What a Year!

Hong Kong Fireworks

As this amazing year of travel came to a close, I found myself in Hong Kong to celebrate the end of the Year of the Dragon, and the beginning of Year of the Snake. The festivities began on February 10th with the New Years Parade. Considering that I was in Rio this time last year, I knew the parade wouldn't be as good as carnival. But I thought at least it would be better than New York's Chinese New Year parade. Sadly, I don't think Hong Kong's parade was even as good as that. The floats were tiny, most of them were corporate and had nothing to do with New Year, and the best performers were Irish, or Japanese, or Spanish. There was very little chinese in this Chinese New Year celebration!

Fortunately, the Hong Kong New Years fireworks display the following night more than made up for the lameness of the parade. I, and 300,000 other people, gathered to watch the city blow up 23,888 fireworks in Victoria Harbor. Here's 30 seconds of that spectacular 23 minute display:


Hong Kong fireworks from Tina Cone on Vimeo.

And with that? My 13 months of travelling the globe came to an end. I've been to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and all around the United States. It was an opportunity I will never regret taking, and an experience I will never forget. And because, by pure chance, my final entry about this wonderful adventure marks my eightieth post, I'm renaming and mothballing this blog. Thanks so much to all of you for reading these 80 Posts, from my trip Around the World. It has truly been the biggest blast imaginable.