Year End Festivities

Every Christmas season, the family will come together and this year we celebrated earlier due to Steve not being around on Christmas.

Pot luck dinner on 21 Dec. I prepared my usual Japanese jelly and potato salad. We had teochew cold crab (which I did not enjoy), curry chicken, fried bee hoon and vegetable, pork ribs and prawn-paste chicken! There's was lots to eat (my friend from Shanghai will complain again if he reads this)

After dinner, it was giving presents to the children and then the usual gift exchange. This year, I finally got the 'ang pow'! Hooray!

Christmas is the most expensive time of the year for me. So many gifts to buy. Usually I spend a lot on Christmas. This year, I also spent a lot but not as much as the last few years. Why? Bad economy!

Christmas Eve was a quite time for me. Was at home. Everywhere would be jam-packed and I certainly did not want to squeeze with everyone!

Christmas morning was an early morning for me. Planned to go to JB with Jeffrey. He came to pick me up and we went in to JB around 9+ in the morning. The traffic was smooth under we crossed the old immigration gates. Went from 4/5 lanes to 2 lanes. The road meandered for a distance and with the slow traffic, we finally arrived at the new JB checkpoint.

1st stop was breakfast and we went to near Holiday Plaza.... a coffee shop. After breakfast, went to Leisure Mall and then to foot reflex at my usual shop. We visited Tesco and then late lunch at Taman Gardens before heading back to Singapore. The coming back was smooth. I guess everyone was afraid of the jam at the new custom and avoided going in.

Met up with Derrick for some drinks on Christmas night.

Had dinner with Derrick on Saturday night. Went to a Korean restaurant in Chinatown. The food as not as good as I thought. Well, I would not be going there again! After dinner, we went to a nearby pub for some wine. it was a good night out. Thanks, Derrick!

This afternoon, attended Andrew& Fiona wedding lunch at Novotel. Glad to meet up with the ex-colleagues from UOB. Congrats to you both!

Few more days to go before I say goodbye to 2008!


---------- Sawbear Travel -------------