The Year of the Rooster is Here

Lunar New Year: Millions welcome the Year of the Rooster
Normally I spend the Chinese New Year Eve up at the temple, which I have written many a post about on this blog before -
2016: Year of the Fire Monkey
But after about 12 years of doing that, I decided to just stay home and celebrate it in my own way.

I bought some honey chicken take away from my local Chinese take away shop and bought a bottle of Calvados from my local bottleshop. 
Calvados is high quality French apple Brandy, which I had never heard of before reading that French food book pictured right at the top of this post with the French national totem animal of the rooster on the cover.

The French class rabbit meat as
poultry apparently, weird, or what?

Ironically the Oz importers are at Waterloo Street:-)

I thought I would take a leaf out of the Jewish New Year custom of having apples and honey for a sweet new year by having honeyed chicken and apple Brandy to see in the Chinese New Year.

Although that could be just wishful thinking on my part hoping for a sweet year, as tensions seem to be at breaking point in the Pacific region ironically enough.
South China Sea: Australia in firing line if US and China go to war, experts warn

So, 2017 is looking like it could turn sour at any moment with a bird brain in the white house talking tough on China.
We might need more than a little luck to get through this year, so I might have to horde those wishbones throughout the year. 
Mikhail Gorbachev: It 'looks as if the world is preparing for war' as nuclear threat re-emerges
Let's hope that the only fireworks we see this year are at days of celebration. 

I woke up this morning not to the sound of a crowing rooster, but a singing butcher bird outside my bedroom window, while I was lying in bed listening to a podcast on my iPad.

The butcher bird singing to me this
morning on my bedroom veranda

I hope that was a good sign for the start of the Chinese new Year.

Happy Chinese New Year ... hopefully.

UPDATE: January 28th, 2017

I spent yesterday afternoon in Chinatown.
I may have lost an eardrum in the mall somewhere, I think.

And to prove what a small world it is I got to chatting with the guy who was standing next to me in the carpark (ringed in the above photo) and he told me that he had a long drive planned for the next day.

I asked him where he was driving to, and he said a little town called Miles that I've probably never heard of.
I said that's the town my Nana grew up in and that I have only been there once and that was to attend my great grandmother's funeral who is buried in the town cemetery.
Miles is a small town with a population of around 2000 people, but it seems that it's an even smaller world on a Saturday afternoon in Brisabane's Chinatown;-)

I had to split after the 6:30 pm fireworks and lion dance to catch Shyamalan's latest movie playing up the street at 7:00 pm.

UPDATE: February, 7th, 2017

The Sydney Roosters won the Auckland Nines Rugby League tournament last Sunday at big odds. 
"The Sydney Roosters have claimed a shock Auckland Nines title after defeating Penrith in a 10-8 nailbiting final at Eden Park."
A Walk Through Centennial Park and Then Off to the Football