New Year's Eve in Manila

Post date: 27-Jan-2010 21:24:00

Colin and I usually have a new year's eve party at our house every year, so it was neat to attend a party at Glenda's house (where we stayed for our second week in the Philippines). We sang videoke from 8:00 PM until 2:00 AM. It was fun but also way more challenging than I thought it would be. We're used to playing Rockband where the original artist sings the song with you. With videoke, it's only you singing and you don't have the original music for the song (it's redone on the computer and sounds synthesized and electronic). Therefore, it's easier if you pick songs that you know really well so you can determine how fast or slow you should be singing at certain parts based on how you remember the song. It was really fun though and we both even received a 100% a few times.

There were many songs to choose from including Black Eyed Peas songs and old dance songs such as "Saturday Night" by Whigfield and "Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum. Colin sang a duet with me to "Closing Time" by Semisonic. We even got to hear a few sappy love songs sang in Tagalog by Glenda's uncle too. He was really good.

We had a New Year's eve supper which consisted of grilled fish, Filipino spaghetti sauce (sweet tasting with hot dogs and cheese in it and it's an odd pinkish red colour), curried chicken, rice, and mango salsa. We also had my favourite dish from Christmas which was sticky rice with coconut and it's delicious.

Between December 24th and January 1st, 2010 in Manila, there were 597 injuries from fire works. Thankfully there were no injuries on new year's eve in Glenda's family's area. There were many fireworks and firecrackers set off throughout the entire night. Many of them looked quite dangerous. If a firework didn't light most people just kept trying to light it over and over again. Therefore, when it does light, the firework is usually about to go off. Also, people don't stand very far away while the fireworks are going off and many of them don't go off the first time.

Our second favourite fireworks were on a stick and they shoot up into the air at an odd angle. Some of these fireworks looked like they were pretty close to going into people's open windows too. Our first favourite firework was juddha's belt. It's a few meters long and looks like a long mop. Once it's lit, a series of tiny fireworks that are loud enough to make you deaf go off for about 5 minutes. Afterwords, you're left with a pile of debris that looks like leaves and newspapers. You can see a video of this type of firework below.

A few random photos of the oh so safe fireworks that are set off in every neighbourhood around Manila:

Large sparklers that smoked us out

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