Happy New Year 2018

Happy New Year to all readers and subscribers to my blog. Thank you a lot for all of your support and attention to my personal webpage through the previous year. I wish you and your beloved ones a year full of happiness, smiles, good luck and success.

New Year’s Eve 2018 is the second one I’ve spent in Germany and I chose to stay in Jena instead of travelling away. The Vietnamese student association in my city had several activities to celebrate the new year. Since Lunar New Year in this year is the exam period to many students, we decided to make our New Year 2018 celebration very traditional and very Vietnamese instead by having a typical Vietnamese year-end party and going out for our private firework displays:) Several days before the Eve, each person’s assigned a task. Some were in charge of buying lá dong, mung beans, glutious rice and other ingredients to wrap Chưng cakes and stay overnight to boil the cakes. Some who are not interested in cooking went out to buy fireworks for our group. In the end, our party is quite Vietnamese with Chưng  cakes, Xôi Vò (Steamed rice with mung beans), Canh Miến (Rice vermicelli), boiled chickens and Bún Chả (Grilled pork with noodle).

After the party, we cleaned quickly and changed clothes to go to the city centre. Germany has been known as a sensible country to safety problems but very tolerant of private fireworks. Fireworks are normally not on sale all year round but towards the end of each year, they appear in every shop and since 28th of December, people are sometimes surprised by bangs and flashes  in the sky. It’s ok to set off fireworks at your backyard or in front of your house but we went to the city centre because most people gather there at the moment of turning to the new year and therefore, there’re chances of watching more fireworks. Several years ago, besides private fireworks, the city authority also let off some and of course, they are higher, longer and more beautiful. However, now there’re only fireworks from citizens but for me, it’s still very joyful and fun.

There are many types of fireworks and honestly, I know almost nothing about them. There’s even a mobile phone app which can scan each item’s code to check how long and far they work. We bought several types including dozens of firecrackers which explode when being thrown to the ground, and rockets which are launched in empty bottles.

I don’t know what kind it is but it can last for 2 minutes like this

The guys were excitedly launching rockets

Look like a battlefield:))

Our fireworks

This’s really a firework, the hardest and most expensive item that we had