Advertisement
Published: February 20th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Fireworks!
I don't think the safety inspectors would let you get this close at Benson and Hedges! I've spent the last week now in a city that is impressive but does not offer a lot for the average tourist like myself. It's big, it's modern and very western. A chinese girl that I met in Yangshuo said that if you want to witness the last 5000 years of China you go to Xi'an, if you want to witness the last 1000 years you go to Beijing and for the last century or so, visit Shanghai. It was not too long ago that Shanghai was just a simple fishing village with large areas of swamp land catoring to fishermen and farmers. It is now an important port city for China, boasts the fourth largest tower in the world - and soon to be the second tallest tower in the world - and is also home to the fastest train with a top speed of 430km/hr.
However, my time here has not been all that bad and what Shanghai lacks in history and perhaps more traditional Chinese architecture, it definately makes up for with its' night life. Stuck in Shanghai with some like-minded tourists we made the best of our days by sleeping in late and visiting local drinking
hmm...yesss..
Enjoying champagne on the 87th floor (out of 88 floors) of the fourth tallest building. Could have used the rest of the yacht club for this one. establishments. I've never had a longer strectch of days with notes on my bed asking me to pay for my room. Cab rides to the bars were frustrating as we tried to explain where we wanted to go and got horribly lost on the way. Despite many people speaking English here, none of the cab drivers do. With a few cocktails in us though the rides back were sometimes the highlight of the night with a cab full of intoxicated tourists trying to make jestures for a river, towers or trying to pronounce what road we were on. In the end the cab driver usually just gave up and having more sense than us would drive to an expensive hotel where we could get a translator.
Our partying days were also a lead up to Chinese New Year's Eve which was on the 17th of February. Everyone that we had talked to told us that it was more of a family affair and that there wouldn't be a whole lot going on at night. Boy were they wrong! A few days leading up to New Year's Eve more and more fireworks light up the skyline and the sound of
Old Town!
Old town wasn't really old complete with KFCs, McDonalds, HageenDaas and other good stuff. They did have these cool lights that will be everywhere for the spring festival a week from now. firecrackers filled the air. For about three days most of the building had disappeared, enveloped by the left-over smoke. When I woke up on the day, late as usual, Paul and Andy had already gone out to secure what we all considered a fairly decent size supply of firecrackers: A huge roll of about 10,000 tiny explosives and a cube 6' by 6'. We weren't sure how powerful they were or where we could light them off, but we soon found out after two kind police officers mentioned that it was legal for us anywhere but on the boardwalk where we were trying to.
Setting up on the sidewalk in front of the agricultural development building we placed the box down and tried to keep people from going too near. Ignoring all warnings, and to our surprise locals would pass right next to it as the rockets fired into the air adding to the collection of multi-coloured palm trees in the sky. Our next mission was the massive roll of firecrackers. Having lit it on the sidewalk once again we were surprised to see two cops come out of the building and drag it into the road. Against everything
Crazy!
The bright lights in the front are the firecrackers going off! The lights in the back are cars about to drive through. that I've learned from movies and t.v. taxis, buses and other cars did not blow up as they drove around it, or through the exploding crackers. Feeling pretty good about ourselves, we headed up to the bar in anticipation for the main event which was still a couple hours away.
With about an hour to go, while everyone from the hostel was on the roof-top bar enjoying the show, someone noticed the people from the restaurant next door dragging their supply into the road. They had accumulated about 30 times what we had just let off and were about to light it all 6 stories down from where we were standing! It became difficult to see everything they were doing on the street as the palm trees exploded right on top of us sending people under cover and at the very least making us cover our eyes from the flying sparks and small debree. While ten of the huge rolls like what we had lit were going off, the workers would run through and over them while tossing smaller explosions at each other. Then two of them had a race while swinging the rolls like a helicopter. We couldn't
Surrounded!
With the near 360 degree view that we got, anywhere you looked were fireworks. stop laughing at how crazy the Chinese are. It made for great entertainment until about an hour later, just after we had rung in the new year, Paul noticed that the curtains on the patio of the room right above the restaurant had caught fire. Bringing this to the attention of the bar staff, the police were quick to show up and after a few fights, and a few more explosions the fireworks died done. What a night! All other shows pale in comparison.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.162s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 15; qc: 77; dbt: 0.1143s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
vikinglyth
Jason Lyth
Yachties Unite!
langer, sure would have been something for the YC to be in Shanghai for New Years, something for the future for sure. You going to see the notorious Brown brother while in China?