Today was Chinese New Year's Eve. So you're thinking 'the home of fireworks, must let off one or two?' right? Well it started at 10am which annoyed everyone except me J I get up at 8am each morning but if Kelly and Paul aren't working they - and Vincent - prefer to stay in bed until 11 or so. At 10 am a few firecrackers went off. I thought it must just be excitable children. By midday it was clear that unless they were very rich children they couldn't possibly be just playing, fireworks and firecrackers were going off at a rate matching Diwali at least one per second.Kelly and I went out to Quentin Street to look round the shops and buy each of us something new to wear. You are meant to wear something new on New Year's Eve apparently. As it is going to be year of the Ox and Paul is an Ox he should wear red pants for the whole year and he will have luck and money. There were red things in all the shops and there was a huge Ox sculpture at every turn. I found Vincent a top, me a blouse and Kelly found red pants for Paul and a sweet little jumper for her. I was amazed to find anything at all for us to be honest. Although walking down the street we aren't exactly giants, when you look in a clothes shop and find the xxxl size only just does up it's a bit rubbish! Most of the girl's clothes are one size (about UK age 10) and most of the boy's clothes are sport related.When we finally got home with our gifts it was nearly time to go out so there was a flurry to change. I decided not to change into my blouse at it was about -5 outside and Kelly mentioned her grandparents were one of those previously mentioned types of Chinese people that don't believe in heating.The taxi stopped at the top of the street and as we walked down it there were lots of people selling fireworks. We bought a box that you just light the outside and it does a little display for you, plus some flowers for Kelly's grandma.We arrived to find Kelly's Dad already there as well has his brother and his wife and of course Kelly's Grandma and Granddad. They sat me down in front of a little 3 bar heater which I was very glad of. We did the formal 'not giving of presents' (The flower's for Kelly's grandma which had been bought with no expense spared were hurriedly hidden in a corner by Kelly's Dad and the presents Pauls had brought were shoved quickly on a chair in a corner.) then we sat at the table. Kelly's Aunt and Grandma were on first shift. They created several amazing vegetarian dishes, in fact so much of it was vegetarian I was hoping that Kelly and Paul could find something to eat that was meaty amidst the plates. They have a funny system of stacking here too. The plates are all laid out on the table as they are ready but inevitably they run out of space sooner or later. They then begin to pile plates on the corners of other plates until there's a sort of tiered effect. The other odd thing about this meal was that there were no plates, just a plastic covering over the table cloth and chopsticks on a chopstick rest. Amidst all the tiered plates you just eat off the serving dishes! It is something of a nightmare for someone as clumsy as me who is only just getting used to chopsticks. I mean a chunk of peeled cucumber in hoi sin sauce is wonderful to eat but if you have to reach over several relatives then somehow pick it up, dip in the sauce and get it to your mouth - remembering that you have no plate to help you - is very very difficult! Luckily I didn't drop anything in anyone else's food and as the table cover is there to spit on (still yuk!) it doesn't matter too much if you drop things on that. Kelly embarrassed me half way through the meal by getting me a spoon, which I declined, but apparently her granddad had told her to do I and he was trying to help not patronise.At the end of the meal Kelly's Dad made us count the dishes, there were over 20 and that didn't include the sweet pumpkin cake. Then Kelly's grandma told us she was going to teach us how to make dumplings! Kelly's Dad helped us and we rolled balls of dough into circles and filled them with a veggie mix. It was great fun and we held up each one for inspection after making it. When we were done we got totally shown up by Kelly's Dad making the meat ones as he made a row of at least five times as many in half the time, and his were all perfectly uniform.It was now 10.00pm and I was cold and tired. We decided that we would get a taxi home a bit earlier than Kelly who wanted to stay with her folks until midnight. We decided to let off the fireworks early and play with some sparklers, then make a move.Sadly Kelly's Uncle and Dad got to the box of fireworks before we did and they didn't read the instructions, typical! They began to open the box thinking it was just packaging. We shouted 'No!' but it was a bit late so when they finally got the idea he box was mostly ripped off. They lit it and ran back and he first few firework were great, after that it went if bit wrong though and they started firing out at crazy angles, one even went sideways and exploded under a car! No-one seemed bothered though and with the amount of people setting off fireworks by then was getting deafening. They were now almost continuous. It hard to imagine what it's like to have fireworks going off continuously for hours, but I imagine it's similar to a warzone! We played with the sparklers and Paul and Vincent ran off for a second box to 'do it properly'. The second box was lovely and lit up the area outside her grandparent's flat with roman candles and air bombs.We pottered upstairs to say goodbye only to be confronted by grandma with plates of dumplings! After our 20 course meal she decided we looked a bit peckish so cooked us the dumplings we had made!Finally at 11pm we got a taxi home so full we could hardly move, then Paul decided to go out! The others went with him to watch fireworks at midnight but I stayed back with the hot water bottles content to watch form the window. Midnight was insane. The night outside was as bright as day and flickering like a strobe. The noise was incredible. For about 15 minutes everyone in the whole of the city, and probably the whole of the country, was letting off at least one firework for luck. It was a wonderful sight even from the window of Paul's flat, I preferred to be warm and inside than out in the craziness anyway.