Every year Hong Kong puts some amazing fireworks on show – and every year all the viewing points are pretty packed. But it is worth waiting and queuing up for the fireworks. This year, the New Year’s Eve firework display lasted eight minutes and was really beautiful.
But let’s start from the beginning. On New Year’s eve we took the star ferry from Wan Chai to Tsim Sha Tsui. It was already dark and the skyline was beautiful lit. Still lots of Christmas decorations on the houses, but also a few extra lights for the ‘New Year – New World’ Hong Kong Countdown celebrations.
I always love riding and watching the star ferries, so I can’t stop myself from taking pictures – I love this one that shows the reflections in the water. It looks like modern art to me.
When we arrived in Tsim Sha Tsui, we headed straight to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre as we had tickets for the “A Viennese New Year” concert by the HK Philharmonic Orchestra that included polkas, marches, and toe-tapping waltzes by the Strauss family. Johannes Wildner, a conductor steeped in the Viennese tradition, waltzed away 2013 with a concert of festive humour (including flying champagne corks and the whistle of trains) and elegance.
The concert ended around 10pm, but getting back to the Star Ferry proved a problem. It was way too packed, the police had already enforced crowd control measures around Tsim Sha Tsui and we could only leave the area by walking almost a mile to the next MTR station. It was sooooo packed – people queued up on the streets, even far away from the shoreline. I don’t think they were able to see the fireworks from there.
We made our way over to Central (with the MTR) and from there walked over to the public ferry piers that I had only discovered a few weeks ago. Rachel from LittleKoo had given me the tip that she had watched past fireworks from there, and it proved to be a good location.
It was still busy, but it was not too packed and crazy. We queued up at 11.15pm and could still get decent places to see the fireworks. Of course, it was not the ideal location, as we could not see the famous skyline behind us (as a comparison, here are my Chinese New Year firework display pictures from 2011 when we queued for a long time in front of the cultural centre), but given that we did not want to queue up for hours, we were happy with our choice.
The fireworks started with a big countdown on the ICC tower and the whole crowd shouted down to saam, ye and yat – and then with a big cheer 2014 was greeted with a big firework display over the Victoria Harbour.
As soon as the first fireworks started, almost everyone was holding up a camera or mobile phone to watch the show. It was crazy – picture smartphone madness.
But I guess I’m none the better, even if I was one of the few using an actual camera to take the shots… oh well, so let’s sit back and enjoy some of the beautiful fireworks at New Year’s eve 2013 in Hong Kong:
bluebalu 