CNY Fireworks

Wow, I mean wow!  First of all, happy new year everyone!  2010 is the Year of the Tiger, and it came in with a bang, literally.  Fireworks and firecrackers all around.  So let me rewind.  Saturday the 13th was new years eve, and leading up to the day, there were firecrackers exploding sporadically around the city, but nothing over the top.  About 7:30pm onwards, the city slowly went nuts. Someone once told me that Chinese people turn into pyros during CNY (Spring Festival), and thats totally true.  I was at a friends house for dinner, and they live on the 28th floor.  I went out on the balcony and someone had just put a box on the street of fireworks that shot up to pretty much where we were.  It was weird looking down on fireworks, instead of looking up.  So yeah, a box of fireworks.  Imagine a box of about 2.5 feet high and wide.  Inside, there's about 15 tubes.  In those tubes are fireworks that shoot up 25 floors or so.  Apparently, these boxes are readily available b/c everyone had them.  Heck, fireworks are made in China, so they didn't have to be transported too far.

And you know, back in the states, in order to watch these fireworks, people usually pack into a high school football field or a baseball stadium.  Or like July 4th in DC, fireworks are shot off from the Potomac, while people are at a safe distance away.  Not here.  People walk out to the street, put the box there and light it.  And keep in mind, I live in the middle of the city, so there's houses and buildings all around.  No matter.  Or they shoot them off from their apartment terrace.  Basically any unobstructed space will do.

After dinner, I met up with some friends on at the bar of the top floor of a hotel around my house.  There we had a perfect view of Pudong's Pearl Tower and the Bottle Opener, with fireworks exploding all around.  At 11:45pm, almost on cue, it started snowing.  No kidding.  A little past 11:50pm, we headed up to the helipad on top of the hotel, maybe now about the 43rd floor, out in the open.  (How did this happen?  Let's just say we know the right people.)  So I'm standing there, it's snowing, we have a 360 degree view of downtown Shanghai, and everything around you is exploding with fireworks.  The sky was lit up with blue, green, red, yellow, gold, silver.  It was crazy.  Just crazy.  Absolutely one of the top 5 moments in my life.  Standing there and reflecting on how awesome it was.  I tried to post videos, but apparently the file is too big.  I'll figure out a way to do this.  In the meantime, please enjoy the 2 blurry pics.

By the time, I left the bar almost 2am, visibility was near zero.  Smoke from the fireworks had pretty much blocked everything out.  From the top floor bar, there was a 50ish-story building right next to us.  We couldn't see it.

When you think about it, the wildest thing was that this wasn't some government sanctioned event where fire officials are coordinating the launching of fireworks.  It was just local people who had a box and decided to light them.  And from 11:30pm to about 12:30am, it was a lot of them that decided to light them all at once.  And they're still lighting them.  It's pushing 4am as I write this, and there's still explosions outside.  Apparently, this will go on for another few days.  But I'd like to think of it as the sound of awesomeness...

I really love Shanghai!

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