Chinese New Year at school

I think it's a yearly event that kids from 姐姐's primary school are allowed to wear their new clothes on a selected day during Chinese New Year. We got her to wear back her only traditional costume which still fitted her. She told me teacher said better wear red or bright colors and not white to school as they will sit at the school hall. After school, she told us she was asked by teacher to join the other kids who wear traditional costume for group photo during assembly. The children were given an ang pao each from PIBG too.

She is the girl in the middle at second row in pastel cheongsam.
I snap this photo from their memo board one fine day :P

These photos from their school facebook page (back-dated)

These are the only photos 爸爸 manage to get of her when school dismiss, the other photos were blurry, especially the one taken of her and her classmate :) 弟弟 and I didn't visit her during recess as 弟弟 was feeling tired (probably Monday blues).

See the after school crowd?

She is showing gift from her best friend

弟弟 also wore traditional costume for his pre-CNY celebration before school's one week holiday. He bring CNY cookies for his classmates (and bring back a lot of food too). But the traditional costume pants now look like the three-quarter pants it is meant to be (but most people thought it's suppose to be long pants). Probably next time we only get him to wear the top and match with normal jeans or pants to avoid him getting "funny looks" from his teachers.

Annual Chinese New Year 拜拜

Every Chinese New Year, the children's grandparents will order 鱼生 (typically called "yee sang" in most published newspapers but the correct pronounciation to me is "yu sang" in Cantonese). However the children do not like it and usually just take a small mouthful.

This year we wanted to try Sakae Sushi's 鱼生 as there were many good reviews. We ordered the Prosperity Set which is for 1-2 adults and available for dine-in only. The children get to finally do a proper tossing here as their hands are shorter than adults and they sit far from us. Food verdict? Quite good, lots of salmon slices. I thoroughly enjoyed the preserved ginger slices as they have a sweetish tinge. However the portion is too big for the 2 adults :) The children didn't eat much of it as usual.

The tossing 鱼生 pose

Every year we will go 拜拜 at Goddess of Mercy Temple.  Huge crowd as usual during CNY, and today, 初七 is 人日 （which means everyone's birthday according to the Chinese!). Anyone wants to experience "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", please visit Goddess of Mercy Temple, especially during Chinese New Year :D

Their "smoke gets in your eyes" look :)

弟弟's new kindy syllabus for Maths and Science

弟弟 got some books back from his kindy on the new Maths and Science syllabus. In the past 姐姐 did not have much of a Science book from kindy, and the Maths syllabus only teaches numbers, addition, subtraction, ones and tens, and a little bit about days, months, time and basic shapes. Not much exposure to application of Maths like volume, fraction, length, weight, 2D and 3D shapes which she learnt in Year 1.

So glad that 弟弟 is learning with the new books. Hope he will have an easier time in Year 1 next time since he gets more exposure. The books are in 3 languages, English, BM and Mandarin, so I will read through with him the Mandarin portion as Teacher Kogi doesn't know Mandarin :)

Missed Hello Kitty appearance - preCNY

There's Hello Kitty mascot appearance brought by Hong Leong Bank promoting their Hello Kitty Debit Card. However I remembered the wrong time and we missed it. There's a huge jam waiting for parking, so we ended up going inside Gurney Plaza to take a few photos with whatever's left of Hello Kitty and move on.

From far, the children told me, there's a dragon! I'm like... where? 原来 is this one. My photo-taking skills with an iphone is terrible, so Mr "BBQ Plaza" Dragon's head is "cut". Oops...  I only remember the children had said to me before "There's you, mommy!" when they saw the dragon outside the restaurant some time back. So yea, the children have dragon mom and tiger dad. They have to behave or else....

This "dragon" gave the children ang pao packet with discount voucher :)

So we went to Queensbay Mall instead as the jam around Gurney Plaza is really off-putting. Missed the lion dance performance but was greeted by "财神" who is doing his walkabout. The children get sweets from him in the shape of gold ingot.

The children had been to Winter Warmers but they insist never been there before. 弟弟 say he will belanja as it's his birthday week - his treat but we pay :) So we went in for afternoon tea. The children finished up most of the food and fruit tea that we ordered :P I only had one scone and one tiny sandwich. Seems like the ones we had at Cameron Highlands was better.

We had afternoon tea set at Winter Warmers

When we leave, there's another jam around QBM, so we turned to Bayan Lepas FIZ to go home. 弟弟 wanted to take closer look at this bridge that we had passed, and since one side is closed, we help him take a photo.

Love the color of the sky! And it's just taken with the iPhone

Hunting for Cars and princess

No, not Cars/Cars2 or princess movies. Just for the clothes with Cars and princess design. We've been to most shopping malls in Penang and even wet markets trying to look for Cars clothes for 弟弟. Even though he already had 4 Cars story books, Cars backpack, Cars pencil case, he is still dreaming and asking for Cars clothes for quite some time. And pouting when didn't find any. We had went to Jelutong market and even Cecil Street market. Me, who didn't go to wet markets, going around the markets looking for Cars t-shirt. Oh dear....

Finally found Cars clothes at Sunshine Square. The saleslady say they are about the only one in Penang, the other counter is at Pacific (not sure in Prai or Penang island?). Since took so long for us to find, we bought more clothes for 弟弟 than planned.

As for 姐姐 she is dreaming to have a princess or flower girl dress, strictly white color only! She could not wear spaghetti straps, the straps will droop over her shoulders as she has small shoulders. Should have bought during Christmas and not worried about her outgrowing it. In fact, found one in her size at Jusco, but we were procrastinating :( At Straits Quay bazaar, also found one layered dress in light beige but too short for her. Just realize that her preferred designs are mostly sold for smaller children, usually more popular among 5-6 years olds. Gosh, in a couple of years she will be a tween, and I wonder what other fashions I have to look for.

Well, 爸爸 finally found one during one of his business trips to BKK. The things parents will do for their children :)