Memorable New Year moments
Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Perhaps, but sometimes the strangest and most unusual New Year's are also the most memorable. So, for Auld Lang Syne, we took a cup of kindness to some of our favourite local personalities and asked them to share their standout New Year's events with us.
It was the most terrible New Year's Eve I ever had. It happened when I was 25. I remember the Plume Restaurant (a fancy Chinese eatery in Australia) had just opened. I managed to convince all of my poor friends to splurge on the Plume Restaurant on December 31. Everyone agreed, so booking was done and paid for. On New Year's Eve, after a whole day of work, I was exhausted. So I decided to open a bottle of champagne, an early celebration at home before I changed for dinner. Then I decided to rest a little before joining the gang. Well, I fell asleep. I woke up the next morning with 23 really mad friends knocking at my door. Gee, they really had no sense of humour.
Kim Robinson, hairstylist
My favourite confection of all time is chocolate. When I was a young girl, I loved the assortment of treats all spread out on the coffee table each New Year - actually Lunar New Year more than western New Year - when we went visiting relatives. I would secretly take a piece of tissue paper, wrap a few chocolates and stuff them in my pockets for a nibble afterwards. On one especially hot and humid New Year, my pockets ended up full of melted chocolate.
Stefanie Sun Yan-zi, singer
On New Year's Eve 1998, I set off on an adventure from Heathrow with a one-way ticket in my hand and GBP200 in my pocket. On January 1, 1999, I arrived in Hong Kong. This year will mark my tenth anniversary. As I type this, I'm shaking my head in wonder. It shames me to admit I didn't even know where Hong Kong was when I booked that first ticket. Any hopes that there would be a non-stop party up and down the plane to welcome in 1999 were soon squashed. Instead, midnight was marked by the pilot mumbling a decidedly non-committal 'Happy New Year' into the intercom, a handful of people muttering 'hurrah' to their neighbour and then we all went straight back to the in-flight movie. The following year I was back in London to see the millennium in from the roof of Wellington Barracks, 300 metres from Buckingham Palace, with university friends and the Welsh Guards. That's all a bit hazy now. I do know that my head hurt at the dawn of the new millennium - a lot. This year I won't be in Hong Kong again to celebrate my 10-year anniversary, but from whatever party I'm at in London, I will certainly take a moment to think over the past decade and the amazing adventure it's been. And how far GBP200 will get you.