Week 25 - Happy Chinese New Year!

Xin nian kwai le! or Happy New Year!

The Year of the Dragon.

Sunday, January 22, was Chinese New Year. It is amazing to be in China for their New Years, which is also part of their Spring Festival. This week a lot of things were closed. Yes the whole week, just like in October. For many workers, who are not from Shanghai, this is their only time to go home and visit family.


I think I have mentioned before that the Chinese people are very superstitious people. Here are a few related to New Years:
It is good luck to have your hair cut on New Year's Eve.
It is good luck to serve fish (although I was told that you don't eat it!).
The decorations that hang should be hung upside down which means that happiness comes.
It is good luck to have snow on New Year's Eve (we had snow flurries!).
Women who are born under the sign of the year (ie. this year is dragon) wear red underwear all year long for good luck.

The decoration on our front door.
It is hung upside down for happiness to come.

All the lanterns hanging outside a hotel not far from our apartment

A dragon made out of some kind of straw. This is in front of the same hotel.

Dragon outside of Green Leisure Center, where Pines Grocery store is.

Inside Kerry Parkside. Jennifer and Jessica, Richard's (our driver) wife

At the bottom of Pearl Tower. Does Jennifer look a little frozen?
It was freezing out this day!

More decorations near Pearl Tower.

Fireworks are legal here and a huge part of New Years. On New Year's Eve, they started the fireworks around 6pm and it did not stop until 1am. These are not the noise makers we sometimes get in the US. They are the big, colorful ones that we see at Fourth of July. At midnight, we had fireworks everywhere we looked. It was Fourth of July on steroids! I am not sure that I can enjoy the fireworks on the Fourth of July after this. It was amazing!

We thought this sign was funny, but
they need it because fireworks
are set off everywhere!

A tent selling fireworks. This is right outside Carrefour where I shop. Those
are boxes of fireworks!

This is fireworks debris for New Years - this is just a little bit. It was early
 when this picture was taken. They have people that clean up all the fireworks
everyday. This picture is taken on the main road outside our complex.

On Monday, we took Jennifer to Yu Garden because it was decorated for the Lantern Festival. The Lantern Festival is held on the 15th day of the New Year, or February 7, but Yu Garden was already decorated for it. We did some touring during the day with Jennifer - Temple and the Bund. When we arrived at Yu Garden it was packed. When we arrived we found out that they were having the official Lantern lighting ceremony. They had a dragon dance then a count down. They lit up all the lanterns in the Garden. It was beautiful. The only problem was that I think half of Shanghai was there.

This is one of the main areas where the lighting ceremony took place.
The dragon, as you can see, also breathed smoke! Can you see the crowds??

Some of the Lanterns

Celebrating 2012!

Lanterns of ducks, swans and fish - kissing

Different lanterns taken before dark.

Daniel in front of the Dragon earlier in the day.

The street outside of Yu Garden

The Dragon Dance during the Lighting Ceremony.

We got to Yu Garden to late to actually get into the garden,
so we went back on Tuesday to go into the garden. This is the bridge that crosses
to the garden. It was so packed that you were just pushed along. Amazingly I was able to get
some good pictures.

This is taken from the bridge. It all lights up. We did not get to see it at night.
But I can imagine that it must be beautiful.