Happy New Year 2014 to all of you and  Xin Nian Kuai Le! 新 年快乐 !!

This year I had my first New Year celebration in a country that doesn’t only have one, but two new years celebration within a short period.

In China there exist the Western calendar and the lunar calendar. Hence the first New Year celebration, the Western New Year, takes place in the night from 31^st of December to the first of January, as we are used to. And the second one, the Chinese New Year changes its dates every year because of their lunar calendar and this year it will take place in the night from 30^th to 31^st of January 2014 western calendar. Hence, in lunar calendar today is the 2^nd of December. The Chinese New Year is much more important for the Chinese, and lots of them only celebrate our Western New Year with a nice dinner with friends.

To celebrate the First of our New Years in China we decided to meet at the apartment of one of our interns, which as it is located on a little hill, has a nice view over the city.

Me, Leo, Nathan and the other interns met at 8 with a lot of beers and a small bottle of Baiju and started to play some drinking games. As our nice host was a British guy we were not allowed to play the games with German rules, which appear to be much more generous and we had to cope with British style New Year drinking games. After several rounds of fuzzy duck or bus riding we skipped our plans to go to see a firework at Intercontinental hotel and stayed in the apartment because it was much more fun. And with our great location we thought we could even have a glimpse at the firework while being in a cozy apartment. Luckily we made the right decision with staying home, as there was no firework at all as we found out later.

About half an hour before Midnight we made our way to LPG’s, one of our favourite bars in Qingdao to have a nice New Years Countdown. It was totally crowded with young Chinese celebrating and waiting for our New Year to arrive. A few minutes before midnight the staff was giving out sparklers and the New Years Countdown started.. At Midnight the whole crowd was going crazy, waving their sparklers in the air, hugging each other and screaming “Happy New Year”!!

We stayed at LPGs for half an hour to wish each other good luck and have a couple of cheers and then we made our way back to the apartment to enjoy the end of the first night in 2014 in a nice atmosphere with our friends.

And even though there was no firework to welcome 2014, I had a great New Years celebration with my friends and now I am even more looking forward to the Chinese New Year and fireworks all around the clock!!

Do you want to spend your next New Year celebration in China? Then apply now!