda full so just ordered this mocha. I still prefer Doutor's mocha.


Check out the McD's breakfast sets. I like the code no.4, Mega Muffin! (bacon, egg, double hamburg patties and a slice of cheese)


Had our 二次会 drinking coffees and eating breakfast until 6am in the morning. It's crazy as the time I slept the sky is getting brighter and brighter!

Some might be interested, how I feel or celebrate this year's CNY being overseas?
Of course I do miss the company of the family, the festive atmosphere back in Malaysia, enjoying the great food etc etc...

Hmm..... but this is also a good chance to realised some lessons in life. Like, why the adults, elders always looking forward to CNY, while the youngsters might be annoyed and rather care about the food and angpows.
Those adults been spending most of their times over the years working away from the hometown, so every once in a year to go back to the hometown to meet with the extended families, is a treat and reward for all the hardships of career.

Youngsters, might not appreciate the things they had it now only until it's taken away from them. When something precious is lost, only one would started to realised, appreciate things they once possessed but never really cherish, thus regretting about it.
Ironically, this theory seems to apply on everything we humans did, doing or will do.

On the other hand, I see irony in myself that this entire post is typed entirely in English lol.... Shouldn't I be typing one or two words, or maybe a few lines in Chinese?

来了日本之后写中文有些进步和退步。复习以前学了但忘了的词语，也可以写一点点繁体字。但是现在习惯了日语的平/片假名的写法，汉语拼音开始下滑了，结果搞得中文半桶水！

在此，祝愿大家都能平平安安、家事顺利、生意狂发、学得贤智！！


在这威虎之年，要像老虎那样威风，向眼前的种种挑战大开杀戒！！
记住没有事是不可能的！！