On January 28th I made the final leap and left Japan for good- or at least for an undefined period of time. It was hard, and that's all I'll say about that since this is a travel blog, not a personal one ;)
But it was time to look forward to Beijing and celebrating Chinese New Year! I'd heard mixed reviews as to whether there was actually anything interesting going on, since, like Japan, it's mainly a family holiday. Well I can tell you now, it's definitely worth being here for it! First of all, there are red lanterns etc everywhere, making the streets and especially the hutongs (Old Beijing historical buildings) nice and festive. There seem to be a few market-type stalls set up here and there as well, although some shops are closed.
Next, my plan for today is to visit a temple that used to be a palace, to witness what the owner of the hostel referred to as a kind of "show", a public religious ceremony for the New Year. We'll see if I make it there without getting lost.
And the highlight, of course, was last night, the 30th aka NYE. Almost everyone in the hostel and more were haning out, drinking, talking, eating dumplings, until about midnight, when the fireworks show began. They set off a practice one at about 10:30 that I got to witness and get a taste for what was to come. First impression: terrifying!! Wow, firecrackers are loud when they're 5 feet in front of you! And there's debris flying everywhere! I was trying to simultaneously take pictures/videos, protect my face, cover my ears and, of course, watch! And that was nothing compared to the big show at midnight, since then we were not the only ones setting things off. Complete chaos ensued, noise and light from every direction, some fireworks in the sky, some at your feet, I didn't know where to look! And a bunch of us had sparklers to set off as well so we were searching fire a way to light them without catching on fire ourselves. It was messy, deafeneing, blinding, chaotic, terrifying and completely amazing! If anyone is wondering if it's worth it to spend Chinese New Year in Beijing (I don't know about the rest of China), the answer is 100% yes!
Now I feel I should mention a few other things I've done while here that were also wonderful, Beijing does have a few other claims to fame. I've had so much delicious food already, although dumplings is the only one I actually know the name of. I've wandered around the shops and hutongs quite a lot, have been to Tian'anmen Square and The Forbidden City. Wow they are absolutely huge! I'd heard they were big but really couldn't conceive of it until I was in there, walking around for 4 hours. And I'm sure I didn't see everything. Wow.
Some of you have been asking but no, I haven't been to the Great Wall yet! But yes, obviously I will! I'm thinking of joining the hostel tour tomorrow actually, we'll see if I can manage to drag myself out of bed by 6am, ugh!
I want to make a note about internet as well. I'm not sure if it's particular to my iPod or the hostel computer but I'm having a lot of trouble accessing a LOT of websites. Some I knew would be blocked, like Facebook and youtube, but also Couchsurfing, Dropbox, some things I try to search, news websites, etc etc. People say to use a VPN and actually I had one on my iPod but it was messed up somehow so that I could only use Skype and everything else, even my browser, said no internet access! So I had to kind of cancel it. Also the people at Starbucks, my go-to place for free wifi, say it won't work on my iPod and they don't know why. They were super nice, really trying to get it working for me, comparing it with all their phones but in the end, nope.
So I've been pretty out of touch but I hope most of you have figured out why. I admit I will be doing some mad Facebook updates when I get to Thailand!
Ps: loys more pictures to come!
