Xin Nian Kui Le ! (Happy New Year!)

It is now the New Year for anyone who pays attention to the lunar calendar. On New Years Eve we went to a rooftop bar downtown to watch the firework display ring in the new year at midnight. I always want to remember what it was like. There were fireworks in every direction over the whole city. It was quite spectacular and really wild. It was so loud and it even looked like twice as many fireworks as there really were because they were reflecting off the windows in the surrounding skyscrapers. It was really quite a site. As we were leaving to return home, we had to dodge fireworks in the streets and stop repeatedly while people lit them off. It is also customary that a Chinese person return home no matter where they live in the world to be with family. So, Beijing streets were more empty than normal and catching a cab took a long time. As we walked the streets, I imagined that this is what it would like in a warzone. Smoke everywhere, booms from all the fireworks, empty littered streets. It was like nothing I have ever experienced prior. It was fascinating.