Happy Chinese New Year everyone!!!

My new year was very very short coz I had to leave for studies in the land down under.

Like every year, we'll always have a scrumptious feast the night before Chinese New Year which is of coz the Reunion Dinner.

This year, we had sort of a Japanese mix Chinese dinner.

Lots of food prepared. We had of coz the most important appetizer during CNY,

Yee Sang! we bought fresh salmon to add into it too..

Before we started mixing and eating, family shots were taken because for the next 2 years, I might not be able to celebrate CNY with them, so might not be able to take any full family shots...

Let the 'lou-ing' begin!!!

Other than Yee Sang, we had some assorted sushi made by my aunt and her maid.

We also had some soft shell crabs and tempura which I didn't manage to take picture of coz it was attacked by the humans!!!

Oh the best part for some people, Loads of awesome fresh sashimi and Unagi.

These aren't even half of what we prepared!!!

The Unagi wasn't really good though, it was a lil rubbery to me...

We also had some pork and beef Shabu-Shabu...

This was freaking awesome!!

These are all the food for that night!!
And all the humans attacking them...

The next day which was the 1st day of CNY and also Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine's Day.

We had another family camwhoring session!

1st, full family shots with our CNY clothings on...

Funny shots ordered by the adults!

And the sub-family shots...

Starting with the oldest Son.

With grandma.

The second Son (Naughtiest and Goofiest son)

With grandma...

Now with the youngest child - Daughter.

With Grandma...

The 3 siblings with their mother...

A shot of all the grandchildren with their grandmother...

The adults with Grandma...

We didn't do any visiting this year. It was lots of Mah-Jong-ing

and...

A new entry of entertainment in the family...

GUITAR HERO!!!!

Even the adults are snatching to play... tsk tsk tsk...

The young vs the old... (see my dad on the drums...)

These are the bits and pieces I'll miss bout the Lee-Goh Family when I leave for Melbourne...

1st of coz - The Lee-Goh...

The living room where we all hang out watching tv, rock banding and just chill...

The dining area where we all feast and where jokes and stories all comes... The laughters...

And yes, our Lee-Goh main entertainment. Number 1 entertainment we cannot live without...

MAH JONG!!!!

And lastly this lil furball - Angel!!!

All the goondoo things we do to her...

The End...

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!

We were on the way to a place called Sun Moon Lake.

Stayed there for a night. Along the way, we stopped for a quick toilet break.

When we were there, it was empty at 1st, but when we were walking back to the van, it was hidden!!

Hidden by all the other tour buses!!! but thank god we were leaving when they arrived. It was packed with humans!!! like really really packed.

So back on the road, we passed this stretch of road that has these 'Pin Lang' stalls by the side.

These stalls are operated by sexy young ladies who dresses with bikinis and cloths that they can't afford to buy, so they end up wearing very little.

The driver told us, the girl in the stall that we stopped to buy from (pic below) was considered over dressed.

This is the 'Pin Lang' we bought. It's a seed which they wrap with a leave and a bit of drug/alcohol in it. Usually sold to those midnight truck/lorry drivers who will be driving the whole night. It says it'll keep them awake. No idea how. Though it tastes awfully bitter!!!! And it also makes your teeth black!

We stopped at a Strawberry Farm for some fresh strawberries.

They even have sausages in strawberry flavor!!!

OH, there was this really cute bulldog at the farm named Ruby.

She's in love with those strawberry sausages. She'll practically go goo goo ga ga over those sausages (like in the picture). She won't go for anything else but this sausage. Not even a fresh strawberry fruit. And there's no way in tricking her. That's our driver in the picture feeding Ruby.

While everyone else were testing the strawberry wines, my Dad decided to be a clown for a few minutes. Like wearing that straw hat, pretending to be a Vietnamese girl.

And dragging my mom into it as well...

After that, it was lunch time. The driver took us to this little town that's famous for their flat rice noodle soup. They had some really delicious small snacks too. We were soooo hungry that we literally attacked the little snacks while waiting for our noodle to arrive.

This is the noodle...

After lunch, we headed to a chinese winery. Beside it were stalls selling random stuff.

There was this 1 stall that was performing the making of Bamboo Candy. The guy stretches the candy into long strips again and again and then when it hardens, he cuts it into strips.

And the candy is hollow too... Really nice simple Bamboo candy that requires a lot of 'Kung Fu' haha.

Then a little short visit to the chinese winery.

And then, on with our journey to a small town by the lake called 'Sun Moon Lake'...

Day 4 in Taiwan...

Went to this little town located within the hills in northest of Taiwan called 'Jiu Fen', a gold mine turned tourist spot that only opens during saturdays and sundays. The only way for you to get up there is only by tours. No self-driven tourists because the town is really small and no cars can be parked there for long.

Which practically means '9 portions'.

Wonder why it's called 9 portions?

It is said that long time ago there were only 9 families staying in JiuFen. And before any roads on land were built, all the materials these families needed were transported via ships. Thus a habit was formed that 9 pieces of the same objects were purchased at one time. Hence, the place was names JiuFen.

(The following part is taken off the net because i couldn't remember the other part of the history of JiuFen. hehe)

JiuFen used to be the center of gold mining. It is next to the mountain and facing the sea.

In 1890, someone struck gold near JiuFen. The poor village with only 9 families soon attracted prospectors of 4000 families. The village once was gold city of Asia and called little Shanghai or little Hong Kong. However, with the decline of gold mining activities, Jiufen faded.

There were several movies shot here too like Sad City that won 1st place in Venice Film Festival, awakening people's memories of Jiufen.

The entrance of JiuFen.

Another thing JiuFen is famous for is for their Tea.

They have some pretty awesome chinese tea there.

There was this shop that sells really cute porcelain flutes.

Bought some of these cute handmade 1 of a kind owls.

Every color, every jade and crystals has it's own functions.

Like yellow is for health, green is for studies and pink for fate.

It's 1 of a kind because you can never find an owl with the same cloth pattern even if it's both the same color.

After that we went to a place to see remarkable rocks formed by the strong splashing of waves that carved shapes on the limestones. There were a lot of funny shapes but i'm only showing you 2 of their most famous ones.

Ginger.

Queen's Head.

Here's some random camwhoring session we had.

For dinner, we visited another night market.

There was this seafood stall that had this dried pufferfish.

Sad but it looked cute...

Oh and for the biggest highlight of my Taiwan trip.....

I felt EARTHQUAKE!!!!

If I'm not mistaken, it was a 3 magnitude earthquake that came from a 8-9 magnitude earthquake from this place called 'Hua Lian' which is about 3-5 hours drive away from Taipei city.

It was scary at 1st but uber COOL after because we got to experience earthquake!!!!

Here's my aunt, cousin sis and I being goondoos staring at the bottle of water seeing if there were anymore after shakes as we felt like 2 more other small shakes.

EARTHQUAKE!!!!!!