On a high to bid farewell to 2006

New Delhi: Did you see the fireworks? No? Well, we have just bade a glitzy adieu to 2006 to ring in the New Year in a grand, grand fashion.

Yeah, we also watched Mumbaikars party hard on the sea-faces and in hundreds of discs and pubs across the city to usher in 2007 with fun and frolic while Delhiites rocked 'n' rolled amid mist and shallow fog to cheer in the New Year that holds so much promise and so many expectations.

And we also stopped to take in the the glittering ball dropping at New York's Times Square, which was flooded with thousands of revelers, who sang and danced to wash away the thoughts of world conflict with music, glitz and celebrity star power amid relatively warm temperatures. The numbers were simply incalculable.

From UK comes the dazzling images of fireworks display at the London Eye, music and dance events, beach party and outdoor funfair across the country in spite of rainy and windy conditions.

Brisbane preceded the whole world when the city's skyline was set alight on Saturday night with as many as 1,00,000 people flooding the South Bank Parklands to cheer in the New Year.

Two tonnes of fireworks highlighted a big night of celebrations throughout the city. It was a case of first in, best dressed, as spots to witness South Bank's fire in the sky extravaganza started filling from 1000 hrs.

Ok, wait a bit! Must we tell you what's so unique about the New Year? The year 2007 starts and ends on a Monday and has probably the highest number of Sundays and Saturdays in many decades.

At Sydney Harbor, hundreds of thousands of revelers watched fireworks burst into the night sky, while crowds scaled Japan's Mount Fuji for the first glimpse of the 2007 dawn and the Philippines braced for a firecracker carnage.

And at the International Space Station, Sunita Williams along with co-astronauts Michael Lopez-Allegria and Russian colleague Mikhail Tyurin experienced the arrival of January 1, 2007 as many as 16 times on board humanity's furthest outpost in space as the station orbits the Earth that many times a day.

"Last year the ISS crew had a surprise in the form of cognac beans, but this year there is a total ban on alcohol," someone attached to mission control tells us.

Back home, Goa rocked in wild beach parties and Shillong had a big blast as Chandigarh and Ahmedabad danced to the beats as they rolled toward the New Year.

Party animals as they are, all the Goans and theirs guests who flew in from all across the world, braved a terror threat and party all through the night as they danced all over the beaches and night-clubs, air-kissing 'Happy New Year' to one and all.

The party fever also gripped Jaipur and the pink city was abuzz with the highest number of tourist arrivals this year.

Cities like Pushkar witnessed glittering celebrations and party animals were rocking all night at the palaces, sand dunes and culture hubs.