Chinese New Year

Happy New Year! Welcome to the Year of the Dog! As I sit here staring out my window I am reminded of the video feeds that they had of the gulf war. Or in fact any armed conflict. The view from my window is blocked by two very tall buildings, but in their windows, and through the cracks the sky is intermittently lit up by hundreds of fireworks from every direction. In the windows of the buildings you can even see the reflections of fireworks from places behind us. And it sounds just like small arms fire, and possibly heavy weapons too. It's almost non stop. Last night, the eve of the new year, was even crazier. I went to a friend's house to ring in the new year with a rousing hand of poker and we could see fireworks from every window in her house. One group of revelers outside must have had thousands of different fireworks! At midnight they left off a private show that must have continued on for a good 45 minutes of firework after firework. My friends are up on the 10th floor so we were almost level with the fireworks. I felt very rich, like I had rented a helicopter or plane to take me around to view all the festivities. I thought last year was crazy, but this year they lifted the ban on private fireworks so the city really went crazy!