My new year day is very disappointing too. I was so sad and disappointed that I bought a box of jig-saw puzzle and wanted to play with it (but my parents stopped me). I'm not sure why I felt that way. I asked friends to take me to the most crowded place in Hong Kong for
the count down. I felt very happy when I was in a crowd where I could not move. But we were quite late and we could not move to a spot where we could see the count down stage. I did not even know exactly when the new year started, because I didn't hear the count down. We were trappedn in a small alley and we could not see the fireworks. All I could see was a big crowd, policemen, and someone I wished I were madly in love with.
We then stayed in a pub and I drank a lot of beer and got a little light-headed. The next day I met with a best friend from college. I had not heard from her for a whole year. When we met, we realized that we had not changed a bit since the last time we talked. She was still (and always) single and not interested in getting a boyfriend. She wanted to do some shopping so I walked with her. I felt like a boyfriend of her or something, because while she was trying on different cloth, shoes, cosmetic products, I was just watching her or looking around the shop idly. I was really bored, but I had nothing less boring to do.
Then we parted. I walked on the most crowded shopping area (next to our home), and I could not walk 5 seconds without bumping into someone. Everywhere there were people. At least one in 10 people were on the cell phone, the other 9 were holding a cell phones. I watched them passing me, busy with their new life in the new year. I felt like an observer. I felt like an alien who happened to land on the earth on the new year day among the crowd. Then I went to some small bookstores to stay away from the crowd. I found back part of myself there.
I met a friend to take pictures in the evening. We went to the most famous desert restaurant, but found a big ant (Y2K bug?) in our cake :( By the time we got to the peak, it was kind of late and a lot of the lights were turned off. That was how I ended the first day of my new year.
My boss sent me several emails asking me about my work progress. I have to finish a paper in 4 days. I think this could be the only real start of my new year.
-- email to HB
