This is my first blog post in this year. I’m so much font of celebrating new year with friends. In India, it’s very rare to see the new year count down especially in Kerala. So I’ve decided to check for a place here to see the New Year count down. Anyway Google Showed me some inputs for celebration which has driven me to the website of Tokyo Disneyland. The place is superb to celebrate the new year. But unfortunately all the entry passes were sold out by the mid of November 2006. Finally my customer Yoneyama-san here in Toshiba Medical Systems suggested me, IKSPIARI to celebrate the new year as the Disney tickets were sold out. I was never interested to go for IKSPIARI since I don’t know how to reach here and what are the cost for seeing the live music show and count down, how much it costs for the train tickets and all.
Normally Japanese are celebrating new year with their family. On 31st DEC and 1st DEC, they will be simply spend time with their families and sometimes will go to some Shrines for prayer at 00:00. Now the Youth of Japan is not ready to sit simply inside the house. They are celebrating new year with friends in some clubs or parks like Disneyland or somewhere else to make their party.
Finally on 31st morning I decided to go for IKSPIARI for new year celebration. I also invited some of my friends from nest for going together to the party place.
The 8 member gang started from Nishinasuno to Tokyo by 12.30 PM and get down at Akihabara to purchase some gadgets and portable hard disk for my friends. After the purchase, we went to Indian Restaurant nearby to taste some Indian Dishes. The buffet costs around 1000 Yen (nearly 400 INR and almost equals in price to a Japanese Lunch). We just reached before closing the hotel and had loads of food as were very hungry( even if we were not that much hungry, we showed some hungriness on seeing food). The aunty in the restaurant packed some Butter to Nan for us and we thankfully left from the restaurant.
In between all these, my friend DJ (Dhananjayan) took some photos. Hi Canon S3 IS was on night mode (if we are not careful in taking pictures in S3 IS night mode, photos will be blurred. we have to wait a while till it grasping the image 
). So most of the photos he has taken were awkward to see (I looks very bad in his camera.. bad camera and a fool cameraman)
We’ve planned to reach IKSPIARI by 9.00 PM. So we decided to spend 2-3 hours in Tokyo and went there. When I was coming to Japan, the guide who helped me to reach my destination from Tokyo. She has given some maps and tourist guide of Tokyo Prefecture. So making it as reference we decided to see Rainbow Bridge between Shibaura and Odaiba. None of us were familiar with the Japanese language and the different lines there in Japanese railway system. Finally at 8.30 PM we reached there near the rainbow bridge. The bridge is very beautiful in the night and the place were we get down is harbor area. The entry to the rainbow bridge from the railway station will be closed at 6.00 PM. That was a new information for us. DJ took some more blurred photos with his crap camera settings (Sorry till now I don’t have a digital camera) and we came back to Tokyo and from there we caught the train to Maihama station, station near to Disneyland. Ahh… forgot to say. Actually IKSPIARI is part of Tokyo Disney Resort and it has Cinema theatres, shopping complex, restaurants etc…
Accidentally our team were divided into two and we four people Sarath, Dhananjayan, Anup and Divine were roaming inside & outside IKSPIARI.
After seeing the shops and restaurant, we entered into the Hawaiian Burger Shop to have something. The burger is a bit costly but we could not a suitable place for us to eat something before the live music show @ 11.30 PM. There was a small queue in front of the restaurant to be seated. We were waiting for other people to leave the table. Suddenly DJ found that, there’s 4 chaired table is available and in that excitement, he called the waiter, “Sumi maase” (excuse me in English).. naalu seat avide free aayi kidakkunnundu… (he shouted in pure Malayalam to that Japanese waiter in the excitement. means, 4 tables are available there. please allow us to enter there.) he loudly conveyed the matter. We laughed a lot on seeing all these “performance of DJ”. Finally we had the burger and went near the circle inside the IKSPIARI to see the live music show and count down. I’m not remembering the name of artist performed there. It’s a bit tough name She started with Latin music. The whole people were really enjoyed her performance. On 11:57 the screen showed the beginning of count down. Suddenly it disappeared. I’m not that smart enough with English Language to explain about the countdown happened there. See the countdown video below.
WTF I can’t embed the YouTube Video here
After that there we saw a beautiful fireworks at 00:00.
We went back from there after the celebration, and reached Tokyo at 1.00 AM. We went to Ueno to catch the train to Nishinasuno (were we resides). But unfortunately the final train had left so early. So again came back to Tokyo railway station and slept on the icy cold floor for 2-3 hours. At 5.00 AM, we got the train from Ueno to our apartment and I slept whole in the New Year Day. This year’s new Year celebration was so memorable.
See I’m laying down on floor and sleeping 
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| From New Year Bash |
Have a look at some photos.
