Happy New Year! Chinese sytle

Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is the most important and celebrated Chinese holiday. As I mentioned before Spring Festival is the time of year for people to go home to visit family, reflect on the previous year and celebrate the New Year. And boy do they celebrate! The Chinese definitely know how to put on a fireworks show and they make sure you know who invented the things. Starting early last week you could hear the distinct sound of firecrakers around town. To me, it seemed normal. People buying fireworks before the actual holiday and they just can't wait, so they set off a few of the little ones just to get by. As Wed night approached, the sounds of firecrackers, quickly changed to fireworks. At first, the show seemed kind of sparse, just a few here and there.

I had to go to work the next day so I decided to go to bed around 11:00. Well that never happened. As the clock drew closer to midnight, the more the fireworks were being launched into the sky. The noise would echo and bounce off the buildings. I thought this must be what it would like in a war zone. Some of these are exploding right next to my window! It has been a week since that night and they are still going off. I wonder if I can buy stock in a fireworks company before the Olympics. What a show that is going to be.

These pictures really can't grasp how fast and how loud the fireworks were exploding all around, but I hope you get the idea.


Every apartment complex and business has some kind of fireworks show. This was the view from my apartment. Notice the bits of flashes in the distance also.




. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . This one is from the Nissan dealer across the street. Notice how small the people are in the lot below.

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These were set off right next to my window about 30 meters away (100ft for you westerners).