I had a very different celebration for chinese new year this year. 21 years of my life, it was the first one that did not include red packets. One that did not have my grandma’s curry chicken and juicy braised pork belly, one that did not have annoying chinese new year songs blared over the speakers everywhere I went. No firecrackers and writing names with sparklers, getting probed, having well-meaning but nosey relatives asking me – “Still no boyfriend yet ah?” Scrolling through instagram every minute and seeing an abundance of #ootds of my friends back home donning their chinese new year outfits to #cnyday1 #cnyday2 #cnyday3 … this was seriously a mood killer for me.

Being away from home was already bad enough. I couldn’t miss out on a great communal and social meal during this time of the year, so Venessa and I, invited some friends over (including Bryan and Kim) and had our own cny mini celebration at our apartment!

We had a hotpot; what we usually call a steamboat… supposedly symbolizing the coming together of family and friends. It was a good night with everyone stuffing themselves silly to fish tofus, crab sticks, a variety of “balls” accompanied with beer and pineapple tarts. Yum!

Making a mess out of the tossing of the Lo-Hei/Yu Sheng (prosperity salad) while reciting “auspicious sayings” – which clearly wasn’t something that I was really good at due to my bad command of mandarin. Well, I wished for more money though $$ does that count? ahhaah.


Overall, it was certainly a night with good company and awesome food. Couldn’t ask for more <3