pre-cny away from home

The past week has seen recurring episodes of me being home sick and reminiscing out loud to Matt of how much fun the lead up to Chinese New Year is every year. So after much whinging and a little bit of sobbing from missing my family and all the nostalgic yummy goodies, loud and sometimes obnoxious chinese new year songs everywhere soon after Christmas, Matt took it upon himself to make me feel better. He googled and found a Chinese New Year festival we could go to today that I had no idea about :) After 20 minutes of what felt like forever in the car we finally arrived at Springvale! Hoo ray!

We're here! I was all excited. Sure the weather was boiling hot but nothing was going to get me into a crummy mood!!! We had to park a few blocks away from where the festival was but the walk from the car to the gradually louder clanging of chinese music made the anticipation that much greater! I gave Matt's hand another squeeze telling him how excited I was and how he was again 'the best boyfriend in the whole world'.

Must. Eat. Ba. Gua!

Char siu boa really isn't exclusively a Chinese New Year delicacy but it was still yum :)

That's us struggling to watch the dance shows and the lion dance because there were already so many people squished under the large tent and all around it. We could barely see anything so we just left to go look for more food while enjoying the festivities of the blaring music and the many happy asian people.

That's Matt and (me) relieved to be in an air-conditioned shopping centre close by. Matt doesn't like smiling in photos. I swear he was enjoying the day as much as I was. In fact, he saw a little dollar store from where we were sitting and suggested we go look for lanterns and what-nots to hang around the apartment. 

We got these two little lanterns. They are battery operated and can light up :) 

I love them! Absolutely adorable!

This is us in an asian grocery store and me loving the familiarity of the items on the shelves, the smell of it and the friendly old ah-ma made me feel right at home. Snapping this photo, Matt said to me, "Maybe you're missing home a wee bit too much?". I replied, "No such thing!" humph :(

"It fell sideways! Quick, fix it!"

Tee Hee...