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Tonight is the 15th day of Chinese New Year (last day to gamble, peeps!), or more traditionally known as Chap Goh Meh. It’s believed to be the Chinese’s Valentine’s Day…apparently, in ancient China, young maidens and spinsters would throw oranges into rivers as a gesture of hope for a good husband! In modern times, this practice apparently still carries on, especially in Penang, along Gurney Drive.

What with the actual Valentine’s Day coming, the malls are packed with boyfriends and husbands frantically searching for pressies for their loved ones…hehe…=) I ended up at Midvalley this afternoon to buy a book for hubby, and made a last minute decision to get him a shirt from Raoul. I spent about 20 minutes there deliberating between a few choices, and finally went for a slim-cut, two-ply shirt (very very soft) in dark brown lightly dusted with blue dots. It’s more of a ‘night-out’ shirt than an office shirt, though.

Oh…and as I was making my way from MPH across to Raoul, I saw this long queue of people at the concourse. Guess what they were lining up for? A single stalk of rose. Apparently, Midvalley is having a Valentine’s Day promo where if you purchase above a certain amount, you can get a rose for free, and a chance for a lucky draw. And M’sians are suckers for free stuff…even if it means lining up for an hour to get it! Oh, and MPH has a pretty good promo going on too…it’s called For Love or Money (or something like that…I wasn’t really paying much attention). If you choose Love and you purchase a book that has one of the four predetermined words on the cover (love, relationship…something like that la), you get some vouchers. If you choose Money, the same thing happens, but with different words…duh! =P

Anyways, after buying both pressies, I headed up to The Paper Boutique (2nd Floor, Jaya Jusco side) only to find it filled with people getting their pressies wrapped. Luckily, William (the owner…and he did our wedding cards three years ago) was just finishing up one pressie and he immediately started on mine! Yay! I sat and gossiped with him while he worked his magic…and 20 minutes later…tada! Two prettily wrapped pressies…one in dark red, another in blue (photos later)…

I’d originally planned to go back home to stash it (and take a couple of photos), but when I left Midvalley, it was pouring and poor hubby stuck at the office (he was supposed to take the LRT back), so I drove back down to Citi to fetch him. Had to dump the stuff in the boot…and when we got back home after dinner, while he was taking his bath, I had to quickly run down to the basement, get the pressies, run up, and frantically try to find a place in our overstuffed cabinets to hide it. *pants hard*

Anyways…I’ve got the card, I’ve got the pressies…so I’m off the hook for this year! *grin*

And conversation with hubby on the way back from dinner:
Me: Tonight’s Chap Goh Meh. Want to go throw oranges?
Hubby: *Gives me The Look*
*Pause* *Think* What?!?
*Gives me The Look again*
Oh yeah hor…we’re married! Dunnit to throw oranges…
*Shakes his head* (and probably wonders why he married me…)

And, WS, if you’re reading this, I will willingly and happily sponsor as many crates of Mandarin oranges you need…*grin*