We now interrupt your regularly scheduled programming...

To bring you: Lhasa Night of Fire.

At about 8pm tonight the sun began to set and the city erupted in noisy firecrackers... about fifteen minutes later the fireworks started. From my apartment window I have a partially obscured panorama of the city... the fireworks display, which has lasted an hour now, would put DisneyWorld to shame.

How often does one get to see a city light itself on fire?
Or see the Potala palace framed in colorful explosives?
Or watch ones neighbors race from their apartment, down two flights of stairs with burning sticks and yards of firecrackers in hand?

Every year. Happy Losar (Tibetan New Year) Everyone!