So just experienced my first Chinese New Year. Its like Christmas, New Years and ANZAC all thrown together on crack. Its hard to convey the amount of fireworks that have gone off in the last week, esp the last 3 days. It has effectively been a urban warzone for the last 3 days. We have seldom had 30minutes without hearing some type of firework going off. The streets are littered with red paper from the casings of the fireworks. Car alarms are almost constantly going off from fire crackers on the ground. At least I looked at fireworks with the same excitment that i would in NZ but the novelty wears off super quick. And they start at 5.30am. And they are professional strength fireworks sold to anyone. I cant even imagine how many fires start this time of the year.
On Friday a bunch of friends came around and we had a dumpling making party. Which actually turned out pretty good and I now know how to make them from stratch. Not that I am capable of it, but I know how its done! On Sat night (last night) we haeded into the center of town to a the People’s Square to watch the fireworks going off. We waited for the works to start at 12 in a nearby bar, which somewhat ironically was the only place in Dalian soundproofed enoguh to escape the sound of the fireworks. But around 10 we headed out to see the sky just light up in all directions. The whole city was just setting out fire works for hours. It was a pretty unbelieveable site. Thoghu I got video of it Im sure it wont do it justice. After watchign the fireworks for a good hour we headed back to the bar to celebrate in the great Western tradition of the drunken sing along. Still was a crazy experience, definitely glad I stayed for it. Only regret was that I was warned off attending the celebrations in another square, Xinghai Square, where apparently over a million people congregate to bring in the New Year. Would be surreal to attend a party with a quarter of my country’s population attending!
On a sidenote have received my visa and am all sorted in my paper work for China so am definitely here til my flight home!