Gong Hei Fat Choi!

Happy Chinese New Year!! Hope everyone has a prosperous and lucky year of the rat!  I spent the New Year in Beijing and it was COLD!!!!! I love the cold though. It reminds me of winters on the Northern East coast of the states.  I also love Beijing. What an awesome town! Everytime I go I like it more and more. Hopefully this year I can spend more time up there.

This trip spent some time with good friends, and also got to meet some cool new ones. As usual, ate until exploding point every night, and yes, of course, there was a lot of hot pot action! Love the spicy hot pot, although sometimes it isn't so kind to my stomach, but its worth the pain.

That's just pure "knock your socks off" chili.

Went to a really cool restaurant/club/bar/lounge called LAN. It was designed by Philippe Starck. It truly was a feast for the eyes. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the decor, but I did take photos of the food

The photo below is a photo of my friends' bathroom at home. Yes, two toilets. Yes, they sometimes "go" together.

We lit fireworks on Chinese New Year's eve. We lit a BUTTLOAD of fireworks! I lit my first ever firework. It was loud and scary. What was really amazing was looking 360 degrees around me and seeing the whole city was lighting fireworks at the same time.  How cool China must look from a bird's eye view on Chinese New Year's eve.