Due to general exhaustion and a distinct air of apathy, I'd not planned anything until 10pm on New Year's Eve.

In that sense, it was quite similar to a NYE spent with Jess, in 1998 I think, but this one didn't end with me getting thrown out of possibly the roughest pub in Birmingham and getting very messy indeed on the crawl home.

By 10pm then, Clare and Todd had already set-off for Jaili (pronounced Jai-ee) for a Western type pub, so me and Phil squeezed onto a scooter and set-off for the nearest big town called Doulio (as Paul the dentist had shown us TV pictures of an outdoor event going on there).

There were a few thousand people milling around, lots of food stalls, a dire Taiwanese Cliff Richards wannabe wailing away on stage, although not any obvious drunkenness or fever-pitch excitement.

Due to the climate change over the last week or two, we saw in the New Year dressed in sweaters and jackets, overlooking the crowd and the stage, coffee in hand, rather feeling like flies on the wall and not really there at all.

There was a countdown, a short cheer, a few firewords, and then people started wandering off. All quite bizarre really - no drunken hugging / smooching / passing out and no extreme partying of any kind really. Still, at least no-one we noticed got attacked eh?

I'll write more about New Year's Day shortly - a very interesting day trip - culture and everything!