manninchina

Happy New Year! Today begins the year of the rat.

This year was my first New Year’s Eve/Day in China, what a great experience. I went to Shanghai for a couple days and didn’t expect it to be what it was. I’m really talking about the fireworks when I say that…unreal. Felt like I was in a war zone, seriously. More on that when I get some of the videos up this weekend.

So, I returned to Beijing this afternoon…landed at 1pm and was back at my apartment by 1:35pm … that’s unheard of. Usually takes at least 1 hour & 30 minutes from time of landing to home.

Wandered over to “The Place” next door for some Indian food…empty, but everything was open. After coffee at Starbucks, I figured I’d wander down to the DVD shop near Silk Market that I usually go to. WOW…streets were empty. I mean, completely empty. DVD store was closed, Silk Market was closed (didn’t think that place ever closed, for anything). Where were the DVD guys? The socks ladies? The Olympic hat ladies? The watch guys? None to be found…their usual hangout of the cross-walk to get to the market - empty. But wait… a couple hundred feet down from the market, there was a lonely socks lady … she quietly asked …”socks?” … I should have bought a pair just because, but I didn’t. I’m sure she called it a day after that attempt.

So, Beijing is quiet. I’ve gone from a war zone in Shanghai to the sounds of nothing in Beijing… no cars, no construction, no snot rockets, nothing. On top of that, blue sky day.

I have to say, this is probably the best day I’ve had in Beijing so far…it’s peaceful.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 7:58 am and is filed under China, Beijing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.