Chinese New Years!!! (Part 3: Beijing Once Moreee)

Another bright and early morning. We heard that some park does New Year Day festivities so we head over there early to beat the rush. Coolest New Years I have ever been to. The entire park, which is fairly large, was filled with hundreds vendors selling New Years merch, fair games, food, shows, parades, and even a few rides for kids. It was insane. Glad we got there early because by noon you couldn’t move through the crowds. It seems that the 1/3 of the population that stayed in Beijing instead of going home to their families was in that park. They had multiple stages set up for talent shows, magic shows, musicians playing, and New Years inspired dances etc.

(New Year's Parade!)

(Their dragons remind me more of reindeer than anything...)

(Really helpful sign)

(dancers. Pretty funny.)

The food was the best part. Asians love their ambiguous meat on a stick. Can’t blame them though…it’s good. Just couldn’t bring myself to eat the whole octopi and pigeons on sticks….that’s a little too far. Their fried dough is AMAZING. It’s in little balls at are cooked just enough for a crispy outside but a goopy inside. Served with sugar. YUM. They also sold dumplings, lo mein, soup, steamed sweet corn (another YUM), lots of traditional Asian candy, and “Muslim Food” (no racism on their part or anything…).

(Unidentified meat on sticks)

(Fried dough ball things. YUMMM)

(They are eating pigeons on a stick...asians...)

So it’s about 5 in the evening now and there are still fireworks going off outside my room. Last night at midnight was nothing that I have ever seen in my life with fireworks. The entire city was lit up with the most insane fireworks for hours. By a quarter past 12, there was so much smoke in the air, we couldn’t see further than a block away. You could guess I got some quality sleep last night, eh? We tried going to get some dinner at 10pm and all of the restaurants turned us away so we had to run to a convenience store and get Ramen. Delicious New Years Eve dinner. Unlike New Years at home, everything shuts down here. Midnight is a time to celebrate with families and light off fireworks so nothing is open, we found out a little too late…ohh well.

So we were able to find a place open for New Year’s dinner. It was this fantastic place where we pretty much just bought everything on their menu, including Peking Duck. That was a New Year’s feast if I ever saw one. The staff there loved us Americans and gave us some free dishes. Haha. The best part? It only cost us about $7 each. Back home it would have been about $50 at least. 

Fun Facts about Beijing Asians:

1. They love their meat/octopi on a stick.

2. If you try to say “Happy New Years” to them in Chinese, they just laugh and answer back in English, or look confused and offer you a straw….

3. They honestly LOVE seeing non-asian people.

4. They display really inappropriate things in public where children are.

5. They do workouts in the park with Samari swords.