New Years 2012...Beijing Style

New Years Eve was EPIC!!! We'd been planning and re-planning new years for a month or 2 and plans kept being forced to be changed, but i'm so glad it did! We had a absolutely amazing time in Beijing.  When we couldn't get tickets to Shanghai we decided to do an all-nighter in Beijing and I found a list of the top parties.  We emailed the top 3 about buying pre-sale tickets and times and only one party got back to me, NOVA.  I had been emailing one of the coordinators for a week about buying tickets and logistics and stuff.  He said he would set aside 4 tickets at pre-sale prices!!  So we got all excited about going to an actual party and getting all dressed up!!  Edwina and I had been talking outfits for almost 2 weeks lol.
Abi, Edi and Ali had to work Saturday night so I met them at school and we took the 8:53pm train to Beijing.  We had a fun train ride playing 'ring of fire' to pre-game.  We must have been so loud from laughing but no one minded.  We got into Beijing around 9:30pm and caught a taxi to the party location.  On the drive there we were having fun driving through different parts of Beijing and seeing all the lights, and all of a sudden it hit me....I am in China haha..it was the weirdest thing.  But the taxi ride was fun, we were all so giddy that there was lots of talking...i even tried out my Scottish accents by saying "my cow needs a mirror for Hogmany"  just the way Abigael does...rolling the 'r's and everything....I first asked if Edwina wanted to use my mirror to put on lipstick and it led to a 5 min convo with all of us saying mirror in our various accents...so funny.
When we got to the party, first we were totally excited about the location.  It was in an old oil tanker in the art/industrial district.  When we got in and I gave my name and told them I had been talking with Dion...they just let us in!!!! No payment, nothing.....we were so excited haha.  I felt like such a VIP.  Abigael and Edwina got in fine when I said they were with me, but Alistair got stopped and so I ran back and said he's with me and they let him through, haha...it was so fun!! We got in at about 11pm so we got on the dance floor right away...and didn't stop until 3 am!!  It was all techno music with many DJ's and ton of westerners!! It was wonderful!! One topic of conversation here in China is always the bathrooms and we got a kick out of the fact that the toilets here were port-a-potties that were... squatters!! haha, only in China would they make squat port-a-potties.  But since we were just there to have fun and not get trashed the squatters made no difference to us.  We danced and danced and danced... 12 hours after leaving my feet are still sore haha.
We left the party around 3:30/4 and then had a little adventure trying to hail a taxi.  It was so cold outside and no taxis were stopping....so we had to walk down the block and cross the street and catch a taxi going the other way...by this time all of our fingers were frozen.  When we got the the train station at 4:30am we were dissapointed to see that the station didn't open until 5:30, so we joined the rest of the freezing Chinese crowd in waiting.  It was the coldest hour of my life....I half expect for my toes to freeze and fall off they hurt so bad.  As you can imagine, after being awake for 18 hours on little sleep and then dancing for 3-4 hours straight...we were exhausted so the next few hours were not the best.  We were freezing..even when we got into the train station.  We sat in KFC till 8am just because it was the warmest.  We had an 8:20 train ride and all of us sat down and crashed for the hour train ride to Cangzhou.  When we got back (6 hours ago) at 10am and found I couldn't go to sleep.  My body was exhausted, but apparently coffee at KFC is very strong.  I finally got an hour nap from 1-2 but until then, NCIS & photo editing kept me entertained.  It'll be good though that I didn't nap..I will sleep better tonight and be refreshed for my 10am classes tomorrow morning.  Even with the freezing and being totally exhausted in a train station it was the best New Years eve! Such a fitting way to start 2012 and end 2011, a year that has been so exciting for me.  Hopefully 2012 will be just has amazing as the start of it has been.