The 22nd December 2007, was the date my brother arrived with his girlfriend. If I recall correctly, he arrived in the late morning or so.. Hence , right after his arrival we headed back to Bentong for a family dinner, as it was the Winter Festival [It's a festival to celebrate the coming of winter, though Malaysia has no winter...]

We came back in time to see my Grandmother [Paternal side] making Tong Yuen [It's little bite sizeed balls made out of rice flour, I think, with fillings inside, usually Sugar is used as it's core, though other things such as peanuts may be used. Cooked in Ginger water.... It's traditional to have it during the Winter Festival, and I don't know where this came from, but apparently the amount of the balls one eats, is equivalent to your age, eg if you are 20 you eat 20 balls. but we don't do that haha.. Also the eating Tong Yuen, if I'm not wrong, signifies that you are a year older, which is a good thing? Because in olden days.. Living itself was hard.. you know, diseases and famine.. etc...]

So, we taught Junko how to make them and we all sat down together to roll the balls [Usually the children enjoy doing this, and I must say, I enjoyed doing it when I was a child :p ]

Here are the ladies seated together rolling the balls, My grand ma was making white and pink ones.. and I taught Junko that we can actually combine them, and make them look like pretty little marbles :p

When that was done, and after lazing around for a bit, it was time for dinner.. The winter festival, is another excuse besides Chinese New Year, for Chinese people to gather with their family...

We headed to... Siong Hei Lau? One of the restaurants in Bentong, and sat down to nothing else but a Chinese dinner :)

My family & Junko :) enjoying the food... [Since when, don't we enjoy food? Most of us LOVE to eat..]

My 4th uncle and his family.. they live down the road from me.. convenient in some sense :)

My fifth uncle and family, his son isn't in it.. can't remember where he went, for camp maybe.. and at the corner is my grandma..

This isn't the whole family.. it's only 3 [including my dad, my dad has 6 siblings.. so only half were here.. we don't want to talk about my maternal side... it's double the amount..] of my grandmother's children that came back.. although it's preferable if the whole family came back, but the modern world dictates our life sometimes.. and people have to work...

Here we are again, with the Shark fin's soup [Though whether it's real Shark's Fin or not.. I'm not very sure... =.=']

And that's all for the dinner.. the next day we headed up to Genting Highlands as can be seen from the post below.. So we just ate and was merry.. And went home to bed...

-Oracl3-

Sadly, my 4th guitar string broke.. and it was new too, not even a year's old.. sigh... and the packaging proudly advertised itself as being of the best quality.. liars!!