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Dear Comrades,

My brother and I have recently returned from a very touristy trip to the capital of China: Beijing, or Peking for your old-timers. We saw some lovely landmarks - Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and Tienanmen Square. We took some touristy photos standing in front of said lovely landmarks. We hauled tail up to the top of the Great Wall, bought some postcards in the gift shop that was built into one of the towers on the Great Wall and hauled tail back down so as not to miss the bus. We even saw an acrobatic show, Chinese Silk Factory, Jade Factory, Pearl Market and a specialty tea shop all in two and a half days. Had we not done the touristy thing, we maybe would've caught Tienanmen and the Wall.

The highlight of the trip by far was the fact that we were in China during the Lunar New Year (Feb 18th) which is also known as the Chinese New Year. Sure, the Western world may celebrate Jan 1 as the New Year, and display balls dropping and fireworks exploding from major cities like Paris, NY, and London. The Chinese, however, care not for the Western world's feeble attempt at "ringing in the new year." Lunar New year is THEIR New Year. And in case you didn't know: the Chinese invented the firework. This fact was clearly displayed during the weekend as explosions were going off intermittently as if we were in a war-zone. Imagine yourself on the 7th floor of a hotel, looking out your window over the rooftops of 5 story buildings. Take every firework show you've ever seen in your life. Scatter them about the city, putting one in the street directly in front of your hotel so that the fireworks bounce off your window. You got that mental image? Now press play and put it on repeat for 7 hours and you're close to imaging what it's like in Beijing during the Chinese New Year. It was ridiculous.

Actually, if you had trouble imagining what it was like, here's a video I took with my brother's digital camera. It's just a small sample of the war-like explosions going on about the city. The movie is almost 4 minutes, so those crunched for time, I recommend skipping to minute 2:40. Mind you, all fireworks you see are amateur. None of these are professional. They are all being set off by regular people in the middle of random streets. Also, the video is not of the finale; it is a sample of what was going on outside of our hotel for 5 hours straight.

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