Happy New Year!

Last night, at 5 pm, we were invited to the CICAMS students' New Year's Eve party, which started at 7. We arrived a little late as Alison whipped up delicious no-bake cookies to bring, and arrived just in time for the feast.
We were surprised to find the main course to be friend chicken drumsticks! Of course, we're in China, so people eat them a little differently.
Apparently, every New Year's, there's a nationally televised 2.5 hour performance, kinda like the one I saw in Yunnan with the hospital anniversary, but on a MUCH larger scale. We were watching these pretty impressive acrobats out of the corner of our eyes, munching in chicken, when we heard a familiar tune: Doe, a deer, a female deer...
Alison and I both turned mid conversation to stare at the TV, where some woman was dressed like Cinderella leading girls in pink-dresses and boys in blue pants into a stirring rendition of the Sound of Music! The lyrics were a little off: they sang "so, a needle pool in s-red" and "tea, a dwink with gin and bwead," but it was close.

If that weren't surreal enough, another lady came out, followed by these ADORABLE little kids dressed up as billie goats, and did that yodeling song from Sound of Music. The opera singers afterwards just couldn't compete, and everyone stopped watching tv to play a card game. We left before midnight but it was a great evening! Today, we went to Decathlon and spent $110 USD on two pairs of imported hiking boots, two pairs of long-underwear pants, and wool socks in preparation for our trip tonight. We're in for major reverse culture shock when we buy anything in NYC in a few months!!