Last night was an amazing experience. We watched the Chinese New Year begin from the 50th floor of our apartment building. One of my new Mahjong buddies invited several families to their home to welcome in the New Year. The fireworks were unbelievable!!!!! I can not even find the words to describe the scene. The fireworks started around 6:00pm and continued through out the night with the biggest display at midnight.

Tonight we are again seeing many many fireworks all around the city. The night is clear and we can see three bridges and beyond. I took theses photos this evening when we returned from the YuYuan Garden.

Today we took the Ferry across the river to Puxi. We walked a short distance to the shopping area around Yu Yuan Gardens. In the center of the Gardens is a temple where people were going to pray to the many Gods of Buddha. We wondered around the streets (with about 17 million other people) and shopped at the gardens. Our big purchase of the day.......slippers. We found beautiful embroidered silky slippers for 10 yuan a pair. That is about $1.25. We shamelessly eat lunch at McDonald's (they had ice in their soda!!!) and looked very American. We also walked down some of the "back streets" and experienced Chinese culture very up close and personal. Abi described our day as "interesting, exciting, new, and a little scary. I asked her what was scary about it and she said.....the crowds...."there were lots of people bumping into us and we sort of stand out in the crowd". We are experiencing being the minority for the first time in our lives. It is a real growth opportunity for all of us. All in all it was a great day!!!!!