gbazz

That was awesome! The New Year’s Eve fireworks have got to be the best thing about the end of the year here in the Philippines. The lightshow started at about 11, and even though it’s already 12:20 you can still see the bright lights and hear the extremely loud noisemakers in the neighbourhood.

My family spent the last 30 minutes standing on the back porch watching the fireworks, and by midnight you could barely see more than a few hundred metres away because of the smoke. Ordinarily the smoke would have probably been annoying, but the light from the fireworks in the whole neighbourhood gave the smoke a really beautiful glow.

When you think about it, a lot of families here in the Philippines are poor, but at the end of the year, it doesn’t matter how little money a family has to spend on fireworks, because come midnight, the explosions of fireworks just overwhelms you. Once once family starts fireworks, everyone else follows suit, and within minutes the sky is nearly as bright as it is in the early morning.

I have to admit that it was really nice to lose myself in the lights and sounds of the explosions, not having to think of any problems and just being able to enjoy something that I haven’t seen since I was much younger.

On one of the forums that I visit frequently, someone said that they tended to see New Year’s as the end of a year rather than a beginning, and even though it really is both, I agree with him.

I see this New Year’s Eve as a night when a really good year has passed by. And even though I’m gonna miss it and the people I got to know in it, I can still look forward to another year that just as good, if not better than the last one was.

Happy New Year everyone! Behave yourselves and enjoy 2008!

written by Brian \\ tags: fireworks, new year

I wonder if any shops are open… It’s New Year’s Eve, and I am sorely lacking in the round fruit department. Mmm, there’s nothing like eating several kilos of round, ball shaped fruit to welcome the new year.

Why round fruit? And why so much of it?

Ok, first of all let me ask you, do you like having money? Money buys you all kinds of cool things, like clothes, food and shiny things, so of course you like having it. Well that’s the reason people buy round fruits to celebrate the new year. Here in the Philippines if you have round fruits on this special night, it means that you’ll be prosperous in the coming year. I’m not sure about the quantity of round fruit, but my reasoning is as follows:

If one round fruit brings you money, how much money would you get if you ate, oh say, twelve mandarins, a cluster of grapes and two watermelons?

If it wasn’t just fruit you were eating you’d probably need all that money after being hospitalised for faecal impaction. Happily, fruit has lots of fibre. Erm…

Anyway, I always knew about the round fruit tradition here in the Philippines, but I never thought that other countries would have their own symbolic fruits. Mama Lisa has a list of several countries and their various lucky foods. It’s almost enough to make me want to travel all over the world the week before New Year’s Eve, just to taste all those different foods.

I can hear the fireworks outside! Will take pictures and post them later.

written by Brian \\ tags: countries, food, new year