Year of the Rat - nothing to be ratty about.

I was invited to a Chinese New Year open house, hosted by Auntie Dorothy, an important lady in a particular cookie franchise. She's great friends with my mother. So on the seventh of February, we arrived at the lady's residence, somewhere in Taman Desa at around 5 in the afternoon. The road in front of her house was covered with red confetti, and we were informed that we missed the lion dance! But that's fine, when there are loads of food to be pigging out on.

Notice the fabric with fold marks in the background. It came from China, and it's worth about RM 100 000 [rumoured]. It was a gift from this man who had this awesome orchard in Malacca, but now works in Shanghai. Amazingly enough, he was seen wearing a Tintin t-shirt.

The buffet tables were flooded with potato salad, spaghetti, chicken wings, fried dim sum, lin chee kang, chocolate fountain with fruits and marshmallows and endless supply of Lecka-Lecka gelato. I've never had so much free food in my life.

While my mother and I were busy stuffing our guts, the kids were busy terrorising the house with cans of silly string [there was a crate full of them] and spraying on their pals, parents and the entire garden. Luckily the food remain unharmed.

So this was the food I was talking about. I also consumed two boxes of chrysanthemum tea and a glass of lemon tea. No wonder I feel bloated!

There were trays of chocolates everywhere, and not to forget, tangerines. I've had enough of them from my mother's regular trips to the market.

The rest of the time we were there, I hung around a bunch of middle-aged people who were talking about life and how serious or funny they can get. The rest were busy yelling 'Yam Seng' for as long as they can before they down a glass of champagne from the endlessly-flowing bar.

On the eighteenth was the corporate open house [before this was for the family and friends], held at Bayu Timor cafe and home furnishing store in Taman Megah [opposite Ming Tien]. I arrived at about five and got myself a glass of peach tea and sat with my mother and her friends. The buffet spread wasn't ready yet, so we were served some tasty cheese and crackers. Then, something loud happen.

Clings and clangs of cymbals and drum beats started off the lion dance. The lion crawled about the shop to give blessing [and onto Auntie Dorothy herself] and sliced up several oranges and a pomelo.

The police were there to 'monitor' the situation, and several passers-by stood about to enjoy the show.

Now, it is time for the lion to do some pole-dancing. I haven't got a clue on how those people inside the lion can jump up so high!

The lion was also dancing upon two cables and flipped about, which amazed everyone who was there.

Then it was time for the lion to eat some salad and ang pau off a clothes hanger. I overheard that there were 8 packets of ang pau, each containing RM 1 000!

Just before the lion came down to the ground, it performed a thrilling leap over the part where the cables were [it was snapped to spice things up], which brought me halfway to faint.

The show ended with a great display of exploding firecrackers, which is technically illegal, but somehow the police were just watching coolly.

Time to eat! I have been reserving my stomach for this open house, and ate the customary Yee Sang, followed by finger foods like baked cheese mushroom and pepperoni baguette.

There were loads more that are on the buffet table. Roast lamb, nachos with pineapple salsa [out for an encore], Sarawak Laksa, roti jala... all the tasty stuff. I really enjoyed these chocolate brownie / cream / soufflé thing which is really a sin not to eat, but very sinful to eat. Oh, no photographs of those because I got busy photographing the tai tais.

And as usual, what's a CNY open house without a rowdy group of adults enjoying rounds of alcoholic drinks?

At around 8 p.m., we were all called out to watch the fireworks display. It went well for the first few shoots but suddenly, it stopped.

And for about 15 minutes, we were all waiting for something to happen while the 'pyrotechnic experts' carefully re-light the explosives. Nothing worked, and in the end, they burned the entire box. Then, flowers of fire came back to bedazzle the sky.

Ah, wasn't that fun? My mother and I decided that it was time to move, so we bid goodbye to Auntie Dorothy and her guests and carted away goodie bags, including an incredible tangerine-hoarding golden wire rat with a wiggling coil tail.

A big thank you to Auntie Dorothy for being so generous with the food and ang pau.