Mucking about on the river

It's actually a small lake in the grounds of a temple.

Soooo... New year's Eve in China is a blast. Literally. We kicked the night off making dumplings in the hostel and, I mean I don't like to boast, but I WON the ingenious dumpling creation competition with a cats head poking out of a beer bottle. Which entitled me to a delicious free mojito.

After that we drank and ate and drank some more and headed out to watch the fireworks. Or should i say fire. There was explosions left, right and centre. People ran into the middle of the road with huge boxes of fireworks and then desperately ran for cover as cars backed off. Friends threw little firepoppers at each other, huge paper dragons were unfurled along pavements and set alight and hundreds of lanterns were released into the smoky air.

It was really fun and so obviously we never made it up in time for our 8 o/clock bus departure to the Giant Buddha the next morning. (It does feature later though).

So here is New Year's Day - a lazy saunter round the park, with a bit of ear cleaning from the temple ear cleaners and then a dash back to the hostel to have a Sichaunese cookery lesson. All in all, pretty productive I think.