FIRE MONKEY

Hello everybody! Before I start I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year! It's that time of year again when everybody eats a lot and gets paid to do it (via angpaus) hahaha. New Year was both a hit and a miss for me this year because I spent the first few days sad and alone, followed by 3 days of reunion with my friends. Without further ado, here's how my CNY went!

P R E - I P O H  T R I P

So even before CNY started, Llao Llao opened in Gurney Plaza! I was introduced to Llao Llao and I loved it so much I just had to get myself a sanum. I went with Fufy and it was glorious. (Click here for more pics and info!)

Speaking of Fufy, check out her new blog post! I was her photographer and I even make a mini appearance ^^ (click here to see post!)

Kiehl's has two new masks out: the Cilantro & Orange Extract Pollutant Defending Masque and the Tumeric & Cranberry Seed Energizing Radiance Masque. After trying out the sample I found that both of these masks are AMAZING and I would really like to have the full sized ones T.T

Recently I've been watching Pretty Little Liars and I am hooked! My first impression of this series from way back was that it was a group of girls just backstabbing each other, but its more than that and the whole thriller thing with A just made me fall in love! I have one more episode to go till I finish season 2 and I can't wait to watch season 3! (A bit late, but better late than never!

CNY means a week long holiday for us KDU students. All my housemates (Bella included) went back to their hometowns. My plan was to travel back to Ipoh on Chor Sam (3rd day of CNY) because my friend Caryn's house would only be able to accommodate me then. So from Friday to Tuesday I had the whole house to myself.

Fufy and Kevin also went back to their hometowns, but before Fufy went back to Alor Star both of us had a quick "reunion" dinner at Spades Burger, courtesy of her dad! (Thanks again!)

Staying alone was kinda sad because I had no one to talk to and the only time I said anything was when I was shouting at my screen while watching PLL (seriously Hanna and Spencer why do you guys keep messing up). I really understood what people meant when they said that living alone was hard. It's hard on a psychological level omg. So I tried to go out for dinner, just for a bit of human interaction, but I ended up going home after buying food anyway :(

Luckily one of my old high school friends Joelyn was in Penang for CNY! She left for KL in form 1 and my friends and I only got to meet her a few times after that. It was great catching up with her and hearing all about her internship/work. I'll be interning at the end of this year as part of my program, but as to where I'll be interning I'm not sure yet.

On Sunday it was CNY Eve and I wanted to pay my house rent. Little did I know that bank transfers would only go through on Wednesday and more technical stuff that I don't remember. In the end I couldn't pay for it and when I went to go eat lunch, places in Gurney like Chopper Board was closed! I was kinda annoyed because it felt like shops and restaurants were rejecting me.

After a sad sad sad McD lunch I walked to Paragon for a bit of therapeutic shopping.

CNY came and at midnight there was fireworks everywhere. I just stayed in bed (and watched PLL) and sent virtual angpaus to my friends XD

Eggs and noodles are apparently bad for me now because after eating this combo for a few days straight I started breaking out. This cannot happen to me omg but noodles are my wallet's saviour so I can't really give them up T.T

The night before I left for Ipoh I was quite excited because FINALLY I was gonna get human interaction!

But I ended up sleeping at 3 because I found out that my views and stats have dropped significantly! I used to get almost 1000 views per day and let's just say that now it has dipped quite low. This is because I changed my blog URL from hapibaimao.blogspot.com to fishmeatdie.blogspot.com a few days back. I've only been using a redirect code but my blog was technically still hapibaimao. I decided to officially change it into fishmeatdie and all my Google search rankings dropped. 

It's kinda sad and disappointing because my posts that get hundreds of daily views no longer do, but what to do. Long story short, I need to be positive and take this as a sign to work harder and post more!

I P O H  T R I P  D A Y 1

Chor Sam finally came and I couldn't wait to be in Ipoh! For my outfit I decided to go white with my denim jacket (cuz the bus is quite cold).

 

I actually woke up late (lol) and I would miss my bus if I took a bus to the bus station, so I got me an Uber and I got there just in time. If you want RM10 off your first Uber use the code erose9ue! It was quite expensive because it was surging, but as long as I didn't miss my bus~

The bus ride to Ipoh was smooth, till I actually reached Ipoh. It was quite jammed when I reached but I thought it wasn't anything big.

Caryn, Naomi and Tzeshi were coming to pick me up but because it was super jammed in town I had to wait almost 2 hours T.T I had like 2 rotiboys, listened to the Dreamgirls soundtrack 5 times and read like 20 Wikipedia pages.

And after waiting we headed to Caryn's house wher I was putting up for a few days ^^

I finnaly had 肉干 after such a long time! I love love love  肉干! We also had a friendly game of mahjong and I felt like we had aged so much XD One of Caryn's young cousins asked Naomi and I how old we were and we told her to guess. Straight off the bat she guessed 20 and IT JUST SOUNDS SO OLD OMG I CANNOT I'M STILL 15 OKAY T.T

At around 6pm we headed to have steamboat/hot pot for dinner! We were also joined by Xzeyan and it was sad because out of the 7 of TRF, only 5 of us could meet this new year.

The meat was glorious and I was super full after dinner. I legit felt like exploding!

And after chatting and catching up, we headed back to Caryn's house to play with fireworks and sparklers!

Tzeshi bought these mini fireworks that had funky names like Green Coconut XD I thought the smoke would smell like coconuts but alas, coconut smelling fireworks are still a technology ahead of our time.

We actually got busted by one of the people living there lol. We lit the fireworks at the end of the road and the guy living at the corner house came out and asked why we were doing it in front of his house. Kinda weird because:

1. We do this every year and this is the first time we saw anyone living in that corner house
2. It's CNY, DUH you're gonna hear fireworks anyway

We relocated in front of Caryn's house (and the guy could hear us anyway so sucks for him). We played with these mini explosives that legit made holes on the road and sparklers!

Then we proceeded to play Chor Dai Di! I don't remember if I've played this before because they had to teach me again (ahem I have goldfish memory) but it was hella fun! I'm enjoying mahjong and cards, I'm aging omg...but anyways, it was really fun once I got the hang of it.

And sadly, that was the end of our day. Tzeshi decided to sleepover as well so I wasn't really that alone~

I P O H  T R I P  D A Y 2

Breakfast was dimsum courtesy of Caryn's mum (thank aunty!) and I was glad that I actually managed to have some dimsum while I was in Ipoh. My family and I used to have dimsum on Sunday mornings, but the last time my family and I visited Ipoh we didn't get to have any.

After breakfast, Naomi, Caryn, Tzeshi and I headed to Ipoh Parade to watch a movie. Xzeyan couldn't join us because it was her grandma's birthday and I wasn't able to see the new Aeon Klebang mall because it was hella packed and jammed.

Ipoh Parade has upgraded a bit since I last saw it. It now has Jaya Grocer where my friends and I got some drinks for the movie. We also stopped for some red tea and matcha ice cream on the way

And after the movie we bought a few packets of the infamous Korean Spicy Noodles! Caryn really wanted to film a spicy noodle challenge and due to her "一年一次" persuasions we all gave in. They were HELL! They were so spicy! I sweated a lot, my tongue and lips were on fire and my stomach felt like exploding from all the water I drank T.T We filmed ourselves but we used Caryn's iPhone, therefore we kinda had file transfer problems. Once I have the video I'll share it here ^^

And after going through noodle hell and back we played mahjong and blackjack! Whenever we play mahjong or cards we don't really gamble/use money, but this time for blackjack we did. It was only 20 cents per round so it wasn't anything big (don't judge us lol). Safe to say I didn't lose anything but I actually gained 20 cents XD

 

And unfortunately after that Naomi and Tzeshi had to leave T.T It was great seeing everyone but I felt like this new year was a bit too rushed.

After that was dinner and it was so-so. I was kinda alone with Caryn's cousins/her cousins girlfriends because she had to sit at the main table but no biggie. The dinner was really good thooo

And after dinner Caryn and I spent the rest of the night chatting. We ended the night by going over out old yearbooks and my god really I regret all my yearbook photos. We also kinda went through everyone and gave...comments hahaha

I P O H  T R I P  D A Y 3

Day three of my trip was actually quite short. Caryn's mum had a lunch at Sun Lee How Fook and since I was her guest I was kind of automatically jio-ed to the lunch. The whole meal was quite fancy and if I thought the dinner from last night was nice, this was just DIVINE. The 9 course meal had lousang, shark fin soup, pork, fish, chicken, prawn, veggies and rice. Kinda sad that I didn't get to eat the 9th dish because I had to go, but at that point I was already super full.

And I actually had to rewear my sweater because I had nothing else formal-ish and I didn't expect the formal lunch. Good thing I changed before we did that spicy noodle challenge and that I brought this white undershirt!

And that was it! 3 days flew by really fast and to me this CNY was more of a festive meetup rather than a reunion. Mainly because it was too short and not all of us were there to hangout and have a meal together. I enjoyed myself though, and Caryn if you're reading this, thanks for letting me put up at your place! ^^


B A C K  I N  P E N A N G


I reached Penang at about 5.30 and got to my apartment at almost 8 because of the terrible traffic jam. It was only Friday but I guess people were already starting to come back to the island?

Anyways I ran out of data and had to buy an ice cream from New Zealand (I forgot the shop's whole name) just so I could use their wifi hahaha

This year's ang pau haul wasn't a lot (and I've already spent most of it, if not all). Still thankful to everyone who gave me one though!

And my wisdom teeth really. Normal people have one, I have three. ALL GROWING AT THE SAME TIME. At first my lower left one usually trapped food and it was annoying, now then my lower right started hurting because of how it grew. Now my upper right is either constantly stabbing my gums or biting my cheek! I can still eat but its a bit inconvenient (especially when I had lousang omg all those nuts going into every crevice of my mouth). I'm not looking to having them removed. I really want to and I think I'll need to, but they're gonna have to make me pass out cold if they're removing 3 teeth because that's just too painful! And I ain't removing them separately one by one too.

Soooo wisdom teeth rant aside, that's it for my CNY recap post! I couldn't really take OOTDs when I was in Ipoh but I shall try taking new photos this coming week. Until then, chow!

PS. I hope everyone has an awesome year ahead and may the year of the monkey be fun and successful for everyone!



Thanks for reading!