Great Ending of Lunar New Year Celebration!

 

Is that a bear? A lion? Gosh! It's a chow chow!

 

Spike with his lion's fur style! Costs $70 to style him, and only $10 to style me!

 

Spike - Xiaobai's double

 

The friendly residents of Verde Neighbourhood

I had spent 9 days of the Lunar New Year in Penang. This was one of the rare times I went back to Penang for reunion. I tried to avoid going back at this time because bus and plane fares cost more and there is also usually a huge traffic jam at the Causeway.

Hence, I missed quite a lot of interesting functions held at our office as well as by friends. I had been looking fowarding to visiting Dr. Dennis Wee's lovely home and sampling his famous "Hokkien Mee".

My manager, Aveline Tan, invited me to her Verde Neighbourhood pot-luck celebration. There were so many varieties of dishes. The neighbours are very warm and friendly, reminding us of the"kampong" (village) spirit of olden days. The organisers had even put up a stage and invited two popular artistes to sing for us. There was also a lion dance troupe and games on the stage. Four groups were asked to form any character using slices of Mandarin oranges. Our group formed the word, "fu" (luck) and we wished everyone a blessed new year.

I was thrilled when I discovered Aveline's neighbour has a creamy white chow chow which has the spitting image of my beloved Xiao Bai. I was almost close to tears when I patted the neighbour's chow chow, Spike, pictured above. The owner has given him a lion cut and pays the groomer $70 per cut. I stayed over at Aveline's lovely home as it was too late for me to get back. However, deep in my heart, I wanted to see Spike again the following morning.

I thought I was going to take off from work and have a relaxing Chap Goh Meh (15th day of Lunar New Year.) I wanted to go and buy a second hand phone as my Nokia could not function. At the shop I found out that I could repair it and get the phone back in 30 minutes' time. As soon as my phone was repaired a buyer called and wanted to view my client's propety. What perfect timing! Later I told my client I would need to collect the plan of the building for the buyer. He spontaneously invited me to join him and and his family for dinner at his lovely home.

What a lovely ending to this year's lunar New Year celebration!

Gan Chau