Chinese New Year, a.k.a. Lunar New Year, is a Big Deal in Asia, with pretty much everything shut down — like Christmas Day in the US or UK. 2019’s CNY ended up being a four-day public holiday weekend, so we took full advantage by relaxing and doing various other things.

Like an overnight to Malaysia! Mommy’s Aunt Jessica recently moved there, so she and Nyan crossed the border to visit Jessica and cousin Grace. (Daddy stayed behind, as he had work due for clients in the US who don’t recognize CNY).

There was also an afternoon at the beach with Aiden, the 9-year-old son of Brian, one of Mommy’s old school friends who is from Singapore but living in Shanghai — like many, many people, he and his family traveled home for the holiday.

Nyan’s school got into the fun too, with performances and all the kids dressing up in CNY gear. Here’s Nyan and his good friend Arav in their new year finery:

Here are all the kids goofing around before their on-stage performance:

And here they are making their way into the auditorium:

Believe it or not, we don’t have any video of the performance — we were too far away, and it was too shaky and whatnot. Oh well. It was still a great capstone to a great Chinese New Year!