Theoretically, if you wanted to celebrate New Years’ Eve 33 times this is the way to do it. The optimum place to start off is to find the point furthest East just next to the international dateline. The dateline isn’t particularly straight and deviates thousands of miles east so that island nations in the Pacific aren’t subject to living on two different days!
The time at the beginning of each party stop indicates how far ahead it is from our starting point and how long we’ve been partying.
1. TIME: 00:00 – The island of Kiritimati in the Republic of Kiribati is our first Paaartay! It’s the first inhabited place on Earth to celebrate the coming of the new year. Straddling the equator in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it’s a poor nation so you’ll have to bring your own party supplies. Anyway, we can’t dilly dally so let’s hop into our jet and go west.
Office and corporate buffet caterers Grimsby
2. TIME: +00:15 – …to the Chatham Islands. Part of New Zealand, these tropical islands observe their own unusual time zone. It’s one of very few on the planet which differs by a period other than a whole hour or half-hour. It’s oddly 45 minutes different to New Zealand time. A quick Auld Lang Syne here and we’re off to…
3. TIME: +01:00 – …Auckland. The first City on our tour to celebrate New Years’ Eve! Then here’s where it gets busy!
4. TIME: +03.00 Sydney! Australia is a vast country and has three main different time zones – that don’t necessarily fall in an east to west orientation. There are, however some local anomalies. So first we land in Sydney. Undoubtedly one of the most spectacular fireworks celebrations on our trip with the Harbour Bridge and Opera house as a backdrop.
5. TIME: +03.30 Adelaide. Then bizarrely we have to fly northeast to…
6. TIME: +04.00 Brisbane. Home of the Bee Gees! A quick dose of night fever then we fly to the geographical center of Australia to…
7. TIME: +04.30 …Alice Springs. That’s four-time zones and four new year’s eve parties in an hour and a half! We’ll be coming back to Australia later, but first, let’s climb into the cockpit and fly north to…
8. TIME: +05.00 …Tokyo. New Years’ eve or Shogatsu in Japan is a big thing and the festival lasts from the 29th of December to January 4th. In Tokyo, you can see the ringing of The Watched Night bell. Japanese believe that the ringing of bells can rid their sins during the previous year. The bell is rung 107 times on 31st and once past midnight. Then back south to Australia to…
9. TIME: +05.15 …Eucla. Another time zone anomaly! It’s a small area where the time differs by 45 minutes. Then we need to get in our jet and fly to…
10. TIME: +05.30 …North Korea. If they let you land you can see the ringing of the Pyongyang Bell, one of the national treasures of North Korea. Then…YES!.. it’s back to Australia!
11. TIME: +06.00 Perth, maybe one of the most isolated major cities in the world, but they still know how to celebrate new years eve!
12. TIME: +07.00 And we land in Bangkok where they sure know how to party. The Thai don’t actually call it Bangkok and refer to it as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon. Its full ceremonial name reads as Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit. You can hear it being spoken here and is the world’s longest place name. Off and onward!
13. TIME: +08.00 Bangladesh. The Bengali new year, Pohela Boishakh isn’t until the 14 April so this might be a low key event. So let’s not dawdle and make tracks and hop to…
14. TIME: +08.15 …Nepal. Another quarter-hour time zone. Interestingly Up until 1990, Nepal was a monarchy ruled by the executive control of the King. They also use the Bikram Samvat calendar so their new year is in mid-April.
15. TIME: +08.30 Mumbai is our next stop. It is the financial and commercial capital of India and the setting for Slumdog Millionaire.