snap, crackle, pop...and so it begins

Spring Festival (Chun Jie) is a week away and the celebration is already starting.  As I'm writing this, the booming sounds of fireworks are firing away on and off outside my window, with occasional bright flashes of light here and there.  When the nearby din dies down, the faint explosions of distant firecrackers make me feel as if there is a battle going on in the distance.

The official Chun Jie day is February 3 this year, with February 2 being "New Year's Eve," the day of gathering with family and making dumplings in the evening.  (You can check out my previous post on this from last year.)  Legend has it that a supernatural dragon will come and terrorize the cities on the last day of every year, but the loudness and brightness of firecrackers will keep it away.  Hence, the tradition of lighting firecrackers during the Spring Festival...for 2-3 weeks straight.  It must be a frightfully scary dragon.

addendum to "You know it's cold when..."

- breathing through your scarf ends up leaving you with a frost-covered scarf
- while breathing through your scarf, your glasses fog up, and when you try to wipe them clean with your glove, you find that the fog on your glasses have also turned to ice...great, now you're cold AND you can't see
- finding out that your forehead can also hurt from the cold

I think today may have been the coldest day I've ever experienced, anywhere.  If that changes, I'll let you know.

You know it's cold when...

- it reads -12 F outside
- your eyelashes freeze
- when you breathe through your nose, it feels like your nostrils are turning to ice
- but when you breathe through your mouth, your chest constricts from the cold and you end up hacking up half a lung
- you're wearing 2 layers of THICK long underwear AND a pair of jeans and you're still cold
- your fingers and toes are so cold that it hurts
- your hair, still mildly damp from the morning shower, freezes on your way down the stairwell of your apartment
- your lips turn blue