Chinese New Year

On Sunday night, the night of non-stop 5 hours of fireworks, Chinese New Year, I was fully expecting myself to be a completely grouchy, foreign, white-lady, irritated mess.

But when midnight rolled around and our children were soundly sleeping in their beds and all around us were the sounds of war-fare, we sat in our windowsill in awe of the bright lights, in awe of the noise, and laughing hysterically at the utter drama of it all.

It was our first time to be in country for Chinese New Year, and we truly enjoyed it. We started the evening off at a friend's house, eating local food, watching the Chiense equivalent of the "Ball Drop" on tv, and blowing up fireworks in the middle of the city streets. (of which Salem was definitely not a fan of...as you can see in the video)

3 hours later, at 9:30 at night, we decided bedtime was futile for the kids, so we popped in a Disney movie, and let them watch until they fell asleep. Truly, they couldn't hear much of the movie because of the noise going on outside. 

At midnight they brought out the big guns and lit up the sky outside our apartment with fireworks that are illegal to shoot off in the city limits in The States. (and after they nearly shot out windows in our apartment complex, I can understand why! :)  With no fire bans or fireworks restrictions, the next morning our apartment complex looked like a black cat graveyard!

Enjoy the video!