CNY 09 Series - Sky Still Dark

It is Chinese New Year eve today! As usual, I went to Sibu central market with mum early in the morning to buy foods for reunion dinner tonight.

When we reached town at about 6am, the market area already crowded with cars and people! You hardly see traffic jam as early as 6am, but this happened on Chinese New Year eve. Illegal parking made the jam even worse!

[The crowd & traffic early in the morning while the sky still dark]

Inside the central market, it was quite full already. Unlike normal day where you could mostly see only elder generation were busy bargaining for fresh vegetables, chicken and etc, but on this special occasion, even the younger generation who usually will only do shopping inside air-cond shopping complex were joining the "fun" of shopping at fresh market.

[Young generation also joined the fun of shopping at fresh market]

[View at a corner of Sibu central market early in the morning]

In my observation, there were few stalls which have the best business. On top of the list, is barbecued and roasted meat stalls! You could see people surrounded the stall to fight for their portion. Short people like me hardly see what is going on inside the stall as people won't give any space for you to take a look! Can you remember the picture of some poor Africans starving and when UN sent them foods, everyone surrounded the lorry and fight for the foods? Yeah! That exactly pictured what happened at barbecued meat stalls!

[BBQ meat stalls were among the most crowded]

No.2 is cold storage shops. You even hardly walk inside the shop as too many people inside there looking for their favorite cold storage foods!

[CCK cold storage shop was fulled early in the morning!]

Then no.3 is the oily fresh mee stall. I guess "cha mee" (stir-fry mee) or cha kueh tiaw plays quite important role in reunion dinner? Too bad I forgot to snap some photo about the fresh mee stall. Maybe I was looking at pretty girl at that time until I forget to take photo!

[These coconuts will be used to produce santan or coconut milk]

[Old and young at Sibu Central Market]

[A view at a vegetable shop outside the market]

The night market or pasar malam became pasar siang (morning market) as most stalls opened for 24 hours!

[A store at Pasar Malam selling decoration stuffs]

[Pasar malam or pasar siang?]

Fun At Jacky's Wedding @ Paramount Hotel

Oppss! Makan again? Yes, but this time is not about dinner, it was a lunch on my colleague Jacky's wedding with Kelly, my ex-colleague at Paramount Hotel Sibu.

[Jacky & Kelly]

[The Stage]

[Bride, bridegroom and family's table presentation]

[Normal table presentation - a bit not up-to-standard for a hotel]

It was so good to have wedding lunch especially during working day (Don't tell my boss about this!). You see, you can go out for lunch earlier than usual and you can have longer break! I guess this is what most white collar workers' favorite especially those "snake-catchers"! You can find any acceptable excuses to maximize your break time e.g. Traffic jam, missing on the way back to office, hard to find parking space, helping a snake crossing the road, etc etc.

Anyway, be careful your boss maybe smarter than you and they can predict your trick. So, please choose and use the excuses wisely. Please don't use stupid excuse like I was catching a snake or else your boss will really ask you go back home for good so that you can continue catching your snakes!

[View inside the hall and the crowd]

The lunch suppose to start at 12 noon but as usual, not all people used to be on time. When the first dish was presented, it was about 12.30pm. I guess all my colleagues including me were too hungry that's why all dishes totally cleared up in a short moment after they had been placed on our table. Wah! Look like people in this office are all big eaters! I have prove (Refer to photo below)!

[Cold plate combination]

The lunch was a very short one. Usually a wedding lunch will only end after one and a half to 2 hours, but this one, after one hour, the hotel staffs started to give away wet tissues from table to table which indicate it was going to end soon! We all stunned and started to count how many dishes already being served. After some discussion, we made conclusion that all 7 dishes were inside our stomach already!

[Before: Deep fried fish & After: Very empty plate]

[Before: A piece of wedding cake & After: Now you see now you don't!]

[Before: Mushroom and broccoli & After: Sauces only can be cleared with tongue licking ]

[Before: Hot and sour prawns & After: 2 pieces of decorated orange plus some sauces ]

[Before: Sweet dessert & After: 8 tiny raisins]

[Before: Mixed fruits & After: 5 water melon seeds ]

This is the shortest wedding banquet I ever attended. Indirectly it destroyed our dream to maximize our break time. ;p I am not sure why the hotel was in the hurry, unlikely there will be another lunch after this one. Perhaps they were planning to buy new year clothes after the lunch!

[The only left-over]

Jacky is my colleague for more than 3 years. Since the office moved to the new building, he used to sit beside my table while Kelly was once our company's admin clerk. Both of them started the love sparks from the old office where we all noticed about that and finally they are official husband and wife. All of us in the office felt happy for them and hope that their marriage is blessed and happy ever and forever!

Zhong Ee CNY Dinner @ Joystar Garden

Yeah! This is about dinner again! Normally there will be a lot of dinners to attend around Chinese New Year season.

Last night I was invited by my cousin to a charity cum CNY dinner at Joystar Garden restaurant near Sungai Merah. It was organized by Sarawak Zhong Ee Association - a Buddhism based charity association origin from Sibu.

[Outside view of Joystar Garden restaurant]

[The stage]

[VIP table]

All the children from Methodist Children's Home were invited to the event. According to the host, they were fully sponsored by a philanthropist who wished to remain anonymous.

Did you feel something weird here? Did I mentioned about this is a Buddhism-base charity organization but Methodist Children's Home was invited? Buddhism-based versus Christian-based?

Ya, I think this is the most meaningful point about this event! Don't you feel this is what charity suppose to be about? Doing charity should be across religious, races, languages and on top of everything! Doing charity is borderless! At least in this aspect, the association had done a good job and worth a compliment.

Besides eating, the organizer as well as children from Methodist Children's Home (MCH) prepared a series of programs. There were angpow giving ceremonies by the association and also few philanthropists to the children from children's home. The association also given away scholarship for those MCH's children who achieved excellent result in their studies.

[Angpow and scholarship giving by the president]

Then the cute MCH's children performed a series of program to entertain the crowd including group singing and also street dancing! Their energetic performance really heat up the temperature! The crowd seems to be enjoying and cheering up by the hot dance. Cannot deny... some of them really have great potential to be a dancer!

[Hot dance performance]

[This kid has the potential to be a dancer, don't you feel so?]

These children really touched my heart! They let me see clearer what courageous and brave is all about! Although they were from less fortunate group, yet they enjoy their life with joy and laughter and they never feel shy to show their talent! Perhaps, a lot of fortunate children these days should take them as their role model how to appreciate their life!

[Joyful look on MCH's children which touched my heart]

One more thing I have to mention here.. the principal of MCH and her assistant who brought the children to the dinner were actually so young! I salute and praise them for their dedication and time spent to educate these children and shaped them to be a better person in life! Their contribution are great!

[Young MCH's principal and her assistant were asked to duet a song]

The organizer also prepared some games to cheer the dinner up. There were balloon blowing competition participated by children from MCH and they seemed enjoy the game a lot!

[Balloon blowing competition]

The second game was Guinness Stout drinking using straw competition. Personally I felt this game is not suitable for the night especially when it involved so many children.

[Guinness Stout with straw drinking competition - unhealthy!]

The 3rd game - beer drinking using straw competition. Honestly, I didn't sure what was the different between 2nd and 3rd game. Both were just alcoholic drinks drinking competition! It might give false education to the children that drinking alcoholic drinks is something very joyful!

The assistant principal of MCH was participated in the 3rd game. I think he was invited by the host. I am sure he's not a good drinker, yet he just be supportive and cheer up for the dinner.

[Assistant principal of MCH was invited to participate in beer drinking competition]

About the foods... well I would say "so so" only. Standard Chinese dishes.

[Hot plate combination]

This one was the most "special" dish that opened my eyes wide! Quarter fried chicken covered with keropok and salad fried sotong!! Yes, no need to rub your eyes! It's quarter chicken ok? Imagine - quarter chicken shared among 10 person within a table! And the fried sotong - this is the dish I like to order when yamcha with friend!

["Special" dish - Quarter fried chicken in Keropok with yamcha style fried sotong]

[Butter prawn]

[Fried noodles]

[The dessert]

As a whole, I noticed the children from MCH were really happy and enjoyed the dinner which served the purpose of the event. Hope God will continue blessing them!

SATRIA Dinner 09 @ RH Hotel

Last night I was invited by a friend to a charity dinner named Majlis Makan Malam Amal SATRIA organized by Persatuan Triathlon Sarawak (SATRIA). It's an annual event for the association and my friend somehow has extra tickets and kind enough to invite me.

[The ticket]

It's quite a grand event and was held at RH Hotel Sibu. The VIP of the night was Menteri Muda Hal Ehwal Belia dan Pelancongan Sarawak (Assistant Minister of Tourism and Youth Affairs of Sarawak), Tuan Haji Hamden bin Haji Ahmad (Ok, I never heard about him before ;p ).

When I first entered the dinning hall, I felt a bit ashamed because most of the attenders (mostly Malay) were wearing very formal with Batik for men and Baju Kurung for women whereas I was in my casual wear with jeans and sports shoes. Luckily I was not the only one wearing so or else I might be chosen as "Man of the night" winner!

[A view inside the hall]

The event started with National Anthem singing! Sounds very patriotic but I didn't hear many people really sing the National Anthem! I did sing la... but with very soft voice.. paise ok? One thing I like about the dinner, there was a live band playing music including some live singing throughout the night!

[Everyone stood up for National Anthem singing]

The dishes? You can see from the menu below. Chinese style but is halal serving with hot plate combination, shark fin soup, chicken, fish, mixed vege and so on.

[The menu]

[Hot plate combination]

[Shark fin soup which look nice but tasted "so so"]

[Black pepper beef]

It was a very relaxing night with not much of political talking which really out of my expectation! The president of SATRIA Datu Abdul Ghafur bin Sharif even went up the stage to show his guitar and singing talent! He really cheered up the night with his good guitar playing skills and singing!

[SATRIA president with live band]

[Datu Abdul Ghafur showing his talent on stage]

Even the Assistant Minister himself were kind enough to went up the stage and presented a Malay oldies! He was so enjoyed with live band and vocal accompaniment accompanied his singing.

[Assistant Minister enjoyed the singing on stage with live band accompany]

There were also many lucky draws throughout the event, but I got nothing! Guess I am always not that lucky when come to lucky draw!

[Lucky draws session and the host of the event]

The event ended at around 10pm with a SATRIA logo printed t-shirt given to everyone as appreciation.

[SATRIA printed t-shirt as appreciation]