Chinese New Year with a Beijing BANG

So after a much needed decent coffee my rellies and i joined an organised day tour to long qing gorge and an ice sculpture display. My rellies work for the Australian embassy in Beijing, so this tour was organised by the community liason officer for all the staff. So if i was missing home it didn't get more homely than this, a bus-full of aussies on a guided tour! The ice sculpture display was more of a standout to me, though by the end of the tour my hands, feet and face were painfully numb. The location of the exhibition is in quite a remote area, so the resaurants and eateries were charging an arm and a leg for food. Since we didn't have much time we had to settle for instant noodles. It was the most expensive instant noodles i've ever had - 8 yuan ($2 AUD). The 'waitress' poured the hot water into the styrofoam bowl, but we still had to tear the flavouring sachets and mix in ourselves. bastards!

The following day was chinese new year eve. Since my rellies lived in a high rise appartment block they'd organized a fireworks viewing for their friends and work collegues. The view was absolutely fantastic! There's probably a few public areas with a greater concentration of fireworks displays, but since everyone sets off their own at every street corner it's a great atmosphere wherever you are in beijing. People had already started to set some off before the new years, but obviously the show really started at 12 midnight. Everywhere you looked across the city skyline fireworks were going off. The designated 'launching fireworks' area for our appartment block was on our appartment's side of the building, and we were located at about the altitude where the big fireworks were exploding, so from the lounge room window we had fireworks exploding literally 1-2 metres away! very cool.

There's all types of fireworks you can get your hands on. It's not a black market thing either, with vendors set up in tents on many street corners. They range from those small ones that make a bang, to the projectile fireworks you get in formal exhibitions (i heard they cost a couple of hundred yuan) If you go out into the streets you seriously feel like you're in a warzone, with bangs and explosions echoing from every direction. Firecrackers sound like machine guns and the big bang ones sound like tank shells! The biggest concentration of fireworks are set off at 12 midnight on the first day of new years, and on the night of the 5th day. I can't remember what the story is with the 5th day, but i reckon the fireworks companies made this up so you'd buy more fireworks! But throughout the whole first week of new years when i was in bj it didn't really let up for a single night. It's great if you're indoors with a view, but trying to walk or drive around on the streets during this time can be hair-raising experience. Sometimes a lit firework or cracker isn't that obvious, and the only hint you have is people scampering away or an unusually empty patch of pavement in front of you. It's more the small, big bang ones that are a hazzard since these are favoured by young toddlers who throw them in any direction without checking for paedestrians. This can result in split eardrums and ringing in the ears which persists for hours (not to mention causing one to jump out of their skin and run around screaming like a little girl) . So if you see a little kid in the street with a lighter in hand, give him/her wide berth. The setting off of fireworks/crackers is supposed to scare the evil spirits away. Based on the amount of fireworks/crackers i've witnessed, I'm sure the evil spirits have absolutely shat themselves and won't be back for a long long time.

Fireworks and crackers are also a pain when you're trying to listen to your teacher in class....