The Chinese New Year follows the lunar calendar, placing this year's Spring Festival today and tomorrow. It's a fascinating experience; the magnitude of this holiday is comparable to our Christmas and New Years holiday festivities. Traffic is awful, malls are packed, restaurants are full, students are home, and everyone has off of work. Now, take that magnitude, subtract the green from the holiday colors, replace it with much more red, add lanterns and violent, eardrum shattering fireworks starting at 8am, substitute dumplings for sugar cookies or whatever holiday food tradition you have, and you have the Chinese New Year. (Over simplification, but that has been my experience thus far.)
I did not take this picture, but this is a perfect representation of what some of the main shopping streets look like in Beijing and in Qinhuangdao. When night falls, these lanterns are lit along with rows and rows of trees and bushes with their own decorative, ethereal version of lights and glowing. I have never seen so many lights and red... things... all together, for one purpose, in my life! It's pretty awesome.
Due to this being the biggest family celebration for a developing country that has 1.3 billion people, travel is chaotic at best, cutthroat and unpredictable for train tickets, and frustratingly pricey because of the high demand for said tickets, for lodging, and sometimes food. With most of the country relying on train travel to get from point A to point B, and with over 500 million migrant workers vying for these tickets because this is their only chance during the entire year to see their family and children, vacationing is a bit... precarious... aiiiiaaaa... and laced with guilt, especially if my buying of a ticket prevents a worker from getting home sooner- or at all.
So... we looked at plane tickets. We asked for advice. We called travel agents. We appealed to our Chinese friends to guide us. We finally put something down on paper: Harbin, by hard sleeper train, overnight travel, stay for 4 days to see the famous ice sculpture and light show, and take a train back. Us leaving after the New Year Holiday (on the fourth) gives us much more possibility. :) (and me much less guilt.)
In two days, Becca, Brett, and I will head out to one of the coldest locations I have ever been to, followed by a short trip to Tianjin, a city close by famous for Beijing Opera, it's seafood, and its form of comedy acts and stand up comedians (not that I'd understand it at all). I will write and reflect on that when the trip is over. But OH my GOODNESS what an arduous journey to our final plans. yikes...
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