After we got back from our time in Thailand we got to celebrate the tail end of Chinese New Year -- one of the biggest holidays in Asia.
We started by heading downtown with a couple friends to join in the bustle.
One of the city's landmarks is a very old pagoda... now a major tourist attraction.
We finished off that evening by going to a very popular place -- KFC (actually there are KFCs everywhere in our city). Mainly we were looking for a place to sit down with our friends and get something hot to drink.
Two days later was the final day of the New Year's celebrations -- officially known as the lantern festival. That evening was distinguished by people lighting off TONS of fireworks all across the city. We joined some friends who had an apartment on the 22nd floor for a better view!
On this evening, mostly individuals were shooting off their own fireworks; as far as we know, none of these were coordinated displays.
The fireworks started around 7 or 7:30 and went strong until about 11 PM (at which point the novelty had worn off some and we just wanted to go to bed!).
Here are some of the more impressive ones that were near us:
I liked this picture because it gives some perspective on things. Yes, this firework is going off directly in between those two apartment buildings. Sometimes the fireworks were amazingly close to our and our friend's apartment.
Happy New Year!
