Happy Year of the Ox!

Happy Lunar New Year! ^__^
Phil and I did most of our celebrating this weekend. We went into the city yesterday to meet up with his parents for lunch, and then it was off to the barber's so Phil could get his hair cut before the New Year. While we were heading back to the car we passed a bunch of people riding by on their bikes, blasting music and wearing orange traffic cones on their heads...
According to the signs they were wearing they were biking against war. (Not really New Years related, but interesting none-the-less.)
Today we spent the evening at my mom's house. This time I remembered to take some pictures, although I didn't remember until after dinner... And we can't forget the red envelopes. You're supposed to give red envelopes to kids and your elders. Considering my sister and I are both married now this will probably be the last year we actually get red envelopes from my mom. Technically we should have been giving red envelopes to my mom, but I don't think she's ready to be considered an "elder".

We put some food and flowers out for Buddha in the prayer room my mom has upstairs.

And we put out some food and flowers for my dad.

Then we went outside to burn some paper money to pay respects to all of our family members that are no longer with us. (Don't worry it's not actual money.) It was cold outside, but it warmed up pretty quickly with the fire.

Here's my sister waiting for the fire to die down a little so she can throw in more paper money.

We burned some paper lotus flowers too. You can see this one right before it caught on fire. That pretty much concluded our New Year festivities. Since New Year's Day is a Monday we won't be able to make it into the city to see all the lion dances and other celebrations in Chinatown, but maybe next year.

Jersey City

On Sunday evening Phil and I headed to Jersey City for an apartment-warming party for some college friends. All of us were part of a cultural organization called ARCC (Awareness of Roots in Chinese Culture), which is actually how Phil and I originally met. ^__^

The apartments were right along the Hudson and cost over 3 times as much as our apartment in Cleveland was, with only slightly more square footage. I guess that's what happens when you live so close to NYC. We ordered in some Chinese food and pizza, and watched Slumdog Millionaire. I don't want to give anything away, but I suggest not eating while you watch the outhouse scene in the beginning of the movie...

Here are the girls: me, Michelle, Vickie, Connie, Vanessa and Yao.

After dinner and the movie we played 3+ hours of Taboo. Which was only interrupted with a short break for dessert. I had forgotten how much fun Taboo could be.

Here are Connie, Mark, Alan and Phil, probably enjoying someone's failed attempt to get the team to guess a word.

Cleveland Week

Last week I had to head back to Cleveland for work. Cleveland in the winter is guaranteed to be cold, and it didn't disappoint...Not to say it doesn't get cold or snow in Jersey, but it's definitely not that cold and not as much snow.

While I was in town I got a chance to hang out with some coworkers after work. After spending most of my time alone working at home it was a nice change. I spent some time hanging out with my coworker Tim. We had dinner at a Middle Eastern place called Aladdin's in Crocker Park. I could have sworn I took pictures of the food, but I guess you'll have to settle for a surprised picture of Tim dipping some hummus.

Afterwards I got to visit his (relatively) new townhouse not too far from the office. Notice all the lovely snow...

At the end of the week a group of us went out to eat at a restaurant called "Wonton Gourmet".

We bundled up baby Su-Kyi in her coat and incredibly adorable matching bunny hat, and headed out to the restaurant.

In all there were 9 of us (plus baby Su-Kyi), and boy did we eat. It probably helped that we had 5 guys with us. I think we ended up eating through 12 or 13 dishes family style. Luckily, even though the majority of the people weren't Chinese, they were very adventurous in what they were willing to eat. Every plate was practically gone as soon as it came out, so I only got to a few pictures. I was able to snag a picture of the soup, which was called something like "West Lake Beef Soup".

And I was able to get a picture of the first round of food on the table. Now imagine about 5 rounds of that...We definitely kept the restaurant busy that evening. And it still ended up being less than $100.

Here's the whole group - full and happy from the meal.

Left to right: Rebecca, Steve, Anthony, may, Kevin, Alex, baby Su-Kyi, John and Rob

Fujiyama Mama

A couple weeks ago Phil introduced me to a sushi place by his work called Fujiyama Mama. They have half priced everything for lunch, including sushi, from Monday thru Saturday. I met up with Phil here once for lunch and it was pretty good, so we decided to bring Phil's family there on Sunday. His parents had never had Japanese hibachi before, so we decided to give it a try. The place was pretty empty, but the sushi chefs were still behind the counter rolling their sushi. Isn't the decor pretty?
Phil's family seemed pretty excited to try hibachi.

The hibachi chef we had was very entertaining. He had the usual onion volcano - always a hit. Although I think it scared the wits out of Phil's mom.

The best part was when the chef squirted 15~20 seconds worth of sake into Phil's mouth. I was surprised Phil agreed to do it. Apparently he thought the chef was kidding when he said sake and assumed it was water...I definitely wish I had caught that on film ^__^

NYC with the Cousins

Last weekend we went out to the City to meet up with Phil's cousins for Dim Sum. Some of his cousins were visiting for the holidays from North Carolina, Houston and Seattle, so we wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. Here's his Aunt Chan, Kevin, Lucia and Aunt Ruby enjoying some yummy Dim Sum at the Chatham Square Restaurant. This is the same place we went to Dim Sum for my birthday last month. It seems to be a Yu family favorite.
Afterwards we were debating between walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and going to the South Street Seaport. Most of us had been to the South Street Seaport before, but the idea of walking all the way across the Brooklyn Bridge and back in the chilly weather did not sound that appealing. So the South Street Seaport won. There was a giant tree setup for the holidays. Although it looks like patches of the tree are missing some lights...

Group photo time! It's a little foggy so you can't really see anything in the background.

Left to Right: Lea, Ray, Phil, Alex, Aunt Chan, Kevin, and Winnie

Phil and his cousins look so happy to be spending the holidays together.

After our walk around the South Street Seaport we met up with Phil's parents who spent the afternoon grocery shopping in Chinatown. Here's Phil carrying the groceries back to the car Chinese style! ^__^

Then we took his cousin Ray out to dinner at East Manor in Elmhurst - the same place we're having the wedding. We've been going there a lot recently it seems. I think it's partially to test out the food, but also to make sure the event coordinator remembers us and takes care of us for the wedding ^__~

Just like every other time we go to East Manor, Phil's parents ordered tons of food.

There were clams, veggies, fried tofu...

Fried T-bone, spare rips...

And, of course, lobster...

People really mean it when they say you put on the pounds during the holidays. I think we've had enough food in the past couple weeks to feed a small army!