Out of the Oven (the sequel): Karneval Fatt Chai

Very delayed posting...

So enter the year of the Golden Pig, the last time it was a Golden Pig was some 60years ago! New beginnings? We shall see... And how was Chinese New Year in Bonn? It definitely was a Carneval Season...simply because its smack on one of the regions most celebrated event of the year...Karneval (with a 'K')!

The Karneval Season begun with most of us celebrating Single Awareness Day @ Valentine's Day at an eat all you can pizza hut, following that was a series of celebrations which I would aptly call Karneval Fatt Chai! Karneval is celebrated usually before Lent, and is especially famous in Koln! Parades, costume balls and lots of revelry goes hand in hand with heaps of alcohol being drunk! It is sooo huge that our company had a huge company party on Karneval Thursday, 15th of Feb and nearly 1000 employees were partying in the Tower's basement! Everyone made an effort to dress up...and yours truly only had a Chinese samfu to wear! I wasnt bothered enough to play dress up, although being Capt Jack Sparrow was definitely a brilliant idea...till i saw some exactly like him came along! Damn, he looked exactly like him...even the swagger! The Karneval event lasts all the way till the following Monday, which was an official off day for us! Sadly I had the fever on that day...so i had to give the biggest event of Karneval a miss...the Karneval Parade!

Malaysian and Brazilian

(from top): Portuguese speaking dudes! Watch where you grabbing! Frightened by a drag!

(from top):Me and French maid! Me and my fav Serbians! Shook shalt not sin!

Chinese Zorro (Zollo)!

"So Kong, how do i get to the Empire State Building?"

Random Karneval revellers

Me and Cowgirl..."yee ha!"

Me and Serbian Pioneers

Malaysians in Karneval as Zebra crossings!

Malaysians with Mario and Luigi!

Me and Poca-hot-ass!

Salute to the legs!

But as it is, Chinese New Year was on Sunday! Knowing Eric will be coming, and also one of my New Year's resolution to bridge the Chinese community with the trainees...we organized a Chinese New Year Lunch on the first day of the Golden Pig year! It was a fantastic do as since everyone was soooo tired celebrating Karneval, the best way to compliment the feeling was to cook them authentic Chinese food!

Surprising that the main dishes were made by...MALAYSIAN Chinese! Even the Chinese were shocked at our culinary skills...among the dishes made were sweet sour chicken, spring rolls, bak kut teh, chicken curry, heaps of vege dishes...these were made by Eric, Shooks and me! Then there was rice, vege and fried tofu done by the rest of the Chinese! We even had ang pau packets, courtesy from Shook, to decorate the place! And guess what was the theme of the day...everyone had to wear RED!

This was definitely a nice moment for me, Shook and Eric, all of us for the FIRST TIME ever, not having the traditional Chinese New Year eve dinner with our families. So it was a great turn of events for us, as we re here celebrating Chinese New Year Lunch with our own families away from home, the trainee community! It was fun to also having us share the usual traditions of our celebrations, each one of us explaining one tradition to another...also what each food meant, who made it, how good it was...etc! Truly a memorable occasion for us...and me!