Chinese New Year Abroad

It's my first time having Chinese New year outside of Southeast Asia and indeed, it's a very strange experience with no CNY songs being played at shopping centers and no red decorations everywhere. It was business as usual at England. Classes go on and there's work to be completed. And I had my dissertation draft to rush which I had to finish before my meeting with my supervisor yesterday. Anyways, Miss Sucy, one of my law lecturers from Inti came over to Leeds for a visit last week and it was nice of the Uni to arrange some food and a room for us old students to chat with her. That was on a Wednesday evening and it was a time where there was supposed to be a reunion dinner but for some of us, it was a dinner with our motherly lecturer at Picture House. On Thursday night, I went for the last Breathe session of the term before they break off to combine with the CU for Alpha course starting from next week. Afterthat, I popped by for a short visit at Tim and Serena's flat at concept place. On Friday night, the Chinese Church CG had a Chinese New Year potluck gathering, so there's at least one occassion to cheer about in my very first quiet festive period. I also went for the MASSoc dinner at one of the Chinese restaurants on Saturday night, so I had a go at one proto-version of a reunion dinner..lol. The duck was one of the highlights of the dishes and I'm certainly missing roasted pork! I certainly missed the Kluang adventure that I had with some of the ICF folks last year. I would say the general atmosphere for myself for this CNY is more like Chinese Culture Appreciation Week because of the lack of visitation that we do every year. Well, that's life in ang moh land. Gotta make do with that! xD