The Year of the Horse (Xin Nian Kuai Le!)

On Thursday evening, Beijing started to shut down for the week-long national holiday of Chun Jie, or spring festival, the Chinese Lunar New Year. Millions of people trek back to their hometowns and there's a slew of gift giving, big meals and spending time with family.

The Year of the Horse!

Fireworks and the color red play prominent roles during the Lunar New Year, as both were thought to ward off monsters -- the noise of crackling fireworks and the sharp hue of crimson. These fireworks, by the way, are not your typical sparklers or even roman candles. These are legit municipal-grade fireworks, in some cases. They're packed in boxes with several fuses and most people light 'em up off their rooftops or in the middle of the streets, which are littered with debris. We're on day three of the New Year and we're just finally getting used to the faint sound of gunshots. That's what all the fireworks sound like and they go off for hours upon hours during the festival.

Just lightin' it up in the middle of a street. 

2014 is the Year of the Horse (there are 12 animals that rotate through) and we rang it in by going to a lounge on the 80th floor of a building in the central business district so we could see the hundreds of fireworks displays, which made the air pollution index go haywire. We sipped champagne and ate dumplings, the latter being a traditional way of welcoming the new year.

View from our Chinese New Year evening.

The streets are eerily quiet, something that feels odd in a city of 21.5 million people. We went to dinner on Friday night in the Sanlitun area, which is usually teeming with street sellers hawking jewelry and scarves, bars wooing partygoers inside and the perennial honking of taxi drivers. There was none of that, only the noise of the occasional family coming outdoors to light another box of fireworks.

Fireworks debris, a common sight these days.

It's like Christmas in the U.S., but for a prolonged period. We can't get our giant jugs of water delivered, our gym is closed and most shops have Happy New Year (Xin Nian Kuai Le) signs over locked doors and darkened interiors. For a country that's constantly changing at a rapid pace, this weeklong rest feels well-deserved.