New Years Eve

Sunday night was New Years Eve. We got back to our hostel in the evening and headed to a plaza nearby to watch fireworks. Cormick's mom was so kind and bought us sparklers and fireworks.

I feel guilty for ever being bugged that Cormick and his parents invited themselves on our trip. They were only helpful and kind to us the entire trip. They helped us purchase bus tickets, helped us find our way around a Chinese speaking city completely foreign to us, let us borrow their cell phones during the hostel mix up, took the other group out to dinner while we were at the concert in the middle of nowhere, and then bought us sparklers and gave us detailed instructions on how how to use them (maybe they didn't know that there are fireworks in the United States? Yes, Cormick's dad, I know the sparklers are intense, but I figured these things out a while ago)

I still don't know why they wanted to spend their New Years with a bunch of random Americans, but I sure am grateful that they did! I don't know how we would have survived without them!

This isn't anything new, but there were more people staring at us than at the fireworks. We have had stares before and crowds before, but this was the most INTENSE paparazzi we have ever had. They followed us wherever we went. These people might have seen white Americans before but white Americans WITH sparklers just threw them over the edge.

I think this might be my favorite picture. I had to squeeze through our crowd to get a picture of our paparazzi from the outside because it gives a much better perspective. Realize that just 20 feet from this group of people, the plaza is pretty much empty.

Guess what we were doing when all of those people were crowded around us? Purchasing cotton candy at a cotton candy stand! No wonder they closed in on us and took all those pictures and wouldn't let us out. We were doing something really cool. My new goal is to give them a real reason to stare. Any suggestions?