Boys and Booms

On the night of the Lantern Festival, the last night of Chinese New Year, we invited several families for dinner and to share in the fun of the fireworks that Scott, Caleb and Seth had gotten the night before. Here Caleb and Seth and their friends pose with "the goods" right before we head outside to set them off.

All these night pictures are blurry because the shutter on the camera was open so long and I wasn't using a tripod, but I think the effect is cool. Here is the huge cloud of smoke created when the big wheel of 5000 firecrackers Caleb is holding over his head in the previous picture all went off at once! It was quite a noise!
One of our fireworks! These were the ones in the big cube... one wick on the edge of the cube was lit, and then all of the fireworks would shoot off, one after another. One of our friends stayed up in our apartment with a couple of the girls, and she said they came about halfway up the building. To those of us down on the ground, they were directly overhead and seemed huge!
A mass of firecrackers going off in quick succession in the street behind our van. Lots of noise and smoke! There was quite a pile of rubble in the street when we finished with all the fireworks and firecrackers. Right after we finished the last set, while we were still standing around, a street sweeper was already there cleaning it all up. This is typical of Shanghai... always people sweeping the street by hand, with brooms made of branches. I assume they are city employees.