And I Thought The Crowd Died Down: Chinese New Year 2012 Second Episode

- Janaury 23, 2012, Monday, Chinese New Year.

- This is possibly one of the rare family/relative-related posts that I'd be posting.

- My mom told me today that we needed to go back to my grandmom's house today, since today was the exact day of the lunar new year. Still tired and sluggish from yesterday's pre-new-year celebration, I unexpectedly took a nap in the early afternoon, just before my cousin's family visited us.

- My mom and I headed to Binondo after my cousin's family left, and met my aunt in front of their alma mater so we could watch the parade. We also tagged along our helper, so she could see how the Chinese celebrate the lunar new year. Sadly, we later received word that the parade started earlier, since the mayor arrived earlier.

- The four of us had a wild goose chase with the dragons and lions scattered along the streets of Chinatown. Since the streets were not off-limits to cars like yesterday, both cars and people have a hard time walking through the color-splashed Chinatown.

- People started to crowd in one random corner, and lo and behold, was the newscaster Mike Enriquez. I tried so hard to have a picture with him, especially with the number of people wanting to do the same, and the orange body guards that kept shooing people away. After a few attempts, and a few random shots of the merrymaking, I had a lucky shot with him a feet or two away from me, and with him looking at my camera. Teehee.

- The four of us window-shopped at the Santa-Cruz bound side of Ongpin, and found a random stall that allowed people to put on a lion-dance mask for free. Of course, I grabbed the opportunity to have my picture taken as well. My goodness, the lion head was a bit heavy.

- We later had to meet my cousin and his family again, somewhere in Binondo, and my aunt invited them to try out The Tea Life, the milk-tea place I recommended to my mom and my aunt. The two mainland ladies who owned the stall were surprised to see me with a big group of milk tea disciples in their shoebox-small store. Fortunately, all of them liked the milk tea, especially the green tea milk tea, and agreed with my description of The Tea Life's milk teas- "you can taste the tea and the milk separately, but you can also taste them together. Their tea is not too sweet, but not like water."

- Just as we were about to head to my grandmom's house, I met Audrey again, with her photographer friends; I saw her last night, coincidentally, on my way to my grandmom's house too. Haha.

- At my grandmom's house, we rested, and I finally met my new nephew, JB. (Another cousin's son.) He has really big cheeks, and really big eyes.

- We all left home at around 6:30, and the two babies' seemed to have drained themselves as well. As for me, I'm just glad that I unconsciously brought my adventure bag - especially my camera - with me today. Happy new year again everyone!!