Happy New Year! This is the first time in 5 years that fireworks have been permitted in Beijing. I think that people are making up for lost time! I’ve been hearing and seeing fireworks for the past week as people have begun to celebrate the New Year. Throughout the day I’ve seen people lighting off fireworks all over the place. In the street, on the sidewalk, you name it and fireworks are probably being set off from there. Tonight Mark and I were walking around on our way to a bar and someone was lighting what looked like a bottle rocket without a bottle! Well, it was a bottle rocket and it shot right across the street at someone on a bicycle! Luckily it didn’t hit them, but it was the funniest things I’ve seen. I came back to the hotel and in the parking lot out front they were having a celebration with fireworks going off all over the place. It was quite interesting to watch and as I sit here and write this, there are celebrations going on all over. What an experience! Happy year of the Dog to everyone! Hope it is a fruitful and prosperous year for all!
UPDATE: So I sat on my window sill for quite some time around the midnight hour as fireworks were set off all around. I would have to say that I saw at least 100 (probably more) different areas that fireworks were being set off in just what is maybe a 25 square mile area (due to the smog). It was amazing! I even had fireworks going off right outside my window from the people in the parking lot setting them off. I’ll be posting some videos to my site of this. I’m not sure how they turned out, but hopefully you’ll be able to get the idea of how loud it was and how many people were setting off fireworks.