Raymond Phang Photography

Happy prosperous lunar new year to everyone! Hope you guys had a really good rest and enjoyed yourselves over the “龙 Holiday”. Kekeke.

Raymond and I packed our “luggages” and went back to our respective family home on 22 January 2012 for the Reunion Dinner. It’s kind of a mad rush every year because we’ll have to eat at one place and then rush to the next place for second round. But the Reunion dinner at Raymond’s place is always filled with food and lots of food! Here’s a slight glimpse into our Lunar New Year;

 

Truckloads of Vegetables… from my favourite mushrooms and broccolis to mixed veggies and beans with beancurd skins. Some people actually practice eating Veggies for the first day of the lunar new year, so if there were any leftovers, they can be kept for the next day.

 

Of course we also do have the Yu Sheng! My super all time favourite food to eat during the Lunar New Year! Especially this Yu Sheng which is home made. I can eat this every single day for all my meals! Hahahahaha! Last year we ordered truckloads of them, and I finished the entire plate myself over lunch and dinner. Super shiok to the max, and it’s healthy too! Kekekeke. But I don’t have the luxury of doing the same for this year though. Oh well, they say moderation is the key! So I shall try to practice that.

 

We never fail to make the table dirty whenever we do the “lou hei”. With all of us trying to compete who can “lou” the highest, the food bits always come splattering down the plate and fly all over the place. Thankfully for us we have 2 mobile vacuum cleaner who will roam beneath the table like hungry sharks waiting to eat some of the yummy food. And also “Lou Hei” is one of the times where you are officially allowed to spew strings and strings of the Four Letter Word. HAHAHAHA! Of course the four letter words must be auspicious. Since this is the Year of the Dragon, we have auspicious words like “龙马精神” and “龙腾虎跃” etc.

 

This is how the table looks like after we were done with the gobbling. We had sea cucumber with fish maw, Pigs trotter in vinegar sauce, pig stomach soup, Veggies veggies veggies, two different types of prawn, bak kwa, steamed white chicken, big pomfret, yu sheng, dessert which was pear + apple + almond drink which was pretty refreshing. I must admit it was quite a feast and I’m thankful that we were able to enjoy such good home cooked food.

 

Here’s a picture of skinny Raymond Phang. LOL!

 

After staying on for a while, we scooted off to my Parent’s place which was about 10 minutes walk away. Unfortunately by the time we reached, they have already finished eating, and have almost finished washing up. I was feeling kinda sad, especially with lesser people around for the Reunion Dinner at my Parent’s place. Anyway, the Reunion Dinner should be slowly enjoyed with family and it is a good opportunity to catch up with your family (especially when you don’t see them very often). Good opportunity to reconcile any differences or misunderstanding over the past year, good opportunity to have a heart to heart talk.

Reunion Dinner at my place is slightly different. We eat together with my First Aunt (大姑), my Uncle’s family (叔叔), my Parents + Elder Brother, and my Grandma whom I call Ah Mah. Every year it’s the same, steamboat all the way. I like it cos I get to pick whatever food I like and cook it the way I want. There’s quail eggs (high in cholestrol!), toufu, veggies, fish, prawns, fish maw, crabstick, fishball, meat, squid etc.

So we chatted for awhile and my Grandma said she want to go back home cos she was feeling tired. My uncle went back home too, and it’s left with me and my family, together with Satin the doggie.

I helped out to open up the various goodies and poured them into the individual containers.

 

There were the mini fish filling samosa (surprisingly crispy, yet not very oily), prawn crackers, honeycomb.

 

Crispy squid cracker (good stuff, everyone’s favourite), and the crispy cuttlefish roll.

 

Roasted cashew nuts, and mixed nuts with raisins.

 

My super favourite goodies made by my Second Aunt! The savoury peanut one is Raymond’s favourite, and the Sweet Pineapple one is my favourite!

Of course there were other goodies such as the bak kwa, the candies and stuffs as well. I specially brought my Pok Chui (Olympus Camera) back so that I can snap snap some pictures of my relatives and family, but because I brought Satin back home and she kept crying when she don’t see me around, I had to lug her along for house visitings so I left my camera at home. -_-”.

Usually for the first day we’ll go to Church (Bukit Panjang Methodist Church) in the morning for service, followed by my Maternal Grandma’s place. Then to my First Aunt’s place, my place, and end at my Sixth Aunt’s place (yes I have a lot of aunts. Haha!). Something different for this year, we actually sneaked an attack on SUSU!! Muwahahahahaha! We went to her place to surprise her, and her mummy was sooooooooooo excited to see us!!

We were treated to a heaven lot of good food cooked by Susu’s daddy who is a Hainanese (he used to work as a cheft). Got Prawn Paste Chicken, got Sweet Sour Prawn, got Yummy Mutton and Beef, got Broccolis, got Noodles etc! Then there were cakes made by Susu’s mummy.. the Vodka Vanilla fruit cake, the marble cake, the vegetarian meat beancurd which tasted like yummy carrot cake, cookies and biscuits baked by Susu’s “dao” twin sisters. Not forgetting the home made prawn crackers, and we even had bananas.

Card games is the most popular way to kill time during the Lunar New Year, and so we stayed on at Susu’s place for a few rounds. We left the place with about $16 worth of 20 cents and 10 cents coins, and a stomach which weighed approximately 5 kilograms heavier than when we first entered Susu’s house. Hahaha!

Second day of Lunar New Year was spent at my Second aunt’s place, followed by Raymond’s relatives’ place. Then we left to meet Chris Woon at his place to fix his computer. Initially it was only the router, end up had to provide an all rounded full service for him. HAHAHAHAHAHA! So funny!! We missed the time for my Third Aunt’s place, so we went off to visit Uncle Larry who was Raymond’s extremely strict photography mentor. But he’s really really nice outside work, I like him!

Third day of Lunar New Year was spent at Raymond’s and supposedly my Fourth Aunt. The list goes on and now we’re back at work! Hehehe. Actually during all the past few days of the Lunar New Year, Raymond has been working overnight till 5am in the morning on the wedding backlogs to make up for time spent during the day visiting. We’re still working on the November couples, and it’s the same routine every year for us because the year end is always the peak wedding season where we receive more bookings as compared to the rest of the year. So do be a little patient with us while we work diligently on the images!

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Because this is the Year of the Dragon (龙 – pronounced as Long), so I gotta start off the first blog post of 2012 with a LONG entry. HAHAHAHAHAHA!! Gotta applaud you for surviving through the first half! Now go drink some water, stretch your back, and rest your eyes for 5 minutes before continuing the rest of the entry. Kekekeke.~

 

We received this awesome Macaroon tower from Serene and Chek!!

Because it was pretty huge and we couldn’t fit it inside the fridge, we had to gobble and gobble, and put some on a plate to fit in the fridge. Then we realised that there’s a hidden chocolate tower in the middle!! Ben, Susu and I were thinking whether is this a solid piece of chocolate block, or is the inside empty. So Ben took a knife and cut off the top. It’s empty! But the chocolate was super duper yummy! It’s a best friend to those who have sweet tooth like me. Hehehe.

 

Next came the Garrett popcorn from Lydia and Ah Loke!! We haven’t opened it yet, probably gonna wait till we have another Raymond Phang Photography movie night in the office to munch together. Hehehehe.

 

Gosh this picture is quite out of focus, but the greedy monster took over and I quickly opened to munch right after snapping this one picture. OOPS!! Thank you Lynnette and Shing Wa for this! 

 

Totally non Lunar New Year related, but here’s how we spent our Christmas last year!

First time we had a Christmas Tree! Bought the plastic plant at Daiso for $2, and DIY the decors ourselves. My mum gave me the Santa Claus and stockings. But too bad no reindeers on sleigh visited us cos the stocking was empty even until today.

 

 

Raymond gotten himself a Mamiya RB67 medium format which is pretty versatile cos you can switch to using a digital back or a instant polaroid with the 120mm film. The black and white was so super awesome, every single bit of details, the highlights and shadows… you can chuck Photoshop or Lightroom aside already!

 

And here’s a giant basket from Eileen & TP with a message that wrote Dear Raymond, Angeline, Susu & Ben. Thank you for your hard work! Love, TP & Eileen. Kekekeke.

It’s a Crabtree and Evelyn basket filled with truckloads of goodies!!

 

And a Christmas cupcake from Serene and Chek! And because the Santa Claus looked so cute, end up nobody was willing to eat the Santa Claus. But the fondant was awesome! So sweet and sugary!!

 

Jean and Julian bought us Ben and Jerry’s and also snacks from Bangkok!! Wahhhhhh… all these yummy food I cannot resist!

 

Ichiro Films also gave us a box of goodie! It’s a box of multi flavoured Marshmellow!! Love the thoughtful packaging… and you can even play Tic Tac Toe with your friends. Kekeke.

 

Here’s something from Ben and his Liebe Liebe awesome sweet pretty kind hearted gentle and funny girlfriend – Becky Bex! A Neon writing board and Battlefield 3! Unfortunately till now Raymond haven’t got the time to play the game though… But I’m having fun drawing on the board!

 

Up next is something from Angthommie! Paul Frank tops for everyone at RPP! Whooohoooooo!!!

Then a Christmas Log Cake from Lynnette and Shing Wa, which turned out to be really yummy!! I am a cake monster… so… less than 10 minutes half the cake was already gone. :X

 

I gave the cakie a moon! So it looked like a mini hut on top of a chocolate hill with a nice moon hanging from the skies. Kekekeke. Should have taken from a higher angle then can see more things such as the door of the hut etc… but greedy monster took over again. I will fail badly as a food photographer because of this greedy monster. Wahahahahaha!!

 

Then yesterday Elizabeth and Choon Kwang came over to pick up their Actual Day wedding images, and brought us this!! Together with a stick of Toberlone which miraculously disappeared right after. So no pictures.

And we finished all the sugar “spies” (gummy bears) they sent us over the year, so no pictures of the evil bears too.

 

And this is from Amy and Roy~~~ DooooNuuuutsssss…. I actually bit a mouth in the top two donuts. and left them in the fridge after gobbling up the chocolate coated one.. you know, just like how the male dogs mark their territory… Muwahahahahahahaha!

 

They also gave us a surprise ”wedding present”!! The words are not in focus, but here’s the love letter;

Dearest Raymond & Angeline, Thank you so much for the great photography work! We’re truly blessed to have you in our wedding celebrations! Take care & keep in touch! Love, Roy Amy 2012.

 

Here’s what inside the box! RAYMOND WITH HAIR!!! WAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

 

And he’s holding a camera while we self snap, which is always how we snap pictures of ourselves. Hehehehehehe. Love it to bits, and now everyone knows how Raymond looks like if he grows his hair.

 

In between the years a lot of couples really took great care of us and make sure we were well fed with the goodies and yummy cakes and sweets!!!!!! Wahhhh… the expansion of our body size aptly shows our appreciation for your love. A big big thank you to each and everyone of you who have contributed to our expansion in one way or another. Muwahahahahahaha!!!

 

May the Year of Dragon bring to you abundance of good health, happiness, and rich blessings! HUAT AH!!!!

 

Lots of Love,
Angeline