Happy New Year, everybody.... ^_^

It's been a pretty tiring but enjoyable past three days; relatives on my mum's side came down all the way from Malaysia on the 30th, and we had steamboat at home. One hell of a squeeze, I tell you-- 14 people crowded around the table. My parents, my two sisters and myself, two aunts and an uncle who're single, and my married aunt and her husband and her two sons (my cousins, of course), and our two lovely guests, Ben and Joseph. :D

Dinner started kinda late coz we were waiting for my dad to get back from work, so Ben, Joseph, my sis and I entertained ourselves by playing bridge-- during the course of which we learned that our dear Gen really isn't too good at bridge. :P

We finally drank the Chardonnay that Joseph bought last week and everybody had ice-cream from Venezia (1.5 litre tub, 4 flavours-- caramel, belgian chocolate, strawberry cheesecake, mango-- at a discounted price since Gen's working at the Venezia just down the road for the holidays) after dinner, and in my mum's words, the "younger generation" started making plans to go out the next day so we could catch the New Year's Eve countdown fireworks at Marina Bay.

So my baby and I went out with my two cousins and our uncle; we walked around Marina Square for a bit, had dim sum for tea, walked over to the Esplanade to see some of the pre-countdown preparations and such and baby snapped a few pictures as well.


They had these white balls floating in the river-- I have no idea why, but the sight of large inflatable balls always makes me squeal. They're just so.. cute, in some way. ^_^ From where we were (behind the Esplanade), I could see the balls had writing on them. Probably well-wishes for the new year.



Baby and me in front of the Esplanade, and us against the CBD skyline, on the bridge which outside the Esplanade.

After that, it was back to Marina Square for dinner, at Billy Bombers this time, during which we got ourselves thoroughly stuffed by their humongous portions.

We made our way out onto the bridge at about 10-plus and got ourselves a pretty good spot to watch the fireworks; we sat on the aluminium railings along the sides of the bridge, and pretty soon, lots of others got the same idea.

So we had a good view-- we weren't blocked by anyone directly in front of us-- and we had much fresher air too where we were, up above the crowd, and the fireworks display really was something. It lasted for about five minutes and it was so pretty...!! :D

For those of you who weren't there, you really missed a good show-- was quite something, despite how short it was. :)

I've never actually spent New Year's outside before; always spent it at home. For a first time out it was pretty all right, I guess. :)