新年快乐！ Happy New Year to everyone celebrating the Year of the Dragon.
I have a lot of fond memories of celebrating Spring Festival in China. The last I celebrated in Shenzhen involved a lot of food–fish, dumplings, and about twelve other dishes for four people. We were thoroughly stuffed as we ate for hours. There was also plenty of Tsingtao to go around (after so many years in China, we avoided drinking baijiu whenever possible).
My friend and I ran across the street numerous times to pick up more beer from the convenience store and buy small fireworks from a vendor on the corner. As we slowly ate more food, we drank our beer and fired bottle rockets and whatever else we bought off the 16th floor balcony.
At midnight, we bought more fireworks (this time larger ones) and headed off to a nearby park where drunken adults set off fireworks in every direction. It was loud, disorganized, and dangerous, but it was fun and no one got injured (that I know of).
