The Government made history by dipping into Singapore's official reserves for the first time. It has asked the President for permission to use $4.9 billion for two special schemes designed to help companies cut cost and save jobs. The package also aimed at providing support especially to lower-income households.

By not borrowing to fund the current Budget, the Singapore Government will not have to burden either current or future generations with the need to repay our spending in this Package.

Although we were not worried about the news of layoffs since the globe crisis last year, we were worried for the lower-income households and those who were affected.

The 2009 Budget brought most of us good news during this Chinese New Year festival.

We are more mature and many still spend whenever needed and able to. I went to Chinatown, a few shopping centres and some festival markets. I saw people spending on their celebration of the Chinese New Year.

Friday, 16 January, afternoon at	Takashimaya Shopping Centre
Friday, 16 January, evening	at Albert Square
artificial flowers	potted flowers
The bull	upturn
Crowds at	Chinatown
Shopping for New Year	Keeping the traffic flows
Goodies goodies	Makan makan
The night	is still young
In the recent-renovated Chinatown Shopping Centre	Along the road sides of Chinatown
Variety show	at Chinatown

Another round of photography on 21 January.

The God of Wealth	arriving at Albert Square
The Chinese Temple celebrating Chinese New Year	The Indian temple too, the unique Singapore
Get rich in the New Year	and the wealth lasts forever
The jubilant Jurong Point	Full of joy at wherever shopping centres I visited

The Special Reunion Dinner

We decided not to go abroad for our Chinese New Year holidays when I visited my sick third sister before last Christmas. Although she was called to Lord at Christmas eve, we did not change our plan of spending our holidays in Singapore.

My son Solomon discussed with me on the reunion dinner. He learned from the internet about the dish of grilled squid and told me that he would make the dish. After our Sunday worship on 25 January, we went to supermarket to buy the ingredients after lunch.

When Solomon was making the dish that evening, Jian Gang brought me the boiled dumplings.

Jian Gang who came from China is working in the coffee shop. I have been teaching him English and Singlish since last year. He is hard-working. I was then teaching him in getting ready for his career path before the two-year working contract ended.

There were many foreign workers in Singapore and many were from China during the last few years. Although the foreign workers contributed to our country, they also brought us problems. A small group of China nationalities has spoilt the relationships between the Singaporean Chinese and the China immigrants. Jian Gang was one of the immigrants with good behaviours and I was willing to help him to stay back in Singapore.

This was the first time Jian Gang came to our flat since we have known each other a year ago. He might take the reunion dinner with his China friends and I did not ask him to take dinner with us. He made about forty dumplings for us. We enjoyed the dumplings very much.

The grilled squid made by Solomon was very delicious. He was a good cook.

We had the very special reunion dinner this year.

Recipe and ingredients	The special dinner
Dumplings made by Jian Gang	Grilled squid made by Solomon