New Year's Eve

To experience the sounds of Chinese New Year you may return to last years' post here. This year they seemed a little more tame, probably because all of our neighbors are gone, and it is the custom at midnight to light off the fireworks in your doorway (for good luck, ward off evil for the new year, etc.). This year I think one person in our building did it. But still, the sounds of 'bombs' going off shook us steady for about thirty minutes, then tapered on and off until a lull in the action, it resumed at about 6 a.m. I would have slept pretty well from 1 a.m. until 6 a.m. except Sophia woke up at 2:15 with an unceasing cough. Otherwise, the girls slept through all of the war sounds. Amazing.

Prior to all of this we took the girls downstairs right as it was getting dark, which also is their usual bed time, 7:30 p.m. Lots of others were down there doing their own fireworks and we joined in with ours. Sophia loved doing the sparklers, Bella did not like the bottle rockets so much. And the whole sky was lit up by others with pretty displays of celebration, including 'balloon lanterns' of some sort that held their light way way up in the sky. The first one of these I saw I thought was an airplane.


our stash, we have not done the 'dyanmite' yet. David says we will save it for my birthday.




When David was about to light the last bottle rocket, Sophia went to protect Bella.



Lanterns lit and incense sticks waiting. This is Sophia's friend, yangyang's house, this is also where 'Harry Potter' the dog lives.