The world's most dangerous fireworks

We just happened to be at the Shih Lin night market the other day, and got stuck in the middle of the scariest fireworks ever!

All of those red things laying on the ground are humongous firecrackers. They think that the noise of the firecrackers scares away the bad spirits that come out at chinese new year. Notice how everyone is just walking right through them...and do you know how many people were smoking right in the middle of it?!? And do you notice the smoke coming from down the street where they already lit off part of the firecrackers? One guy came running out of the smoke with his arm wrapped in a t-shirt, all splattered with blood. (of course there are no paramedics standing by)

First,these guys came by beating the drum to make way for the firecrackers.

Then came the firecrackers...and oh, the NOISE! And the smoke! And the FLAMING SHARDS OF SHRAPNEL COMING OUR WAY! This picture is blurry because I was running for my life.

We took cover inside an eyeglass store, which was so lucky because it had a glass wall in front. See all the firecracker shrapnel? Ya, IT HURTS! (and those balloons there in front didn't last long)

Then, people came by with buckets of water to douse the flaming street.



Then they carried the little God sitting in the chair into every store to 'bless' the stores.

They wasted no time lighting off more fireworks. Yes, they are putting fresh fireworks right in the middle of the hot steaming smoking pile of ash!

At this point, we didn't even need to cover our ears anymore because we couldn't hear anymore anyway. (WHAT DID YOU SAY?!?)

I took this picture from directly underneath the fireworks, right before I realized how stupid it is to stand directly under the fireworks. We ran for it when they started falling on our heads.

Poor Ashton, he wouldn't unplug his ears for hours.