85 years is a long time

Last Saturday my grandpa celebrated his 85th birthday. It's pretty interesting, as he doesn't follow the Gregorian calendar system, but has his birthday on the 13th day of the Chinese New Year. So it's subject to date changing every year, but it's right smack in the middle of all the festivities and food, so we're not complaining.

And to mark the occasion, we had a little bit to drink. 85 Mah (it's a pun, geddit?) , and so we had to go tipsy, if not it wouldn't be much fun at all.



Heh. A little was probably a gross misnomer.

You know, since I haven't been posting for quite awhile, I really need time to get it back in my stride. So this post will be the most mindless post I've had in awhile, just spamming pictures with little captions underneath.

Pictures galore!


The cognac was good stuff. But it was so old the bits of cork were breaking up and fell into the drink :(



So here's the restaurant guy straining the cork bits out, then pouring it back into the bottle. Almost as good as old. Pretty ingenious, eh?


Kin Yip was all like 'Wah, white so gay'.

Then he changed my theme to pink.



Underage drinkers! We're obviously not very good examples, so yeah, don't drink (too much).



And there were the usual festive dishes. Yee Sang pictured here. And as much as I love yee sang, I've probably eaten the very same dish at the very same restaurant at least three times over the course of the past weeks.


More underage drinkers. Bad bad Mah family.



Well, we're not actually all that bad. See here, one glass is alcohol, while the other is relatively harmless Chinese tea. We drank tea too, but you almost can't tell the difference.

Uh oh, that might explain why the little kids were so hyper that night.



A big big, expensive dish. Though not as costly as the fish, which was a whopping RM900 for our three tables. That was one expensive life! As I was eating the fish, I really couldn't help thinking that it had lived a good life, and was now serving its higher purpose in life.

Good stuff, that fish.



Kids be kids. Long gone are the days when your childhood didn't revolve around technology. It's pretty sad actually, when I notice everyone around so obsessed with their handphones and what-not. But then again, it might just be me.



The restaurants famed 'Sang Har Meen'. It doesn’t look too appetizing in the picture, but trust me when I say that it's absolutely glorious. For the benefit of those who don't know, sang har meen (very very) loosely translates into 'big-ass prawn noodles'.



We 'Yam Seng-ed' all night. Must have scared quite a number of patrons at other tables too. And there was this other table who tried to rise up to the challenge. But with some 10 screaming kids and teenagers, it was really no contest.



Huhuhu, patience, my young padawan. . .



The biggest drinker of the night. I kid you not.



The salted egg crabs. Absolutely delightful. The next day I had this for leftovers, and got a nasty cut trying to pry open a shell. It was worth it though :)

At RM80 a kilo, they don't come cheap, but they're just so fat and succulent you really couldn't be bothered about trivial things like price! (especially since a certain grandpa is paying for the dinner)



Posing.



With cousins outside the restaurant. We really had to take a break from the steady stream of food and alcohol. So much good food, so little stomach capacity. Darn our gastronomical limitations!



Umm, uhh . . . there’s something you don't see every day.



More toasting and scaring away other customers. We're a real ridiculous bunch, I tell you.



Umm, that's not what it looks like. *hic*

(Really, it's not)



One jonathan and lots of Sprite later, this is what happens. Man, we're a big happy bunch of alcoholics.



My adorable little cousins. While they're still adorable, and (relatively) little. Kids have this tendency to become pain in the artichokes as they grow up.



Picture speaks for itself.



Another great pride of mine. I CAN READ THE CHINESE WORDS!! Hey all, I'm no bananana!





Happy Birthday, Mr Mah Peng. Something ru dong hai shou bi nan san! (Whatever that means)



Blowing out the candles, after we sang Happy Birthday in English, Chinese, Malay, and Cantonese. We're multi-lingual, yo.



Family pic. Oh gosh, I look so much like my mum it's creepy. I should consider shaving bald sometime soon.



Winding down. Laissez-faire (let it be).



How often do you see two octogenarians (someone over 80) give each other a big High-Five? The other grandpa was waving his hands in the air saying 'I surrender, I surrender' when my grandpa tried to make him drink some more.

Just classic.



The normal family picture.



The not so normal family picture. It's a pity we couldn't get Grandpa to join us.



The Kids.





The boys are (leaning) back.



Garrett. I have no comment. Except maybe a slight mention of how hilarious it was to watch him do that.



Random nonsense after dinner.



OH MY GERBIL we finished the alcohol!







There are some 20 emptied cans of Sprite. In the end, since we kept asking for more and more Sprite, they just brought out the entire carton. Smiling innocuously at them, we asked 'Free ah?'.

What to do? We're Chinese to the core.

As quirky and weird as we all are, we're one big family.



And I love my family.



Post-dinner:

Garrett and I, obviously tipsy, decided to pull off one last stint before we went home. Grabbing our emptied Cognac bottles, we marched out onto the middle of the road.

With all eyes on our sober (again, this is relative) selves, there was a quiet count of '1, 2, 3'.

Then we burst out into this drunken stupor, slapping ourselves, laughing and causing a riot for a good minute.

Unforgettable.

Sidetrack:



HAVE YOU SEEN SO MANY BOWLS BEFORE??