Tradition: Temple Dinner

 Our family went to a temple-organised dinner yesterday at Marsiling. I remember going to one years ago at Woodlands by the same temple. Before I agreed to go with my mom yesterday, I forgot about how boring it is for people like my sister and I. It's just auction auction auction all the way with food served in between which weren't fantastic. All right, I should't be expecting much from this kind of dinner. After all it's a really traditional kind...if you haven't been to one, you might find it amusing with the way the emcee announced the auction price. (mixture of mandarin and hokkien)

 It's been quite some time since I saw a lion dance performance. Used to see it rather often during secondary school days on every CNY celebrations. I am definitely one of those kids who will be super excited about lion dance performance when I'm young. They were wonderful memories which I will never forget. How we would cover our ears trying to block out the sounds created by the drums and all, how we would run around feeling super happy that it's a festive season.... When I say we, I refer to my group of cousins, sister and me:) Come to think of it, we're all grown up with almost half of them settled down with cute kids and loving husbands and wives. (paternal side)

 Yup, this is the name of my 2nd uncle (maternal side). GOLDEN MOUNTAIN! I'm so glad my name is not anything similar to this. I don't think I can live with names like golden flower or anything alike.

 This dinner was organized by a Taoist Temple as can be seen by the banners of the Taoist Gods.

 Drinking beer at this kind of events is a first for me. But! one thing to take note, they kept adding ice into the cup which made the beer very diluted. Same goes for the orange soda.

 During the auction, I can't help but feel bored and disturbed by the ultra loud speakers with mixture of hokkien and mandarin blasting out from it. I tend to feel sleepy like when I was a kid, the feeling is like everything you hear becomes very muffled and your vision becomes blurry cause you can sleep immediately. 

 One thing that was rather amusing was when the Guest of Honour arrived, the emcee announced in super broken english and stammered for quite a while. I mean, if you know you're going up to announce the arrival of a GOH, practice beforehand! Don't embarrass yourself in front of so many people. I was trying hard to make out who the GOH was but honestly, I can't.

 My aunt's tenant, Ri Hui, fascinated by what was happening at the dinner since it was his first temple dinner. He was an ex-colleague from Philips and he's from Mongolia.... cool huh! I would really like to go to Mongolia at least once in my life. Actually, I do enjoy traveling a lot. It would be best if I can travel every year like what I had been doing since 2008. :))

Sometimes I really do wonder if this kind of tradition will die off since people from my generation are less "into" this kind of stuff, needless to talk about people after my generation. It may not die off in the near future but 30 years later? 

On a side note, I'll be going to Harry Potter exhibition at ASM with sissy later! exciting! Watching Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince now.. yippy...