Happy New Year 2011

As the world bid adieu to the year 2010 and welcomed 2011, we take a look at celebrations and preparations that took place across the globe in anticipation of happiness in the coming year. Here are a few great moments to kick in your new year with.

Fireworks explode over the Houses of Parliament, including St Stephen's Tower which holds the bell known as Big Ben, in central London, as Britain celebrates the start of the New Year. (AP Photo)

The sky above Sydney Harbour lit up at midnight during the fireworks display to celebrate the New Year's Day in Australia.(AP Photo)

In this picture, revellers are celebrating the New Year on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris.

Visible in the background is the Arc de Triomphe. (AP Photo)

Fireworks light the sky above the Quadriga on the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, shortly after midnight on January 1, 2011, greeting the New Year.

Hundred thousands of people celebrated the beginning of the New Year 2011 in the German capital. (AP Photo)

In this picture, fireworks explode overhead as ski school instructors in Colorado use red flares to light their way down Crested Butte Mountain in celebration of the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011. (AP Photo)

Confetti flies over New York's Times Square during the New Year's Eve celebrations, while the Backstreet Boys performed for the crowds waiting for the New Year at Times Square in New York. (AP Photo)

People celebrate the New Year in Madrid's Puerta del Sol square.

As rainclouds cleared, thousands of people at Madrid's Puerta del Sol square took part in "Las Uvas," or "The Grapes Festival," a tradition in which people eat a grape for each of the 12 chimes of midnight. (AP Photo)

A young girl paints her face to welcome the New Year 2011, in Bikaner on Wednesday. (Photo courtesy: PTI)

Two Hindu devotees prepare to bid farewell to Year 2010 and welcome the Year 2011 on the bank of River Ganga in Allahabad on Thursday. (Photo courtesy: PTI)

Students paint their faces to welcome the New Year in Varanasi. (Photo courtesy: PTI)

A child paints his face to welcome 2011 at an event near Mumbai. (Photo courtesy: PTI)

Nepalese indigenous Gurung community members in traditional attire play music as they take part in a New Year's celebration ceremony in Kathmandu on December 30, 2010. The Gurung ethnic group are indigenous people of Nepal's mountainous valleys and have a population of 700,000, or three per cent of the Himalayan nation's population. (Photo courtesy: AFP)

Zoo owner Manny Tangco holds up a rabbit and a tiger cub at the Malabon Zoo in Malabon, in northern Metro Manila on December 28, 2010 to illustrate the shift from the "Year of the Tiger" to the "Year of the Rabbit". China and many other parts of Asia will celebrate the start of the "Year of the Rabbit" at Lunar New Year in early February 2011, in accordance with the Chinese calendar that works on a 12-year cycle. (Photo courtesy: AFP)

Children blow their toy horns in Divisoria market as the Philippines gears up for New Year in Manila on December 29, 2010. (Photo courtesy: AFP)

Visitors watch a ceremony to wrap up the year's trading at the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Tokyo Thursday, Dec. 30, 2010. Most Asian stock markets traded in narrow ranges Thursday as fewer investors participated in the market ahead of the New Year holiday while Japan's Nikkei index fell on the last trading day of the year due to a firming yen. (Photo courtesy: AP)

Confetti falls as Filipino traders ring the bell to close the last trading day of the year at the Philippine Stock Exchange in the financial district of Makati, south of Manila, Philippines on Thursday Dec. 30, 2010. (Photo courtesy: AP)

A waitress walks past a New Year billboard at a restaurant in Beijing on December 29, 2010. China solidified its financial might in 2010, becoming the world's second-largest economy, but it was often inflexible and isolated on the political stage -- an intransigence typified by the Nobel peace prize drama. (Photo courtesy: AFP)

Visitors rest outside a closed shop in Yokohama, near Tokyo, Japan, Friday, Dec. 31, 2010. The sign on the shop reads "Happy New Year." (AP Photo)

An Indian Sadhu, or Hindu holy man, adds the sunrise to figures of the new year on his forehead on the banks of the river Ganges in Allahabad, India, Friday, Dec. 31, 2010. (AP Photo)

Australia, Sydney: Crowds gather at the naval base on Gargen Island in anticipation of the annual New Year's Eve fireworks display over Sydney Harbour on December 31, 2010. Billions of New Year revellers will welcome 2011 in a global blaze of fireworks and parties, temporarily banishing the misery of extreme weather which has struck countries across the world. Some 1.5 million people will cram Sydney's foreshore for fireworks on the iconic Harbour Bridge, while further north in Australia hundreds of thousands battle devastating floods which have left vast swathes of land under water. (AFP Photo)

Republic Of Korea, Seoul: South Korean divers dressed as a rabbit performs as a school of fish swim by during an event to mark the upcoming Year of the Rabbit at the COEX Aquarium in Seoul on December 31, 2010. The year of 2011 is the 'Year of Rabbit" under the 12-year Chinese calendar where each year is named after one of the 12 key animals in turn. (AFP Photo)

Taiwan, Taipei: People walk by the presidential office in Taipei on December 31, 2010 where preparations for the new year ceremony are being made. Tens of thousands of people are expected to join the ceremony on January 1, 2011 to mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of China. (AFP Photo)

Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek: Kyrgyz and Russian girls wearing santa claus costumes take part a New Year parade in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, on December 31, 2010. New Year, which was the biggest informal holiday of the year in the former Soviet Union, is also very popular in predominantly Muslim Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan. (AFP Photo)

Germany, Sieversdorf: Illustration - Picture taken with a long time exposure shows a man writing "2011" with a torch into the blue evening sky on a snow covered field in Sieversdorf, eastern Germany, on December 30, 2010. (AFP Photo)

The Common Myna or Indian Myna birds sit on a parapet against the rising sun of the last day of the year 2010, in Ahmadabad, India, Friday, Dec. 31, 2010. (AP Photo)