Suki Jezz First special chinese new year at Malacca, Melaka

As in the search of achieving my travel dream starting the year 2011, I would like to share my very first moment by telling you: - My Chinese new year celebration at Malacca 2011.





2 Feb 2011 - My journey started off at Seremban. My whole family had our Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner at there, and was joined by Mr Andrew. (He planned to kidnap me to Malacca). We did "Lou Shang" mixing up raw ingredients (crispy biscuits, salmon, colourful titbits) and had a full dinner. After that, off I went to Malacca!





3 Feb 2011 – A morning shiny hot day woke me up, and I rush out to take some pictures of ancient houses at Malacca. Melaka or Malacca is an ancient city full of tourists, hence when you want to see the traditional things, Malacca is the right place. After wandering for 15 minutes at the street, someone called me. “Hey, come back here, later you will got lost!” Andrew shouted. I had to move my lazy legs back to the house, but my eyes were still at the surroundings of ancient things and cultures.




But it was good also; I was able to go back into the ancient house (the house existed since World War2) to take pictures. A lot of ancient things (include the old washboard) were still ‘preserved’, and thanks to Mrs Lee, the great grandmother who take care the whole generations till now, took good care of the house too. “It is just a washboard.” I replied: “I know, but I was amazed still that I can still see it with my own eyes.”



And the next thing I do was, putting on my cheongsam (Chinese traditional clothes for Chinese New Year) and rushed down to say ‘Gong Xi Fa Cai’. It was the first time I ever wore traditional Cheongsam and I need to be careful with it (one big trip over will cause my clothes torn apart) imagine how tight the cheongsam was! Anyway, everyone was enjoying food and exchanging angpow. I did get my angpow after the greetings, but I did not give any in return, because I was not married (giving hints).



After the lazy noon, I am so bored in the house, so we went off to fetch Dennis’s (Andrew’s cousin) friend which her house was 15 minutes driving distance from Andrew’s house. I was famous in sleeping in the car, but something caught my eyes. “Wait, stop!” I shouted for joy. I saw a local Malay stall. It reminded me during childhood time (I grew up in Malay’s resident area) and no way I am going to miss it! After bugging Andrew, he finally brought me to there. They sold many types of snacks or light food (kuih in Malay), and I craved for it. Now you know why people gain weight during festive seasons. After a big feast, off we headed back home.


Night time, food again! As it was the first day of Chinese New Year, most of the shops were closed, but behold with the other races, they for sure will not miss the chance to operate their food business since it was a weekend plus festival holiday. Therefore, we stopped by at a Malay stall named ‘Seri Muala Alai- by HJ Nasir Ikan Bakar’, at here you are able to see lot of seafood being grilled and they grilled upon requests of ordering. It was so crowded, and we had to wait for hours to get our food. In the end, we had no choice but to leave the place and go for others food, the normal food, but you should checked it out.




4 Feb 2011 – After the usual greetings of Chinese New year with a different new dress in the afternoon (busy rolling myself on the bed during the whole morning), and I and Andrew went to Malacca jetty (near Holiday Inn). It is a sea view (I enjoy seeing landscape the most), and it was almost sunset at that time.











After that, off we went to have our dining and please, you will love the Nyonya curry chicken, if you are looking for the original flavours of cooking.







Since it is a Saturday, the Jonker Street (local night market) will be packed with people, especially tourists. At here, you will see the usual cheap and cute things will be sold. Some hawkers also sell the local food or handmade souvenirs so that you can by some for your loved ones, what amazed me the most was a street performer, where he expressed his feeling through music with playing guitar and flute. This is what I feel about him: Life wasn’t easy for some people, but learn to satisfy is the key of happiness. “Hey, girl, where are you? Come join me for a meet up and a cup of coffee,” my friend, Esther called me. I replied: “ok, roger!” I went into the Calanthe Art Café near Jonker Street (they sell 13 states of coffee of Malaysia), and boy, they do have lots of ancient old things where I cannot help but taking the pictures of the things because I love culture and impressed how advance the technology can be, from old till trendy nowadays.




















5 Feb 2011 – as Malacca is famous with it local food – Cendol, I woke up early morning, feeling hot and wanted to try the local dessert. Off I and Andrew went to jonker88 (near a Chinese temple at Malacca) and it was packed! But go for the Cendol, it was nice. Inside the shop, I amazed by the cart bank where different stamps and dollar from different countries were displayed, how I wished I can do that, travel around the world and keep the stamp and dollar notes as memory in my life.





After feeling nice finishing up the Cendol, I saw a lion dance performance at the street. (Lion dance is a form of traditional dance in Chinese culture, in which performers mimic a lion's movements in a lion costume), and we did saw a lots of lion dance performance this year with the Chinese spirit which are: teamwork make success, and we do not work alone.