It's funny how, like the dragon, I wanted to spit fire during the Chinese New Year celebrations this year! My husband and I were so looking forward to doing some traveling during this holiday until....his company sent him to a work trip to Indonesia instead!

My mother-in-law is simply disappointed to say the least. Earlier on, we thought this might be the year that Hubby and I will be able to go home and celebrate this occasion with her in Malaysia. Wrong. It is always so hard to plan for holidays with Hubby's work. By the time they could announce the dates of the holidays, all the flights to Malaysia were already either fully-booked or overpriced. So we thought of going somewhere with a cheaper airfare. I thought I hit the jackpot when I found return flights to Cebu for less than 2,000 Yuan for the both of us (including taxes and fees). Wrong again.

Instead, we celebrated the CNY eve just like it was nothing because early in the morning on the first day of the Chinese New Year, my husband left for Indonesia. Talk about celebrating the new year with family! We spent it alone and apart. And as I am writing this entry, he is still there.

Sorry for ranting here in my blog, but I am just too disappointed for words. I still managed to make something "symbolic" for our new year's eve dinner though. I made my signature style steamed fish. They say fish symbolizes abundance. I wasn't able to make something "sticky" to symbolize family togetherness. Well, we could have eaten "glue" and it would still be the same!

It's me again guys. I don't know if you're all still here, but I'm back. I must say that now I officially hate the months of October and November. They always bring me sadness and worry for two years now. Fortunately, things always manage to turn around in December and especially in the new year. I just hope that it won't happen again in this year's October and November.

While I was gone though, I never stopped cooking and trying out new dishes. Some of them I got from the websites of food bloggers that I just tweaked to suit my own taste and the availability of ingredients here in China. I have also discovered some new food and new traditions (at least to me anyway). Well, here they are...

For the past three months, Hubby and I also managed just one trip outside of China (together). He travelled to Indonesia on his own twice (much to my dislike and annoyance) and I travelled back home to the Philippines once. But the only trip we made together was to Hong Kong to celebrate Christmas.

In that trip, we stayed in Hong Kong island (Wan Chai) because our favorite hotel, The Minden, in Tsim Sha Tsui, was already fully-booked. We stayed at The Harbourview Hotel just across the Hong Kong Exhibition Centre. It was a nice hotel but they don't offer free breakfast and free internet. And because all our activities were in Tsim Sha Tsui, we needed to take the subway everyday. Not that bad though because we like the Hong Kong train system.

We still did the same things we always do when in Hong Kong: dine at the Outback Steakhouse more than once and Pho 24, have leisurely coffee breaks at Starbucks, window-shop and shop for real at the iSquare Mall, the Harbour City Mall, H&M and this time at Marks & Spencer. I was also able to hear the Christmas mass at the Rosary Church on Christmas day. One of the new things we did this time was to watch a movie in Hong Kong which we enjoyed and we planned to make it a tradition in every country that we visit from now on. The other one was to try Vietnamese coffee (sorry no picture) and the third was do grocery shopping.