Chinese New Year!!! Chun Jie Kuai Le!!!

Sorry it took so long, please forgive me. I will try to do better!


Okay so Chinese New Year was the most awesome thing I have experienced while living in China! This is the year of the OX by the way.

I am not even sure that words can express what it is like so you might have to come and see for yourself! Come and visit me next year!

Here is my best description...

So my day started with an outing with Carrie and Vikki, then we spent the afternoon trying to decide if there was anything we still needed to buy for our thailand trip...

I took a short nap at their house and then I had the privilege of getting pizza from Pizza Hut (not quite the same as in the states) for our evening. I left their house at about 6pm and the fun had already begun...for several days before this you could hear fireworks fairly often, but they were usually kinda far away...no big deal. Well by the time I went to get the pizza the festivities were slowly beginning. I sat in Pizza Hut and waited for the pizza while really loud fire works were going off on the side walk right outside the door. At this point I was getting a little nervous about needing to walk out the doors and onto the side walk. These were fire crackers that last a good 30 seconds and are as bright as lightening. So I made it safely to a cab that was conveniently waiting at the curb. (this is rather unusual especially on New Year's Eve) So I told the cab driver where I wanted to go, and then experienced quite a fireworks show from the cab. It is about 7:30pm by now and there are fireworks going off all over the city.

So we ate pizza and at about 9pm we went out and shot our own fireworks...there is some video with lovely commentary from myself (that statement was full of sarcasm) maybe I will get it loaded! What we did on the sidewalk would be illegal in America. We found some bombs that were just really really loud....like could cause hearing damage loud. It was quite fun!!!!!We bought a big box of 49 different fireworks that were lit with one fuse! That was pretty cool cause that meant we had our own personal fireworks show!

Then we went to one of our other friend's house to watch the real show. They live on the 10th floor of a building and so they have a great view of the city...At about 10 minutes before midnight the insanity began...From 10 till until about 15 after, you couldn't even talk to someone standing next to you without yelling because the fireworks were so loud. The beauty of it all though was that you could feel the unity of the whole country in that one moment. Everyone was celebrating together. It is just hard to describe how that felt. They were excited about the new year! There were other things that were done that were a little weird, but all in all it was totally awesome!

I am so glad that I was here for this. It gave me a better understanding of the Chinese people and their culture. It made me appreciate where I am.

The picture above is me in front of the south gate of the city wall. It was pretty cool. The decorations were awesome!

More Pictures and Videos. These are a few of the videos I have a few more, but I am working to get them uploaded. I am not a great videographer, but you will get the jist of things at least.

Chun Jie Kuai Le!