Xin nian kuai le!

Happy New Year! 2008 is the year of the rat- And if you are a rat (1996, 1984, 1972, 1960, 1948), then make sure you wear something red to ward off evil spirits ...

Today, Rich met me at Paddington station after work. We walked over to Oxford Street to see all the red lanterns and then on to China town, where there were even more red lanterns. We did a bit of shopping at the Chinese food shops (where I bought some very old white rabbits and some peanut nougut sweets). Then, we found a Chinese restaurant that didn't have a long line out the door. We ordered a few dishes (Chinese dumplings Peking style which didn't taste like any dumpling I'd ever had in China), gong bao ji ding, gu lao rou (sweet and sour pork) and ribs. The waiter laughed at us and asked us if we wanted to reorder because everything we ordered was very sweet. He suggested that we change the gong bao ji ding to the malaysian style one, which was hot, so we did. When the dishes came out, I felt a bit silly as the guo lao rou and the ribs were exactly the same dish, except that the ribs were actually on bone ... so why he didn't suggest changing one of those dishes, I don't know.

Anyway, we're both absolutely stuffed now, and it's time to go to bed, so ... Happy New Year!