New Year: Kembang Api

2010: Marking The New Year

Around the world people celebrated with fireworks, kisses, blessings, gatherings, cheers, watching the sunrise and plunges into icy bodies of water to welcome in a new year. Here's a look back at how some of them marked the transition. -- Lloyd Young

Fireworks explode in the sky over Bucharest, Romania, at midnight, Sunday, Jan. 1, 2012, during street celebrations of the new year. Large crowds gathered downtown Romania's capital taking advantage of the dry weather to attend the celebrations. (Vadim Ghirda/Associated Press)

A long time exposure shows Filipino youths creating "2012" to bring in the New Year with sparklers at a public park in Manila. Filipinos welcomed in the New Year with fireworks and celebrations. 

(Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images)

Fireworks light up the London skyline and Big Ben just after midnight on Jan. 1, 2012 in London, England. Thousands of people lined the banks of the River Thames in central London to see in the New Year with a spectacular fireworks display. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Patty Pique, of Jackson, Tenn., comes to Peach Drop 2012 to celebrate their New Year's Eve at Underground Atlanta, Dec. 31, 2011, in Atlanta. (Hyosub Shin/Associated Press/Atlanta 

Journal-Constitution)

Fireworks explode over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House during a pyrotechnic show to celebrate the New Year Jan. 1, 2012. (Daniel Munoz/Reuters)

People gather to celebrate the new year 2012 at the Temple of Heaven, the city's historic landmark in Beijing on Jan. 1, 2012. Spectacular fireworks and crowded parties will ring in the New Year for people around the world, as billions mark the end of 2011 with noisy celebrations from Sydney to Stockholm. (Jin/Agence/AFP/Getty Images)

A Pakistani barber gives a 2012 hair cut on a man to celebrate New Year at a barber shop in Rawalpindi, on Dec. 31, 2011. (Strdel/AFP/Getty Images)

Fireworks light the sky above the Quadriga at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin shortly after midnight, greeting the New Year, Sunday, Jan. 1, 2012. Hundred thousands of people celebrated the beginning of the New Year 2012 in Germany's capital. (Michael Sohn/Associated Press)

Young Sri Lankan boys play with firecrackers on the eve of the New Year, as the sun sets in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011. (Eranga Jayawardena/Associated Press)

Children of migrant workers lie on the snow to form the number "2012" while celebrating the coming new year in front of a snow sculpture in Harbin, in northeastern China's Heilongjiang province, 

Friday, Dec. 30, 2011. (Associated Press)