New Year's Festival-Year of the Ox

Sunday January 25 started the Chinese New Year festivities. Since our prior New Year's Eve was spent in a Motel 6 with Sadie on our way to Colorado, we decided to do something special to start the Year of the Ox (Philip actually was born in another year of the ox) The '7 star" Pangu hotel was having a special for the holiday, reducing their prices by about 90%. The hotel can be seen behind Philip in a photo. You see 2 buildings, one is supposed to resemble the head of a dragon.
Anyway, a beautiful hotel overlooking the Olympic park. The aquatic center, the Watercube, was seen from our room, as you see in a photo. Dinner was a great buffet with as much lobster, shrimp,crab,oysters you could eat plus lots of other food items. Philip is also seen in a photo with the Swiss born pastry chef Thomas, during an equally impressive breakfast buffet. He popped over to make sure we tasted the waffles with cranberries, his french pastry etc.
All evening spectacular fireworks went off all around us, as colorful and impressive as any we have seen before-all by regular private citizens, shot up from any sidewalk. (Which is why we preferred to watch from a safe distance)
Monday morning started with a walk in the Olympic park including a tour inside the impressive Watercube. Hundreds of Chinese citizens were also touring, and very happy to try out their English knowledge and try to teach us some Mandarin greetings.
Afterward it was time for a taxi trip back to our temporary apartment. Our taxi-driver greeted us with a big smile and a" Welcome to China, Welcome to Beijing!" His vocabulary trumps though were :'NBA" and"Obama, Obama".
Today we were invited by Guang Jun (Philip's nurse) and Xiao to go to a Temple Fair. We were told that traditionally one visits family the eve and first day of the new year, but on the second full day everyone goes out. And it felt as if everyone was there! We did not really visit any temple, but tasted many delicacies from stalls lining the entire Longtan park,as can be seen in the photos;Philip eating lamb, Philip eating Chinese hawthorne, plus skewers of multiple tiny birds and and various sizes grasshoppers.(Notice, Philip did not eat those)
Various acrobats and dancers added a festive atmosphere to a fun day of the spring festival. We feel very welcome everywhere, even by the little girl who pointed at us today, exitedly exclaiming: Foreigners, foreigners!(in Mandarin of course!)
Most people have a week off for this holiday. We were lucky for Philip to get a 5 day break (inc. week-end)so early during our stay). So one more day to continue exploring our new home city of 17 million inhabitants!!