Our CNY 2011 - Firecrackers

I think I have finally regain back my joy in Chinese New Year here in Shanghai after all these years.

CNY back home is really great but it's just too ......... 'quiet' without the traditional firecrackers anymore. in addition, I hardly see a good lion dance with strong and uplifting drum beats too. Afterall, my childhood memories of cny was all about loud firecrackers and fireworks, noisy lion dance, ample of good food, loads of ang-pow and happily squeezing myself along the busy cny market flooded with people until I can only see people's head instead of what's selling. That's what my once a year CNY memories is all about and guess what, I finally found all of them here, especially those loud and annoying firecrackers which I love the most ^_^

^ ^ Mommy! Mommy! Look!! There's fireworks out there!!

Angel spotted fireworks the 1st night we were back from our HK trip (will try getting myself motivated to post it up soon .... I hope) and she was all excited as well as myself too. Only to find out that according to the tradition here, after midnight will be the 5th of the lunar Chinese calendar and everyone will light up fireworks and firecrackers to welcome the 财神爷 (God of Fortune). Since Angel is so excited and the mommy is even excited to see fireworks and hearing all those big bang EVERYWHERE, we managed to drag hubby out from the house in the cold winter night to get us some firecrackers or don't come back see whether he could find some firecrackers for his darling princess-es :D :D


^ ^ Finally, we found a man who is selling firecrackers at the roadside at 11pm! ^_^

Yahooooo!!! Finally we get to light up firecrackers and fireworks LEGALLY!!!!! The sound of those fireworks hasn't been stopping since 11pm! We felt like our ears are not functioning anymore while the night was so bright from fireworks everywhere and car alarms were joining the orchestra of noise-making too! What a night!!


^ ^ Hello my old friend! I missed you SOOOOO much! ^_^

I can see that hubby is a bit chicken out from lighting up the firecrackers after such a long time absent from practicing :P :P He would run away before the firecrackers were actually lit up and he even trying to extend the tip of the fireworks with newspapers to steal some time from escaping but his trick was not working at all *laugh* Luckily there were some brave security guards around to save his day and he is happily leaving the honour of the job to those brave guys :P


^ ^ It's such a funny scene to see a few big guys gathered around discussing how to light up those firecrackers ^_^

Before approaching midnight, we drag Angel back to the house to get her some ear plugs as she wants me to cover her ears while I myself was so busy with the camera.




The heap of explosives which were waiting to be lit that night and that's not it. There were few more cars of firecrackers being wheeled out after that and you could imagine how noisy and smoky it was! But hey, it's CNY!!!




^ ^ Men busy preparing for the big explosion! Those big box in the middle of the road were actually fireworks! So big box!

Finally the show begins! It was so noisy until I could barely hear when hubby is trying to talk to me. And the whole sky were so smoky and as bright as sun rises and I could actually felt 'small grains' dropping from the sky all the time which was from the fireworks. It was crazy!!


^ ^ Let the show begins! My LX5 was giving up on me due to the bright lights and smokes and do not want to focus anymore! No luck in capturing nice fireworks picture!

And hubby is so nice for getting our little Angel her own sparkles too :) She was super duper happy and I am so happy too watching her smiling so contentedly dancing around with her sparkles.


^ ^

The next permitted time for lighting up fireworks here in Shanghai will be on the last day of CNY which is ... tomorrow!!!! So fast!! On this day, kids would carry 元宵节灯笼 （lantern), eat 汤圆 (glutinous rice balls) and celebrate with more firecrackers. We have got ourselves ready for the next round of 'explosion' and at the mean time, I am just praying that it won't not rain!! ^_^