元宵节 (Lantern Festival)

The 15th and last day of the Chinese New Year is a holiday called 元宵节 (Yuánxiāojié) or Lantern Festival. Although I did see a couple lanterns, the day seems to be an excuse to hold a nation-wide fireworks show. Last year I was sick and didn't do anything to celebrate, but this year I decided to join the fun.

The day started at 7:30 am, when big loud firecrackers were being lit off in my apartment complex courtyard, the sound echoing off the cement walls. Later, when investigating strange sounds coming from the window, I discovered that the shells of fireworks were hitting the window all the way up on the 23rd floor!

That evening, a bunch of friends and I ventured out to a big intersection near home. Every corner had a fireworks stand...

People crowded the stands, bargaining for their prize fireworks, while others stood around watching the sky being lit up and sounding like a war zone.

Friends lighting the dynamite stick - pretty sure these would not be legal in the States, but can be found on any street corner for 20 rmb (about $3 U.S)!

Sean decided to go for bigger and better, so after bargaining a little with this vendor he purchased this bad boy for around $50. Not bad for 50 big shells!

carrying it to the middle of the intersection, where they plan to light it off...



and it begins!

There were small children and cars passing by constantly, but neither seemed to be phased at all by the sound or sight of the explosions.
Here kid, wanna light off a stick of dynamite?
looking down from my window that night -I've never seen fireworks from above!

Spring Festival Travels

The last month has mostly been spent traveling, since our semester ended (which means a 5 week spring break started), thus the lack of update/communication...but I'm back! Places visited include: in Thailand... Chiangmai, northwest countryside, Bangkok, and a southern resort town; in China...Shenzhen (just across the border from Hong Kong), Yulin (northern Shaanxi province), and Hong Kong.

Three of my friends and I met in the Bangkok airport, flew up to Chiangmai, rented motorcycles and biked around northern Thailand. It was incredible - fun riding the bikes, amazing views, delicious food, and good times playing cards and exploring the towns we stayed in. I found it restful to ride all day through mountains or looking over fields and villages for the five days, and then hanging out in the evenings at a coffee shop or guesthouse.

The woman we rented bikes had this look of terror as we rode off, as if she was hoping to see four bikes and four people all intact at the end, but not necessarily expecting it.

We stored our big backpacks at the hostel in Chiangmai, then put our 5 days of things in bookbags, tied them onto the bag of our bikes, and took off!
Day 1: visited Tiger Kingdom. Yes, that is a real live tiger. No, it's not photoshop. Yes, I'm petting it. No, it's not tied down at all.
Some of the views...

You can see the road off to the right in the picture above.

the four of us at one of the viewpoints. Every once in a while, we stopped the bikes just to take pictures and enjoy the scenery - it was beautiful!

The highest point in Thailand. The trees sort of just dropped off into nothingness. (C, it just stops!)
Lots of pitch, spades, and euchre. This is in a bungalow, where we stayed the last night of our motorcycle trip.

Eating lunch on the river - literally.

On my way home, S and I went to Hong Kong for a couple days. Neither of us had been there, and it was impressive!

The view at night from the Peak.

Check out more pictures here.