Chinese New Years Day

You know when you are in Asia when instead of commercials on Cartoon Network they have info mercials teaching youngsters about the differences between investing and saving, diversifying in your stock portfolio and gauging risk... All sung by a jaunty cartoon character... I'm not kidding!! CJ is glued to it and now wants to invest his ang bao in a Skylander... I don't think he understood the main gist of this investment lark.

Yesterday, just before the shops closed we rushed over to one of the many malls that populate Orchard Road and were in a store looking for new kids clothes for reunion dinner that night. I suddenly realised that CJ was nowhere to be seen. We scoured the store then noticed a small crowd gathering outside the main shop window. I went over and sure enough, there was CJ standing in the shop window alongside the other child size mannequins, pretending to be a shop dummy for a few seconds and then turning and waving at the crowd... Who were becoming his audience. I pulled him out of the window reminding him that if anyone was going to draw attention to themselves then it should be me!!! We quickly left.

Today is the first day of Chinese year of the snake.... We had to go to Papa's Mum and Dad to greet them with oranges and then the children receive their red packets with money in them. As we hadn't made it to reunion dinner the night before, due to the complete lack of cabs, there was a glut of Aunties and Uncles who had missed us, and they'll needed greeting and had money to give. We didn't have enough oranges, so borrowed some off Papa's sister and at one point people were just passing oranges around and recycling them, it looked like a juggling scene from a del Monte commercial.

The most surreal part of the day came as the heavens opened. It seems to be a recurring theme for the beginning of the Year of the Water Snake, ongoing rain. As the rain fell I noticed my sister-in-law's two maids racing around the garden with umbrellas. I asked what they were doing to be told that they were putting umbrellas over the flowers to protect the blooms... So there were two young ladies racing around the garden putting umbrellas over flowers whilst getting drenched themselves. It reminded me of Alice in Wonderland where the guards are painting the white roses red...

We came home and the two exhausted boys have just crashed asleep after opening their ang baos... They have made a fortune... I not hope they invest it wisely!!!