Our First CNY in Shanghai

(Re-posted)

We had a very different CNY this year. For the very first time in our lives, we were away from home and our loved ones on this big festival. Daddy and mummy felt that it was too soon for us to make a trip back to Malaysia since we've only arrived in Shanghai less than two months ago. Furthermore, there wasn't any real big celebration on daddy's side of the family in memory of Yeh-yeh's passing just a few months ago.

The few days before CNY were the coldest days of our stay here. There was a cold front and temperatures dipped to a low of -2C and it snowed quite heavily. My wish to see our surrounding covered in snow finally came true!

A White CNY... Snow on our window sill and everything below

Somebody playing with soft and fluffy snow flakes

The shipment of our household goods arrived from Malaysia on 8th Feb, just 2 days before CNY. Daddy and mummy went through a mad rush to unpack, sort and clear 56 boxes of our belongings from home. Up until CNY eve, mummy was still busy putting away stuff so she did not have the time to cook us a special meal. After browsing all the lavish and scrumptious feasts that everyone had back at home (on Facebook), mummy felt bad that she only cooked us 3 miserable dishes...

Our very first proper home-cooked meal in Shanghai... Pan-seared salmon, steamed tofu with prawns and mixed vegetables... Looked miserable but it was a good meal... a good reunion dinner with all our things from home haha!

Obviously, we didn't manage to put away all our stuff in time. After dinner, the unpacking continued... It's like opening presents and guessing what's in each wrap...

When the clock struck 12am on the first day of CNY, the "madness in the sky" began. We have never seen so many fireworks in our lives before! Fireworks and firecrackers are legal in China so they could be seen and heard everywhere throughout the whole night. And over here, they do not pop one by one. They go by the hundreds (or maybe thousands) simultaneously and the explosive sound is CONTINUOUS so you can imagine the noise! From our living room, we had the best unobstructed view of hundreds of spectacular fireworks, all illuminating the skyline at the same time. It was an amazing scene :)

One of the thousands of nice fireworks that entertained us for about 30 minutes!

We missed all the CNY food/goodies back home. Yee sang, arrowhead chips, cookies (they only have Danish butter cookies here) are non-existent here. Even mandarin oranges are rare and not sold in crates and boxes like in Malaysia. The CNY specialty here seems to be meat in different forms... dried meat, preserved meat, waxed meat, cured meat etc. All these are a big no-no in our health-freak-controlled diet so mummy just stocked up on various types of nuts...

Nuts were our only CNY snacks... we spent the whole day cracking peanuts, almonds, pecans, hazelnuts and pistachios while watching DVDs... ah, bliss!

Of course we missed our family a lot too. Thanks to technology, they are only a (free) video call away! Using Skype and Face Time, we always kept in touch with Ah Ma, Gung Gung, Mah Mah, Koo Ma, Koo Koo and many of our uncles, aunties and cousins too. This will probably be our first and only CNY in China because in the future ones to come, we will definitely go back to Malaysia!