新年快乐!

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新年快乐！Xin Nian Kuai Le! - Happy New Year!!!



I will update this later when I have pictures to share... but I had to write something to record this exact moment:

It is like a WAR ZONE here in Hangzhou tonight. Literally every corner of the city is being bombarded with a constant shower of fireworks and other various explosives. Every building has fireworks being shot OUT of it, including my own. I have NEVER seen anything quite like this! Wish me luck... I'm heading out into it in about 30 minutes!!

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Ahhhhhh-kay... so it went something like this:

Shortly after I made that post, I tromped out into the freezing cold war zone (World War I style... trench coat and all... well... ski jacket... but nevertheless...) to meet up with a friend. Knowing the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the Hangzhou bus system, I left myself plenty of time to arrive promptly at 8pm by leaving around 7. After waiting 15 minutes for said effective bus, I was sitting snugly on a broken seat when I received a text message: "Hey, can we bump it to 9? I'm watching some awesome fireworks!" Well, no, friend... we can't. I'm already half way there. But it's ok - I, too, shall watch some awesome fireworks when I arrive at my destination.

And so I did, while also befriending two other ex-pats who had no idea what was going on or why there were so many fireworks. Ballin'. I love educated Americans.

Anyway, when my friend arrived, we sat, chatted, bonded, and decided to head out to meet up with another set of friends who were set to lead us on this marvellous adventure up this hiking trail where we could watch the world's biggest fireworks over the world's most beautiful lake!

At 11 sharp, we tromped back out into the cold to meet up with said friends. We arrived at our meeting place at 11:15 to receive the news that - great friends I have - my friends had left 10 minutes prior to make the hike!

Now, the average bear would say... huh... that sucks! And stay off the mountain in sub-zero temperatures in the dark. But not this dummy. No no! This dummy was on a mission. Anyone who has known me for 10 minutes or more knows that I love me some fireworks and I was dead set on seeing these amazing fireworks!!! So... So, I said - where is this hot spot on the hill? How far a hike is it? And the response from the peanut gallery was, "it's just straight up to the top, then hang a left... not too hard." Well! Off I went!

About halfway up said hiking hill - it should be noted that it's been snowing here in Hangzhou for the last 3 days... my mother would not be (and probably isn't) proud of my stupidity here - I met with one of my friend's friends who said he couldn't locate them, and he was heading back down. The smart bear would say, oh ok... I'll head back down, too. But there were potentially phenomenal fireworks involved, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in China, and this girl was NOT giving up. So I trekked on, calling out names, and carrying on.

I made it to the top with no issue. I turned left with no issue. But could locate NO ONE. Not only were my friends nowhere to be found... but CIVILIZATION was nowhere to be found... and I can hear the fireworks starting... and cannot see them. So! I picked up my pace and found this terrific ruin of a tower and decided to forget about other people... I wanted to see fireworks. So, I climbed up it and watched the fireworks from all sides, albeit blocked by trees as they were. Not nearly the view I was hoping for, but a terrific experience nevertheless.

So now I'm starting to realize that I don't know what turns I've made or where I am exactly... and that I need to get OFF said hill... which is starting to feel more like a mountain. I don't know what direction I need to go to get BACK... but I can see a straight line path to get DOWN - a huge plus. However, about six steps into this it hits me (and my left wrist): It's one thing to climb UP icy paths and stairs... it's another to climb DOWN them.

About halfway down my right-together-right-together trek down these treacherous ice-steps, I'm starting to curse... and I'm cursing a lot of things: my friend, the Snake and it's stupid year, tree-blocked fireworks, China, Disney, mud, stairs, bears... clouds... toothpicks... popsicles... stupid... things... And the cursing continued. But I kept on: right-together-right-together *curse curse curse* And through all of this, I eventually saw people up ahead and decided to turn the cursing inward so that I at least would not look like a crazy person while traipsing about alone in the middle of the night on a mountain. So, silently cursing, I followed them. And eventually came upon a road. Roads are good. Especially flat ones.

So, I'm walking along the road, and am starting to thaw - inside and out... and I'm starting to look around to get my bearings - deep breaths, carry on.

So, I'm walking along, walking along, and ahead I see very large, but private fireworks being shot off. I realize that these fireworks are actually being shot off from the direction I need to be going... so off I go in that direction. I come around this bend - and the most awe-inspiring sight opens itself in front of me: I am just above the lake, which is stretching out in all directions and reflecting pockets of fireworks and lit bridges and pagodas as far as the eye can see. I had to laugh; and laugh I did: right out loud. I continued walking and just started saying aloud, "Ok... Ok Life... I get it. Ok. Ok."

What struck me in that moment was... well, a lot of things. Namely, I suddenly realized that this hole that I've dug to China has literally turned my world upside-down. The old tried-and-true excitements of my past are not exactly for me anymore. While I may still find nostalgia and excitement in a fireworks show of this magnitude, that nostalgia and excitement may not find me. But in missing that old tried-and-true, something else may come my way. In another sense, there was something of a homecoming in that moment where I walked around the bend and saw the lake. See, across the lake I saw the Broken Bridge and another familiar sight: "My" Starbucks. I knew exactly where I'd turned up and where I was. I took some kind of hypothetical and literal road-less-traveled and wound up at home. Home. I took a look around, had to stop and expelled the words of, "Damn... This is where I LIVE. I LIVE here!" And finally, I realized that this is something that I'm doing on my own. I set off on that hike tonight looking for others, and by the time I'd reached the bottom, in a sense, I found myself.

Now, I know that I've already started down this path to self-discovery, and that I've already written a lot about it. But today was kind of a capstone for the initial construction of this Me. At midnight, as I was right-together-right-together striding down those steps, we entered the year of the Snake... as I said in my last post, the year of the Snake is meant to be a year of persistence and perseverence; attention to detail and determination. I think that it is absolutely perfect that I have set off on my journey into this year and into this country exactly as I did: right-together-right-together. So, let's go China... Let's go Snake. Let's do this. I LIVE here. I am alive. And I'm living this one step at a time.

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Comments

[grandma]

sparklers?
Do hope you have your little sparklers to share the holiday joy.....heheheheh......(somehow the picture of Jessi shaking her little sparklers in beat to the music of the crashing fireworks, with cotton hanging out of her ears, makes me chuckle........................:) grandma