Madness In The Middle Kingdom

Or .. Happy Chinese New Year to the non Mandarin speakers

Our Chinese New Year’s Eve day was an eventful one which began with hanging some Chinese sayings of good luck on our front door. In the pics you will see Alice’s brother leading the proceedings. Some fine tune adjustments were needed.

Alice’s mother slaved in the kitchen most of the day making what would constitute our 3 big meals of the day: 1) Mid Morning, 2) Mid Afternoon, and 3) 11 pm feast. She made the basic dishes which were the backbone of the three meals and new to each meal were fresh jiaozi (dumplings stuffed with pork, egg, spinach etc).

After the mid morning meal we took a walk to the beach to see the dinosaur bone sculptures and throw some rocks in the ocean. In these pictures are Nathan (light beige coat), Carter (blue coat), Alice (tall chinese girl), her niece Rong Rong (short chinese girl).

As per tradition we lit off fireworks in the evening. We were not alone as you can imagine. The main bulk of fireworks started around 5 pm or so and continued until 1 am … steady. It was hard to talk over the noise. It sounded like a warzone. Nathan was very frightened which meant for a tough night for him.

I took some video of the fireworks we set off last night and will post again when I am not so lazy. As I type this it is New Year’s Day morning and more are going off!