CNY 初四 at The Arte

Its the 4th day of CNY and I met up with the folks from poly for our annual CNY gathering, lo hei and gambling session.  This year, we met up at Paul and Caren's new home at The Arte which overlooks the PIE toward McRitchie Reservoir.  Pretty good view I must say...

Andy, Janice, Jade & Ryan came back to Singapore for CNY and will be flying back to Papua New Guinea on Monday, so its quite timely that we met up today.  Ryan was asleep when I arrived.  Saw him sleeping in a cute position so I took a picture of him hahaha...

We had Spizza for lunch, compliments of Paul before we did a customary LO HEI.. Its funny how year after year, we still only remember a few phrases to recite when preparing the dish.  Its always 黄金满地, 甜甜密密, 顺顺立立... and then we're stuck. hahaha..

Caren enjoying the preparation while Raymond overlooks

What would a CNY gathering be without gambling right?  Well, this isn't Marina Bay Sands or Resorts World.  We play small and I'm very sure everyone gets their usual kick out of seeing me lose money.. :p  Anyway, we started playing blackjack with Andy as banker.

Blackjack turned boring and we switched to in-between... You know how our parents always taught us not to be greedy?  Yeah, but we never learn right?  Even though we play this game every year, somehow we just never learn... I guess its human nature to place a large bet when you get an Ace and a King.  Trust me, you will get either an Ace or a King.  Yup, its proven.  Just ask anyone who has played this game and they'll tell you greed caused their loss... 

Jane, our volunteer bunny for In-Between

The pool money reached over $400 at some point

Halfway through, we craved for some coffee and Janice offered to drive out to buy for us.  Thanks Janice!! Andy wrote our orders on a paper plate and Janice actually gave this to the kopi-soh.. can you believe it? Hahahaha

In the meantime, the kiddos got bored and started entertaining themselves with the iPhone and iPod Touch... 

Jade & Ryan entertaining themselves

Somehow I was lucky enough to bet ALL and won the pool of cash to end that game. Phew... And since I won some money, the guys decided to have another few rounds of blackjack with MOI as banker!  Argh... Fortunately, I had a blackjack t-shirt from Gap which I bought from Las Vegas in 2010 and this t-shirt served me well.. at the last round, I actually got a blackjack!  Net result: I'm in the black this year.. No more loses like previous years.. Woohoo!!!!!  

Me and my Blackjack tshirt

 

Late lunch on 初三

Today I met up with my sis, Liyi, Fiona and Edwin for late lunch at Vivo City's Modestos.  How this happened was because Liyi and I won an insignificant amount of $$ at mahjong on 初一 and felt really bad about it.  So we decided to get everyone out for makan and we can buy them back and also use this as a bonding session since we probably meet only once a year.

We arrived real late cuz Fiona had to work and could only be done by 2pm so by the time we arrived at Vivocity, it was almost 3pm.  That's us... cousins from the Leong family.  =)

Fiona, Liyi, Edwin, me and Joanne having lunch at Modestos

Since we were starving (ok I admit it was more me who was starving).. For appetizers, we ordered 2 bowls of mushroom soup and had it split into 5 portions.  The soup was really good and full of mushroom flavour.  You know how sometimes you get some thick white creamy soup made from chicken stock and had nothing but a mere few slices of mushrooms?  Well, that's not what they serve at Modestos, thank goodness.  We also had the calamari and it was nice too.  After placing our orders, we kept ourselves busy by playing Monopoly Deals.  :p

Calamari

Mushroom soup

My order of a regular sized pizza.  Proven to be too big for me because I couldn't finish the last 3 slices even when Joanne ate 1 slice for me as well.  But it was nice and I couldn't finish it probably due to the bread and appetizer and soup I had earlier.

My pizza with mushrooms, ham & artichokes

Fiona ordered blank ink pasta and had her scallops replaced with clams (WHY???!!!!).  But when her order arrived, I tell you, they were generous.  Check out the picture below.  The size of the praaaawwwwnsssss... oh lala.. I felt happy just by seeing the size and number of prawns in that plate of pasta.  I believe it should taste as good as it looks too, cuz nothing was left on the plate by the time Fiona was done with lunch.

Fiona's black ink pasta with heaps of seafood

 The rest of the orders were pretty normal, so I didn't pay much attention to them.  See pics below.

Joanne's penne al funghi

Edwin's order - fettuccine with chicken breast

Liyi's order of ravioli with mushroom stuffing

By the time we finished our food, we were so full.  I was quite keen to go to the newly opened walkway linking Singapore to Sentosa, but the sky looked like it was going to rain, so we decided its better to stay indoors.  We continued playing 2 more rounds of Monopoly Deals and I won all 3 games that we played today.  YEAH!!!  I think I'm getting a lot better when I first played it on Thursday.  =)

After paying, we split ways as almost everyone had plans for dinner (yeah, even though we just finished eating a heavy meal).. I really think this was a good idea and since we're already making efforts to meet up with cousins from my mum's side of the family, its also time to do the same for dad's side of the family.  I'm sure we're gonna meet up more often from now on...