Happy Chinese New Years!

Or, Happy Spring Festival!
The first thing we noticed were all the firecrackers and assorted civilian explosives. We are not quite sure if it is actually legal to set them off in the city, but legal or not, they are going off everywhere. From our balcony we can see actual, big color, 4th of July type fireworks in every direction. Some were being lit off in the area that is being demolished right next to our apartment and coming up about as high as our apartment, and we are more than 20 stories up.

Apparently the noise from fireworks is to help drive away evil spirits. And apparently there are some really evil spirits at 5:30am, so just to be safe the locals keep concussing the air night and day. Thanks to his time in the Army, Michael sleeps like a baby through the Chinese celebrations - though Cara is still trying to adjust to the sudden flashes of light and subsequent booms at 3am.

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