A Nation of Pyros

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

or..."Happy Chinese New Year!"

The other night we went to celebrate at our friend's place on the 27th floor. We had a crazy view of the fireworks in our city district. Think U.S. 4th of July fireworks show times 100! No joke, from about 8pm-4:00am we saw, heard, and felt fireworks! A ton of them exploded yards from the windows we were looking out.

A few days before the 14th, little tents popped up everywhere selling the goods.

I took these pics from my friend's window on the 26th floor!! No zoom used

Naturally, my buddies and I wanted to join the action. Here are a few fireworks we set off. Unfortunately the pics didn't turn out quite as well. At the bottom you can see the building our friends are watching from.

Here's a picture I took before most of the real celebrations began.

The fireworks were so cheap. We bought boxes of 4 rockets for about 12 USD each. And everybody was (still is!) shooting them off. I've seen multiple grandmas showing the 10-year-olds how it's done. It's hilarious! As Cindy and I joke: It's a nation releasing its inner pyro! I guess they did invent gunpowder.

CNY = dirty coats

I took a couple sweaters and our wool coats (smelling of smoke + pollution + miscellaneous unknowns) to the cleaners yesterday, and after going through the marking of extra dirty spots, the taking of my information, and the informing of total price, cleaner guy says:
okay you can come pick them up on the 28th.
me: Um, that's 20 days from now.
guy: Yeah, we go on vacation starting tomorrow.
me (in my head): (Are you kidding me? You're closed for 20 days?)
me: Okay...can I have them back?

The slowdown for Chinese New Year has officially begun. People have been clearing out of our part of Beijing and heading home. The cashier girl at melon mart downstairs has been gone for almost a week, meaning I actually have to look up the weather instead of having her tell me if it's going to snow, or be extra cold. Our favorite fruit & veggie sellers downstairs have gone home meaning we've been banana-less for three days and are quickly running out of apples. Good thing we're going on vacation on Monday, we (okay I) might not survive without fruit. :)