Milizlinx

We are having a wild weekend of celebration - not only for the turn of the year, but also because we are finally officially free of sickness and can go out all together!
So last night we met with Shinji and his family for a late supper and to watch fireworks. Grace was so excited about it, she writhed and wriggled in bed all afternoon instead of napping - and still was going strong after midnight! (and then slept in till 10 this morning.) They talked all day about seeing the fireworks, but when it came down to it, both girls were much more interested in playing with Shinji.
We decided to go out to eat, and carefully timed it so we wouldn't have too much time to wait around afterward. Wrong move - after walking 15 min or so to the restaurant, we discovered that everything closed at 8pm. It was 8:15 or so. We took a taxi back home, planning to whip up some food of our own, but lo and behold, the small Korean take-out-with-a-few-tables restaurant in our own building was open. So we had KFC - Korean friend chicken :)

New year's fireworks in Manila is an experience. We were on a helipad on top of the building - about 30 floors up - so we were actually above most of the show. Every night since Christmas we have heard sporadic fireworks exploding as we went to bed. But this night... by about 11 it was there was a pretty constant sound of explosions. And then it increased in intensity until shortly after midnight - everywhere we looked, colors exploding in various patterns. No coordination or "shows" to speak of, just rapid firing of all sorts of fireworks. We stayed watching until there was a noticeable decrease in the explosions and the smoke from the mountains of fireworks set off actually obscured all but the nearest ones.
Thankfully, a strong wind blew all day today, so the air cleared quickly. In fact, we can see farther than we've ever seen.