Happy Lunar New Year!

It's five minutes till the New Year and outside my window...it's absolutely chaotic! Everywhere, there are fireworks and firecrackers going off. If you didn't know where you were...you would think you were stuck somewhere where warfare was going on. There is non-stop blasting of reds, yellows, greens, and blues. On occasion, haha...like right now, there are those gigantic fireball fireworks that give off that loud boom and bright glow. So this is how people in Chengdu celebrate their new year! My mom and I have been in Yunnan for the past nine days. We finally arrived back in Chengdu this evening...after a twenty-three train ride from Kunming. We missed the last stretch of people buying last minute groceries. We did catch a couple of small shops so we bought some sunflower seeds (500 grams to be exact), some chicken wings, 3 apples for peace, 2 pears, and some oranges with their stems and leaves still attached. Lol...it's hard to sleep at all right now. Everywhere, people are lighting fireworks like crazy! The sky is constantly aglow and the night setting is filled with squeels from fireworks and crackles from the firecrackers. If only I was more eloquent in my description or if there was a way for me to record this and have this be played back...haha. Let me tell you though...it's a great way to usher in the new year thats for sure. This probably won't be the end of it. New Years lasts for fifteen days! Without all of the vegetables and such, I made some thousand year old eggs and salted duck egg congee and my mom and I had that with the chicken wings and bean curds. The fireworks started way early...when we were eating dinner. The sad part of it all is...we don't have a tv in our apartment. My friend David (Zeng Yu) gave me a link, though, to watch what was probably the most watched television broadcast in the world of Chinese people - CCTV's annual New Years program. Streaming over our internet live was sort of a pain...so I'm going to see if watching it tomorrow morning would be a better bet. I'll try to fill in the details later about our trip within the next few weeks. I think I'm going to go and step outside and try to see if I can catch more of this excitement!
Happy Lunar New Year Everyone!!!
It's the year of the PIG. :)
新年快乐！！！