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Happy Chinese New Year or Happy Lunar New Year!!! Gong Xi Fa Cai to everybody.

Let us welcome the arrival of the “Year Of The OX“. As this is the Golden Cow year, it signifies a good harvest year to bring along good prosperity and lots of wealth to the world.

As year 2008 cum the Year of the Rat was a turbulent year, let’s hope that year 2009 cum the Year of the OX would be a very much better year than the last one in all walks of life. How we wish the Golden Cow could start another bull run in the stock markets around the world.

Let us enjoy ourselves in this festive season of the east and forget about the world economic downturn for now. Pay your parents, relatives and friends a visit to wish them well.

Here is a very entertaining Happy Chinese New Year song sung by the radio DJs of the FM98.8 radio station. The song title is roughly translated to “Let The Wind of The Spring Blow To Your House” (Chun Feng Chui Dao Ni De Jia).

Enjoy watching the Chinese New Year video clip. Once again, Happy Chinese New Year to you and your family.

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We chose to have our Chinese New Year reunion dinner at home for the family to get together. I think it is very heart-warming to enjoy the delicious home-cooked reunion feast with the family. 

We used to have the Chinese New Year traditional food in the past and it is no difference for this year. Although the world economy is slowing down and everybody is tightening the belt, I’m glad that we are still able to continue to enjoy those good food that we used to have had traditionally.

The Chinese New Year traditional food that I’m referring to are abalone, mushroom, prawns, scallops, lotus-root soup, oysters and so on. You will know that these are mostly expensive food at one glance 🙂

Chinese New Year Reunion Feast :

Scallops with Oysters :

Broccoli with Scallops :

Abalone with Gravy :

Fried Prawns :

Roast Duck :

Roast Pork :

I really enjoyed our home-cooked Chinese New Year reunion dinner very much. The most important is that this was a time for the whole family to get together and enjoy the traditional food. This was indeed a very heart-warming moment.
 

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Chinese New Year is around the corner. We were busy doing the house-keeping to welcome the Year of the Ox. Very soon, we have to say “good-bye” to the Year of the Rat. 

I spent half a day cleaning my bathroom and scrubbing the floor to make sure that all the dusts and dirts were cleaned away. Besides house-keeping, my family and I spent some time decorating our house with the Chinese New Year auspicious items.

“Gong Xi Fa Cai” Paper Fan (Good Wealth) :

God of Fortune :

Chinese Character “Fu” (Prosperity) :

Auspicious Cow Decorations :

Pussy Willow (Salix Caprea) :

Mandarin Oranges :

We also prepared food for the Chinese New Year reunion dinner on Sunday. One of our favourite dishes is abalone. I have taken some pictures after opening a few cans of abalone.

Double Abalone :

Abalone on the chopping board :

More pictures will be coming up in the next Blog post on the Chinese New Year reunion dinner. Stay tuned.
 

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I have sent out only 3 Chinese New Year greeting cards this year as I have misplaced the addresses of the rest of my friends. Actually, I used to send festive season cards to my friends in the past but I didn’t send any last year as I was busy. But I think it is an excuse to use the word “busy” to defend yourself for not doing certain thing.

I always believe that you will make thing happen if you have the heart to do it. In contrary to this, you will find 1001 excuses for not doing certain things especially those things that you don’t see the need to do. Busy is often the best excuse to be used. Your procrastination will lead you to think about it without taking any action if you didn’t have the heart to do something.

Since I have so much free time this year due to the world economic slowdown, no excuse for me to say I have no time to send Chinese New Year greeting cards to people. Sending greeting cards to my friends is to let them know that I still think of them and I wish them well.

I think it is very fun if we got the inspiration to write some unique well-wishing messages. It requires a little bit of creativity to make it interesting. If your messages were written with sincerity, creativity, care and concern, I believe it will help to put on a smile on your friends’ or relatives’ face. 

Then, your greeting card is more than just a normal card as it fills with your love. It warms the heart and touches the soul of whoever receiving your season greetings.

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As the Year of the OX is coming, I have bought a few Chinese New Year greeting cards from the stationery store recently. I have written those well-wishing messages and sent the greeting cards out to my friends yesterday via snail mail.

Here is a picture of the Chinese New Year greeting card :

Nowadays, many people prefer to send Chinese New Year greeting cards electronically. But I think it would be more sincere to send the hard-copied greeting cards by snail mail instead of by email.

Although sending ecards via email is more convenient, I believe the recipients would feel your sincerity for taking the effort to select the greeting cards, write the well-wishing messages, paste the stamp and post it in the mailbox.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!! We have had just said “good-bye” to year 2008 and now it’s the time to say “Hi!” to 2009. Hopefully, the brand-new 2009 is a much better year than 2008.

Looking back, I would say year 2008 was quite a turbulent but considered a good year for me. There were many changes happening at my work. Some of my close friends had left the workplace. I felt so sad and felt lost without them. My heart sank when my close friend told me that she had decided to quit.

I had a change of boss too. It was neither a good nor bad news. Frankly speaking, it took me quite a while to accept the fact. What to do? I don’t have other choices.

One of my old projects came back suddenly and it made me so busy. Despite having a hectic schedule, I really like to work on it as this is my favourite project. I’m putting in my heart and my soul working on this project hoping to make it successful.

It made me working long hours to write reports in the night but I won’t have any complaint or regrets by going the extra miles to make things happen.

Moving forward, I sincerely hope that year 2009 would be a much better and prosperous year for me. I have just jotted down 31 items (still adding some more 🙂 ) as my New Year’s resolution for 2009. I will do the best of my ability to make each item come true. I believe that when there is a will, there is a way. Wish me success!

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Christmas has finally past in a blink of an eye. How time flies? Today is the Boxing Day to unwrap Christmas gifts. Have you already unwrapped yours?

Actually, my niece and nephews had already unwrapped the gifts on the Christmas Day as they were too impatitent to wait for one more day till the Boxing Day to see what were packed inside the wrapping papers. 

In fact, the children had been waiting to receiving their Christmas gifts or presents since the beginning of the year. It just seems too long to wait for another day for them.

If I were them, I will also do the same because it is always full of anticipation and excitement when we have received our gifts or presents for any occasion. We, human beings, are just too curious to find out what is inside the gift.

So, the day to unwrap the Christmas gifts or presents actually falls on the Christmas Day rather than on the Boxing day for our family. I’m not sure whether majority of the people will do likewise or they will wait till the Boxing Day to unwrap the gifts. 

Hmm…..I think it would be interesting to find out by doing a little survey with friends and colleagues. I shall find it out.

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MERRY CHRISTMAS! HO…HO…HO….Santa Claus is coming to town! I hope that you have a great holiday and a wonderful coming New Year 2009.

It doesn’t really matter whether or not you celebrate Christmas in your country. Christmas Day is indeed a great day to spend some quality time with your family, friends and loved ones. 

This is also a day to share joy and fun with those people who are close to you. I really hope you could spend some time with them on this festive season day. 

Slow down your pace and keep them company. You will never know how grateful and delighted your loved ones could be having you by their side.

I think it is all about prioritising what really matters in life. Take a moment to think about it. Maybe you would realise the source of your motivation is actually coming from those people who matter most to you.

By the way, the coming week would be a great time to plan out the coming year 2009. It is about time to set your goals for your personal life, studies, career or business. Have a good thought. I hope you have a wonderful time for the day. 

Enjoy this video clip entitled “All My Bells Are Ringing” by Lenka :

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Today is the Christmas eve and this is the day to do a last-minute gift-purchase for your family, friends and loved ones if you have not already done so.

Most of the companies would be having the Christmas gift-exchange activity today. Some of my collegaues who are organising the gift-exchange activity have set certain rules for the participants to follow. The rule is that the gifts have to be something useful.

They have come out with a list of items which they do not wish to receive as Christmas gift. These items are chocolate, sweets, mugs, photo frames and so on. I guess the intention is to prevent the receivers from getting disappointed for getting something which they perceive as useless.

But I think the people should receive whatever gifts given gracefully rather than complaining too much about the usability of the gifts, right? Christmas is a day for sharing joy and let us just be happy.

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Just a blink of an eye, Santa Claus will be coming to town. You can see Christmas trees, decorations, crafts and gifts almost everywhere.  You can also feel the joy of the festive season especially at the shopping malls.

As most if not all of the companies are reactive to the world economic slowdown, they are enforcing their staffs to take many days of annual leave or they are having a shorter work week for now. Furthermore, the December school holiday is not over yet. Therefore, you can see that everywhere is packed with people.

I think probably one of the most easiest ways to past time is to go for shopping if you do not wish to stay at home. So, I chose to spend my Sunday at a shopping mall last week. 

While I was on my way to the Marina Square shopping centre, my eyes were attracted by a Christmas tree packed with soft toys displaying at the Suntec City. 

This Christmas tree is full of soft-toy bears and I think this Beary Christmas tree is cute and lovely. So, I took a quick snap of this Beary Christmas tree before making a move to the shopping mall.

Beary Christmas Tree :

Christmas will be coming real soon. Two more days to go……..

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