Shane and I are so thrilled to be back in Malaysia to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year of the Dog zodiac with my mom, sister and her family. On the eve of the new year, all of us (adults and children) were busy getting the house and garden cleaned (this last minute work was really so stressful and we keep doing it every year!). We decided to skip the annual easy steam boat (hot pot) dinner and went for multi cultural dishes instead which added a lot more stress and time.
Mom made her famous Nyonya otak otak (grilled fish cake on banana leaves), Shane decided on lamb chops with a spicy minty sauce (because the boys requested for it), my sister cooked a variety of Indian dishes and I made a huge tray of Japanese gyoza. Thank goodness it was an organized chaos and everyone was happily fed and contented at the end.
We welcomed the first day of the new year eating left overs and being plain lazy. On the second day, we visited the Buddhist temple, get our blessings and paid a visit to an uncle’s house. This visit was one of the many we made in the next few days – and this is why it is so fun to be back in Malaysia during this holiday.