元宵节 Lantern Festival

Yesterday was the Lantern Festival. It was kind of like New Year's Eve in the sense that fireworks and firecrackers were going off everywhere. The difference was, this time I was in a city.

Everything was absolutely crazy. People were setting off fireworks in the middle of the street and cars just went driving by. From my balcony (my room is on the tenth floor and I have a balcony - it's awesome) I could see fireworks going off all over the city:





This just looks like the building is exploding...

Also, I have some video here, which Chris took when we were standing at a street corner watching fireworks being set off about thirty or forty feet away. At one point, one of the fireworks mistakenly went off in our direction (the part with a bit of an explosion on the side and the camera is turned down as Chris runs away). Flames from the fireworks were coming down all over and I admit I hightailed it too. It was pretty scary. Coming back to the dorm was a bit like working our way through a war zone but we made it okay. :)