Day 8 -- Suzhou, China

The Year of the Dog began with a bang. The fireworks had been going on much of the evening and continued well into the wee hours of the morning, but nothing could quite prepare me for the sights and sounds at 12:00am. Daniel and I spent several minutes taking pictures and video on the balcony and then called his family. Ralph (Daniel's dad) answered the phone and thought I was on a train or just had a really bad connection. I could barely hear him as it was so loud. We stepped inside off the balcony and talked to him for a few minutes. Kathy and Brianna (Daniel's mom and sis) were still asleep as it was 8:00am. I'm sure Ralph did his best to convey the loudness of the fireworks he heard. My mom also called my brother to wish him a Happy New Year and Happy Birthday (his birthday is the 29th). I got to talk to him for a few minutes. He didn't seem too pleased that we woke him up early on the 28th on his day off...oh well. The fireworks finally died down and we left for home at about 3:30am. We managed to find a cab immediately--not bad for only seeing 3 cars total on the road. I'm convinced that my dad is good luck; this is about the 5th or 6th time that we have caught a cab (some of them the nice roomy gold cabs) with him when they were scarce. Finally in bed by 4:00am. Slept in until 10:00am today and just lazed around the house. The laziness was so bad that we all ended up taking naps in the late afternoon. Spent the evening watching about 8 episodes of 'Scrubs' on DVD and doing Sudoku puzzles (Daniel got me some Sudoku books for Christmas and I am an addict). Mom cooked spaghetti for dinner (we actually ate in!) and I called it a night by 9:30pm.