Lo Hei (Prosperity Toss)

This was the second time I had it in my ten years in France. Lo Hei is a popular dish during the chinese new year in Singapore. One usually has it several times during the chinese new year period; with family, colleagues, friends, etc...

 

Every ingredient has a good meaning and while mixing them with raw fish (usually salmon) using chopsticks, we have to say good things. A good explanation can be found here. The higher we toss, the better. Imagine the mess on the table if the plate was not big enough.

 

On the 15th day of chinese new year, I invited Seb's family to celebrate chinese new year. We had lo hei and they enjoyed it a lot. This was a good starter. Maybe when my mum comes in April, we will toss it again.

Snowman creation

It snowed these few days so we had plenty of snow to practise on snowman building. This morning, after bringing A1 to school, A2 and I made this snowman in the backyard. A2 asked for a carrot for the snowman's nose.

When A1 came back from school, he wanted to make a snowman too. So we did one in the frontyard. He asked for a carrot but I told him to use the plastic bowling pin instead. Handsome had been stealing the carrots. A1 wanted to give the snowman arms but I only managed to find a twig in the snowy garden. Thus, the snowman only had an arm. He had ears and a hat, all made of snow so it is hard to notice them in the photo.

I quickly took photos of the snowmen with the boys. As I expected, once Handsome was out in the garden, there was not much left of the snowmen.

I am proud to say that our snowmen looked pretty decent this time round.

Chinese New Year visit

Chinese New Year 2013 was on 10 Feb. I am so fortunate to have two friends from Singapore visiting. Rachel and Aileen are part of the gang from my University days in Brisbane.

 

I was so happy to have reunion dinner with my family and my two old pals. We had steamboat. The girls bought me lots of Singapore goodies. Aileen surprised me with a box of freshly packed frozen durians. Wow. I had it on a late night chat. It was so good. Seb was surprised the next morning when he smelt something strange in the house.

 

 

The ladies visited Paris, Rambouillet, Chartres, Versailles and even spent a night over at Bordeaux and visited two wine properties. It was cold and rained during most of their stay here. It even snowed on the sunday we were at Notre Dame Cathedrale in Paris.

 

We drank lots of wine as "it was so cheap"; exclaimed my friends. We chatted into the late night and I put on 2 kilograms with all the pineapple tarts, mini spring rolls that my mum made, snacks, and good food that we had in Paris restuarants.

My boys enjoyed their presence and A1 was still asking for Rachel and Aileen after they left. We are meeting soon in July when we are heading to Singapore for summer vacation.

A1's drawings

Recently, A1 likes to draw. Given some pens and crayons and papers, he could spend long periods drawing. He would draw family members including his grandparents.

Seb and I can't draw for nuts so we are not able to guide him much.

I am delighted whenever he presents his drawings. He insists that we place them on the bedboard.

Here are two recent ones.

 

A1 explained that he was drawing his papa. I pointed at the dot and he said it was the bellybutton. He then opened wide his hands showing me what his papa was doing in the drawing.

 

 

After that, he presented another drawing showing me. I asked where my hands were and he said: "Like this"; and he stood straight with his hands by his side.  I also asked about the thing on top of my head and he said that it was a hat. Funny boy.

I like the way he drew smoke coming out of the chimney. He is an observing boy and always draw five fingers on each hand. This was the first time he included the bellybutton.

He is drawing better. A week ago, there was a gap between the house and the roof. And it was a frown on the face. There is still no smile on the face but he is getting there, I hope.

Our Handsome boy

For once, this Sunday was a calm one with no lunch invitation or errands to run. Though there was frost, the sun was coming out. We went for a walk as a family in this cold morning. The temperature was around 3 degrees. A1 was on his bicycle and A2 was on his scooter.

I brought the camera along as I wanted to take some photos of Handsome. He is growing so fast and we hardly took photos of him.

He had a great time in the park running freely and sniffing everywhere. You can see that he is a tall boy in the photo with A1 on his bicycle. Handsome is heavier than my boys now.

Below are some photos of Handsome in action.

Isn't him a Handsome lad?

 

Aquarium at Palais de la porte Dorée

On 30 Dec 2012, we went to the Aquarium at Palais de la porte Dorée. I did not even know it existed. I always thought there was only one aquarium in Paris which we visited on A1's birthday. As Ah Yi, the children's nanny lived in the 12th district and we were visiting her, I decided to find an activity for the boys nearby. That was how I came upon this aquarium on internet.

 

 When we arrived, we were surprised that entrance was free as the place was upgrading its ticketing system. There were not many people and the boys were able to run around looking at all the fishes.

 

 Below was a tank of arowanas.  

 

Here was a tank of marine lives.

There was also a dwelling for turtles and tortoises.

 

The boys looking at the impressive fishes. Some were bigger than A2.

One of my favourite fish: tetra. I used to have them in Singapore.

Look at the sting rays below. The white spots striked out on the black colour. Unique.

 

There was also a big rainforest dwelling for the alligators.

This aquarium was smaller than the one we went to before but I actually liked it better as it was less crowded. There were many pretty species.

When we were done, we met up with Ah Yi for tea and had a good time catching up. As usual, she made chinese dumplings for me (the best I ever tasted), stir fried vegetables with seitan for Seb and braised chicken drumsticks for the boys.

It was a fruitful day.