Happy New Year

After two days of hermit like existence puttering around the apartment in my new massage pajamas, IMing/emailing with friends, reading books and magazines and watching a random assortment of DVDs, all in an attempt to recuperate my stomach, it turns out, what I really needed, was a night on the town.

Fortunately, my coworkers had made plans for us to go out on NYE. My hotpot coworker family picked me up and we met with Guo Xin and her husband at a large shopping mall called The Place. Not an imaginative name but it gets to the point. Between the two Place buildings is the extremely large LED Sky Screen - 2,296' long, 88' wide by 80' high and is second largest in the world (Las Vegas has the largest). It faces downwards creating a virtual ceiling not unlike what one might imagine of the ceiling at Hogswart. The images changed from a cosmos theme to an Olympics skydiving theme to random people walking around above your head. Under this canopy, Coca-Cola was setting up to host some sort of special NYE event. From the second floor of the mall you could see over the wall to the show, but after checking in before and after dinner and STILL nothing was happening, we gave up on it. It was cold and the hotpot family needed to head home.


Guo Xin, her husband Kevin and I taxied over to a foreigner bar called The Rickshaw to ring in the New Year. The music was great 80's hits, it was just crowded enough, wasn't too loud but of course, it was very smokey - all in all, a nice place for New Years Eve. There was an impromptu countdown, clinking of glasses all around and then the DJ put on Auld Lang Syne. 2008 had been aptly ushered in and it was time to grab a taxi to head home. Mission accomplished.




Wishing everyone a safe and happy New Year Eve and wonderful 2008!