Happy New Year - 2023

wishing all my family and friends a Happy and Healthy New Year-  2023

as we always do every year we are 'on land' watch the big ball drop in Times Square NYC

when and where - New Year's celebrations around the World..  the first to celebrate--Samoa..Tonga and Christmas Island-Fanning Island Kiribati where we visited  back in late 2019 on the Amsterdam on our South Pacific cruise

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/31/world/new-years-around-the-world-countdown-trnd/index.html

Follow the New Year around the World

By Kendall Trammell, CNN

Published 4:59 AM EST, Sat December 31, 2022

CNN — 

Get out of your East Coast mentality, America. Not everyone starts their New Year when you do.

The Pacific Island nations of Tonga, Samoa and Kiribati were the first to see in the new year – when it was still 5 a.m. on December 31 on the East Coast of the United States and 11 a.m. UTC (Coordinated Universal Time, the global standard). New Zealand was next, an hour later.

Samoa is always the first country to ring in the New Year. American Samoa, its neighbor just 101 miles away, has to watch in envy and wait a full day.

There are 39 different local times in use – including two which are more than 12 hours ahead of UTC – which means it takes 26 hours for the entire world to enter the New Year.

So, if you really, really, really love to hum “Auld Lang Syne,” the list below will get you in the spirit – over and over and over again.

Here’s when the world will be ringing in the New Year, relative to East Coast time.

Saturday, December 31, 2022

5 a.m. ET Samoa, Tonga and Christmas Island/Kiribati

5:15 a.m. Chatham Islands/New Zealand

6 a.m. New Zealand (with a few exceptions) and five more locations/islands

Fireworks explode over Sky Tower in central Auckland as New Year celebrations begin in New Zealand, Sunday, Jan. 1, 2023.

7 a.m. Small region of Russia and seven more locations

8 a.m. Much of Australia and seven more (including Melbourne and Sydney)

People watch fireworks on December 31, 2022, in Sydney, Australia.

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8:30 a.m. Small region of Australia (including Adelaide)

9 a.m. Queensland/Australia and six more (including Brisbane)

9:30 a.m. Northern Territory/Australia (including Alice Springs)

10 a.m. Japan, South Korea and four more

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10:15 a.m. Western Australia/Australia

11 a.m. China, Philippines and 10 more

A New Year's Eve fireworks and light show attracts thousands of visitors to the West Tour Park in Huai 'an, East China's Jiangsu province, on December 31, 2022.s

Noon Much of Indonesia, Thailand and seven more

12:30 p.m. Myanmar and Cocos Islands

1 p.m. Bangladesh and six more

1:15 p.m. Nepal

1:30 p.m. India and Sri Lanka

2 p.m. Pakistan and eight more

2:30 p.m. Afghanistan

3 p.m. Azerbaijan and eight more