Chinese New Year just came and went over the last 4 days. For peeps on IA, this is perhaps the longest break we have. Office workers especially the Malaysian workers compounded their leave to take about an entire week + off...

1 buffet (super steeply priced) + lots of soft drinks, pizza, home cooked food, mandarin oranges, fast food (macs + kfc) and pine apple tarts (yum), + over-priced bar chor mee sum up my staple diet during the past 3 days. It was also a time for me to catch up on sleep with a couple of afternoon naps.

Well, basically I hardly did much visiting. Those visits I made, I did on my bicycle. I dunno but New Year visiting doesn't seem like such a big deal to me, probably cos the relatives I visit are all very familiar ones and we don't hold traditional/superstitious values of well-wishes for prosperity etc etc that highly. Seems like my Mom had been spreading rumours about my cycling, which became like table talk. Well, it just goes to show the difference in lifestyles we lead.

Anyways, I think Chinese New Year is actually more of a time for the family to get together than anything else. This doesn't just apply to Chinese families, but very much to our Malays, Indian and expat communities also actually. As I was riding around the place basically I noticed that there were groups, or families doing things stuff together everywhere. Of the relatively few cars on the road, all were with family members (as compared to the many many rush hour cars with like 1 person inside) and ECP was swarmed with Malay families camping there. Empty fields in Boonlay and Tuas had Indians/Bangladeshis playing Cricket, and of course I spotted a few cycling groups making their rounds too.

Sometimes it really is quite heard warming seeing large families gathered in on place, given the current busy stauts of individuals these days. I think such feelings of kinship cannot be felt stronger than by the elders in the family. To be able to see your children and your children's children, and your other extended families offspring etc must be an overwhelming feeling I guess.

Ok, it's back to work tomorrow, with like many HR readings to do, project to discuss, and IA report to write (procrastinated again!). And my fitness is continuing the plunge even as NUS biathlon nears.............