Happy New Year! How did you celebrate your New Year's Eve?

In Japan, I usually see the old year out and the New Year in at home to watch TV and pay a visit to a shrine, yet this year was different.

I tried to go to Times Square to see the ball drop with my friends. We went to Grand Central, a few blocks away from Times Square, for warmth before we headed off to Times Square. Since it seemed there were not too many people waiting for the countdown around the area, we decided to leave a little bit later than we planned. (We realized this decision was wrong eventually…)


We left Grand Central around 9pm. When we were getting close to Times Square, we found that there were the fences along the street to block people coming from the out of the area, so that we had to walk all the way up to go around to get there.

When it was 11pm, we were able to reach about 14 blocks away from the main area of Times Square. It was impossible to go further from there because of the restriction, however, we could still see some of the action.

We were getting excited once everyone started doing countdown and looking at the huge screen. "…3…2…1… Happy New Year!" - The moment was awesome. Although we couldn't see the ball itself, we really enjoyed the atmosphere and fireworks from both Times Square and Central Park.

As celebrating around Times Square on New Year's Eve was one of the things I would like to do during my stay in NYC, I felt accomplishment, and it became a good memory.

I wish it would be another good year for you.

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