Happy New Years // 新年快乐

Despite the pushing and nearly getting separated every 5 minutes, we finally made it to the Bund. They blocked off the road shortly after we passed the guards, so we were very lucky. We arrived at about 10:30pm and popped into M18, a nearby club, to chat with a few friends and warm up a bit. Then we wrangled our way through the crowd to get a good spot to watch the fireworks and the Lujiazui light show. 10…9…8…7…6..5…4…3…2…1! Hello 2015! And now this part was interesting, although I was expecting cheers of excitement and joy and hugs (as what happens during New Years celebrations) there was nothing of the sort. A little bit of a let down… and worst of all, there were no fireworks… Needless to say, we were all a bit disappointed, but we then made our way through the crowd and walked 30 minutes to meet some friends at another club. Although the rest of the night was full of fun and celebrating, the Bund was a huge disappointment…

If that wasn’t bad enough, the next morning me and all of my friends woke up to tons of concerned Whatapp and Wechat messages from friends and family. Rather confused, and let’s admit it, super hungover, we discovered there had been a terrible accident at the Bund that night. At 11:35pm, there was a stampede that killed 36 people and injured 49 people (see more here: http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/21/world/china-shanghai-stampede/). What is especially eerie about this event, is that me and my friends crossed the road maybe 10 minutes prior to the accident, which means we could have very easily been involved in the stampede. What still baffles me is that we were there literally right there when the accident happened, but because of the shouting and huge crowds of people, we didn’t even know anything serious happened. In fact, a Chinese student from my University was one of the fatalities. A very sad way for Shanghai to welcome in the New Year indeed… The photos below were taken right after the accident happened, although we had no idea what we were actually taking a picture of.

A bit of a downer here for my blog, but if there’s anything I’ve learned from this accident, it is to avoid crowds at all costs! Although this was an authentic “China” experience, it was something I’d rather not do again.