Not a so perfect Chinese New Year

One thing bad about studying abroad is you can't really have a great time with your family during festive season. I had went through my very first time celebrating Chinese New Year (CNY) without celebrating with my family. I do celebrating CNY here in England but yet there seems like something still missing from my CNY celebration. Yeah, I am without my family this year. That's why I coming out with a blog title called "Not a so perfect Chinese New Year".

I decided to take 3 hours journey of train to attend an CNY party threw by a bunch of friends in Manchester called " Steamboat and Chicken Wings" event. Steamboat always be the first choice of celebrating festive season. We actually had one during the christmas eve earlier. 

Thats what we had for steamboat. Fish fillet, fined sliced beef, chicken tender, pork slices, bacon, mushroom, squid, mussels and some vegetables. That's a typical reunion dinner during Chinese New Year.

Li Yen and Delson posing with the food.

Boon Hui a true Manchester United fans. You can actually know he was a die hard to MU by looking at his attire MUFC. You don't want to mess with him.

Delson. I used to stay in his room during my visit to Manchester. He was like using the chopsticks to dig "mine".

This is Chian and Jocelyn.

Illegal betting is always been legalized during Chinese New Year. At first, I planned to earn some cash for the coming up disneyland trip. But the result really turn out bad. I had made a net loss of 30 pounds. I am not having a good year ahead for gaming. I should not bet until the next CNY.

A few game of "Chor Dai Di" just for a warm up. I just found out that Jocelyn really good in "Chor Dai Di". By the way, she love to bet so much and she had a new name now "betting queen" .

Get ready. Louis was calling on "Siam Ban Lak". SBL is a northern betting game in Malaysia. The rules is more or same with the casino baccarat. As long as the point on your card is bigger than the banker then you are winning. Basically, you get two cards from the banker. If the sum of both card is greater than 8&9 then you won't need to take additional cards (you already have 90% chances of winning money). Lets said if your cards are less than three then you need to draw a card from the remaining deck.If you got 2 same shapes and 2 same numbers and your cards is bigger than the banker then you will double your winning.

Minimum buy in 5 pounds. 

1. RED CHIPS = 1 POUNDS
2. BLUE CHIPS = 50P
3. GREEN CHIPS = 20P
4. WHITE CHIPS = 10P

People said when you are betting, you will automatically reveal your inner personality and it's show on your face.

Face 1.

That's what we called the face of acting during gambling. Boon Hui turn out to be a silent killer that night. And he was the only winner that night.

Face 2

Cunning face by Jocelyn. I guess she got a nice hand with her. 

Face 3

Serious face by Delson. He looked more serious in gambling than doing his assignment. He turned out to be the biggest loser of the night. He loss 15 pounds.

Win or lose is not that important in the gambling. The most important part is we really had fun. We make fun of each other, fooling around and of course laughter covered the whole house.

After the time and cash consuming activity, we had a small fireworks session. Louis got us some "dik dik gam". 

We were like small kids. Yelling and laughing outside.

We got no angpau, no CNY cookies but we had fun. Not a so sad Chinese New Year. It's just not a perfect one. Happy Chinese New Year friends in Malaysia. I knew I am late to wish you guys.