Happy Lantern Day!

Well, it may not mean all that overmuch at home, but it's Lantern Day here in China. Today is the last day of the Spring Festival, where everyone displays colorful lanterns around ther home and eats some sort of spcial dish (something like a dunpling)

From this website, which knows more about the festival than I do, "According to the Chinese tradition, at the very beginning of a new year, when there is a bright full moon hanging in the sky, there should be thousands of colorful lanterns hung out for people to appreciate. At this time, people will try to solve the puzzles on the lanterns and eat yuanxiao (glutinous rice ball) and get all their families united in the joyful atmosphere.". Well, there we go.

One thing I will say about the lantern festival, not only is it bright and colorful with all the lanterns, but it's also damn loud! For the last week there has been fireworks going off sporadically all over the place, but tonight it's just gone crazy! If you thought that Dublin on Halloween was mad, you hsould hear this. At least at halloween you can get anything from 30secs to 5mins sometimes between explosions. Not here. the noise has been pretty much constant all night since it started getting dark (and even a bit before).

My first thoughts during the week were "wow, they're lighting off foreworks like it's going out of style or something". Turns out I was almost right! It seems that this year is the first time in 20 years that the governemt here has allowed people to set of fireworks, and it's only for the duration of the fstival. So, since they won't be allowed do it again from tomorrow on, the locals are getting in as much explosions as they can!

Anyway, despite the pyrotechnics, there are also lantern displays in various parks around town. The biggest of these (or so I was told) was in Chaoyang park, so once it got dark I headed out for a look. It was a big moment 'cos it was also my first time trying to get from point A to point B in a taxi unaided! Manged to get there anyway, and was well worth the trip (altho at RMB36 or €3.75 for a 16.5km run it was cheap enough anyway). We defintely odn't have anything like this at home! There were lanterns of all shapes and designs. There were your "normal" lanterns and fairy lights hanigng on nearly every second tree in the park, and then there were the displays! Everything from animals and birds (and dinosaurs) to Pagodas and gateways to big ornamental sculptures, all lit from within! I'll link a few pics here now, the rest will be up on my flickr site soon.

There were only three slight down sides to the whole evening. The first was that my camera battery died when Iwas only maybe 3/4 of the way aorund the park, and my phone battery didn't last a whole load longer. The second was that it was freezing cold, and the fingers on my camera hand were nearly dropping off me by the time the batery went. The third was that while the trip out in the taxi went no probs, on the way back th egimp taxi driver didn't have a clue where Leisure Gardens were, got lost in Wudoakou and had to ask directions off another taxi driver we mat at some lights! I was OK with the route for most of the way, but then I think he turned left instead of right at one junction and totally lost me. Ended up taking twice as long and costing nealy twice as much as it should have. Ah well. Next time I'll have the chinese for "near Tsinghua University" or "Wodaokou Light Rail station" memorized or written down!