Journal no. 3

thought i was going to have a solo new year celebration watching the Sydney fireworks on tv when i called my friend back and he invited me to hang out with his gang.

so i went back to Guild House, saw a few friends, and we had Malaysian food for dinner.
there were 7 of us at the restaurant - the countries represented included South Africa, Malaysia, Taiwan, Sweden, Iran...
it was pretty yummy, especially the salted egg chicken.

then we went home to mix some South Africa drinks - green cream soda, sugar cane vodka, mango drink... there was cider as well.
the best thing was that we watched Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's movie The World's End - as good as i expected, with the awesome lame puns.

at about 11pm, we went to the south bank of the Swan River to watch the fireworks. Perth is such a sleepy city. there weren't any cars on the road to the city. and the park area was pretty deserted. we sat there with our drinks and watched 7 minutes of fireworks coming from 1 main spot across the river, with another smaller one about 5 km away.

we went back to the Guild House after that, chatted with the Americans, lit some sparklers, went to MacD's, watched a strange movie called Movie 43... and then i slept on the couch for 3 hours before catching the first bus home, which came at 8 am. urgh.
i remember that one of the Americans was asking, "when is the actual new year, when there are so many new years around the world?"
that is the beauty of globalization - where major cities join in the cultural practice of counting down to the new year and displaying fireworks, and we get to see and hear it about on social / mass media.

and now i'm watching some New Year celebrations from around the world on The Morning Show on channel 7 - the hosts are being more funny+wtf than usual.


as with every day, i wish for the health and happiness of the people i love.