This week has been Chinese New Year. The biggest days were the 2nd (new years eve) and the 3rd (new years day) but the celebration meter was on 11 for the vast majority of the week. The red lanterns were put up and the fireworks vendors assumed their positions on the streets. After a long weekend at work I walked out of there with 7 days off, now that's how to ring in a new year! That night a group of us went to a restaurant that specialized in Sichuan food, which is a province in China known for their spicy cuisine. At one time it I'm told that being able to tolerate Sichuan food was a sign of your masculinity. Anywho, its delicious, we all got about 6 or 7 dishes to share and a bunch of beers. We all so bought a bottle of Baijiu, which is a traditional Chinese liquor. Its ok I guess, I'm not a huge fan, it sort of has a black liquorish flavor to it. Boy does it do the job though! After the plates are empty and the bottle is kicked we decide to go to a KTV which is a karaoke joint. KTV's are extremely popular around here, there are literally streets that are just full of different KTVs. You walk in and negotiate with the employees what you want and they accommodate. Its not like karaoke that we are used to, You have your own room with a flat screen, your own bathroom, couches, games, and a karaoke computer. We talked the guy into letting us have the room for 3 hours with 15 beers for 200 yuan (30 USD). It was interesting actually, right when we walked into the place everyone came over to us and wanted to have their pictures taken with us. We even had someone knock on our door so she could have her picture taken with American Mike and me.
So we hung out in the KTV and sang some songs. I was surprised that they even had western songs on there but they had a few. I sang "Do you really want to hurt me" by culture club, "Sussudio" by Genesis and a few others. American Mike is a sucker for traditional christmas music for some reason and sang jingle bells and a few others. It was so funny I took a video of it, he was rockin jingle bells in early February. I guess you had to see it for yourself. After a few hours I was about karaoke'd out so I hit the road. Pretty fun way to start my holiday.
So it's now the 2nd, which is NYE and American Mike invites me to his place because his wife(Anna) is making dinner and she is a great cook. The streets of Jinzhou is a pretty amazing place during this time of the year. Fireworks everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. Ones that make our 4th of July look like we are a bunch of pansies. The best part is, you can buy top of the line fireworks on the freaking street corner! So that means everyone and their mother are setting off these huge fireworks at the same time! After a delicious dinner, a couple of friends come over to Mike's with some fireworks and I ask him how much he payed and when he told me, my jaw dropped. He bought an arms length 4 inch thick log of firecrackers for 20 yuan......3 USD. I said "ok lets go, take me to where you go them" . So, my friend (British Jon) and I hop in his scooter and find the nearest fireworks stand. We, find one and Jon (who is fluent in chinese) negotiates a pretty sweet deal for me. I spend 135 yuan ( 20USD) for my pile and they give it to me in a trash bag! These aren't little sparklers or fountains dear readers, these go boom. The Chinese do not mess around when it comes to their fireworks. We went back to Mike and Anna's and had some drinks and waited for midnight to come around. We went out to the patio of Mike's which gave us a pretty sweet view of the city from all angles. We set off our fireworks and had a good ol time. Once midnight hits the city explodes, the sky is totally lit up. Everywhere you look are fireworks, its intense. I took allot of videos. I ignored my pile of boombooms and just stared into the sky turning in a circle. It was amazing. Its very hard to describe. I cant imagine being in a bigger city with millions of more people in it. After midnight the fireworks slowed down a little but were far from being over, hell they still are and its 3 days later. I have been woken up every morning between 6 and 8 for the past week by someone setting off fireworks. If anyone has a bucket list I strongly recommend putting "experience a Chinese New Year" on that list. You wont regret it!
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