woah chinese new year

I was taking a nap on Saturday afternoon when I got calls from my brother and a friend asking me to come to Philly for Chinese New Year. I was quite comfortable in bed, but I dragged myself out and got into the car. We first got to Chinatown around 10:30 and did some wandering around trying to figure out where the festivities were going to take place. I was starting to fear that we were never going to figure it out when we heard drumming in the distance and saw a parade of dragons in the street. We found it! We hopped up on some stairs and got a great view as they danced on by...

We followed the dragon parade around the corner where they danced a bit more in the street before going inside a restaurant. We were told that they would meet up with a few other groups later in the night. We headed over to a bar a few blocks away to wait.

When we started walking back, we heard the sounds of fireworks in the distance. My brother knew that was part of the celebration, so we weren't surprised...until we got closer and started seeing them set off from windows and in the street right where the crowds were watching the dragons dance. None of us had ever seen anything like it. It's a little hard to see, but in the picture on the left, to the left of the OPEN sign in the background, there is a giant strip of fireworks that was being set off from a window above. The people in the window set off at least 5 or 6 of those while we were there.

We stayed for awhile, walking up and down the street checking out the different groups of beautiful dancing dragons, the drummers and of course the fireworks. I started to realize that for all the people that were out for this planned celebration, there was no real opportunity to go home with bags full of souvenirs. Most of the Chinese restaurants in the area stayed open late until the celebration, but there was no one selling the Chinese food and gift items you might expect if you were at such an event. It was kind of nice to be at something where it was just about the fun of what was going on and not someone trying to sell you a $5 bottle of water.

When we were getting ready to leave, I realized that I didn't have a lot of good pictures of all the fireworks that we had seen in the street and I wanted some proof that this craziness had occurred. I saw a big pile of whatever you call the leftover stuff from fireworks, so I thought I'd take a picture of that. Just as I was pushing the button on my camera, some fireworks were set off from what seemed to be VERY close to me. The three of us ran, but I slid on some icy snow and fell in the street. I can't imagine what it must have looked like...us running away like we were being shot at. As ridiculous as it might have looked, though, it was a surprisingly smart reaction because there were certainly no assurances that the fireworks weren't being set off right at our feet. Safety and organization didn't seem to be a super high priority for the night.

Even though I walked back a little banged up, it was quite an amazing experience...one I'd certainly recommend to anyone who finds themselves in Philly on Chinese New Year.