Shrjah24 – WAM: It’s round-the-clock family fun at the Expo 2020 Dubai site today, 31 December and tomorrow, 1 January with a 13-hour party that started at 1500 GST at the New Zealand Pavilion, and continues until 0400 GST, with hourly countdowns taking place at the countries celebrating across global time zones.

Fuelled by modern East Asian cuisine and some of the best sushi in town, visitors to the Japan Pavilion have just welcomed the New Year (1900 GST), along with Palau, South Korea and Timor-Leste. Hot on their heels, Brunei, China, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines and Singapore will finish their countdown at 2000 GST, with Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam following suit at 2100 GST.

Celebrations in Europe kick off from 0300 GST. Country Pavilions from Austria to Spain – and everywhere in between – will be celebrating in a variety of engaging ways.

At the Belgium Pavilion, family-friendly restaurant BeHappy is helping diners to usher in 2022 with a smile on their faces, with traditional Belgium delights topped off by a fireworks display, and the restaurant’s terrace providing front-row seats to the pyrotechnics.

The terraces at the Portugal Pavilion and the Denmark Pavilion’s rooftop restaurant Graffiti Cocktails and bar De2Have also provide a bird’s eye view of the fireworks, with the latter pavilion inviting guests to join in a jumping game to leap into the New Year with a spring in their step.

At the Germany Pavilion, meanwhile, visitors will be getting stuck into a cathartic karaoke session to sing their way into 2022.

Festivities at the Dubai Millennium Amphitheatre are well underway, with DJ Jeff up next, followed by a Morocco Electro Dance set at 2200 GST, DJ Khaled Mamdouh at 2330 and DJ Fat Sam at 0130. Next door at Jubilee Park, visitors are enjoying DJ Skip, with Kanika Kapoor taking over at 2030, and Anyasa live at 2200, with the biggest artists of the evening, Dimitri Vegas and Armin van Buuren, turning up the volume into 2022.

Earlier in the evening, the Australia Pavilion celebrated alongside Sydney by live-streaming the country’s world-famous fireworks from Sydney Harbour, as the cast of the musical, Moulin Rouge, sang Auld Lang Syne in First Nations languages. The Saudi Arabia Pavilion’s celebrations got underway with Saudi band Sharqiya playing at the pavilion’s open square.

With eight hours still to go, visitors are being encouraged to enjoy the best that Expo 2020 Dubai has to offer, while they welcome a new era in a celebration unlike any other.