New Year celebrated in style
Jasmine partied hard amongst a host of glamorous celebrities to see in 2009. After our regular snowy Christmas in Aspen, we flew out to St Marten and from there took a boat - in the dead of the night - to the celeb-filled island of St Barts. The ocean was so choppy and with our boat bouncing erratically across the water, our initial jokes about our ocean rollercoaster soon came to a halt.
MC's (Maria Carey's) brother Shawn gallantly tried to comfort me with a reassuring arm around my shoulder, but it didn't work. Neither did MC's hubby Nick's regular cackles of "only 25 minutes to go!" Once our feet finally touched the shore and our stomachs were steady again, we were driven to our stunning hilltop villa overlooking the infamous Nikki Beach where MC was making a quick appearance the following night at an exclusive New Year's Eve party.
St Barts is full to bursting with superstars every New Year's Eve. The recent New Year's Eve was no exception with stars like Eddie Murphy, Beyoncé, Jay Z, L.A Reid, Daniel Craig and many more visiting the island. We made our way to the Nikki Beach dinner and party and we began with a fivecourse dinner, which included sushi, crayfish, beef and plenty of bubbly to wash it down.
At 11pm, MC stepped onto the ocean front stage in a silver dress and a pair of vertiginous heels, and began a show of 12 songs that included many of her hits. She had the crowd - which included Beyonce, L.A. Reid and his wife Erica - screaming, singing and going nuts.
Feeling silly, I pretended to be one of MC's many loyal fans and screamed out, "We love you" at the top of my lungs! Imagine how surprised I was when MC - despite having her back towards me - recognised my voice and said back for all to hear: "And I love you too Jasmine Dotiwala." Hee hee - shame!
Straight after her last song, MC counted us down to midnight, with the help of Nick. As the clock struck 12, fireworks went off in front of the beach all around our ocean view. We all stood and enjoyed the excitement and it was wonderful - though I prayed that the Nikki Beach DJ would leave the decks so that the incessant Euro-dance music would stop. The Lord heard my prayer and at 1am, Timbaland stepped up and really represented with a two-hour set that had us all sweating and excited!
It was amazing to see MC and Beyoncé take their shoes off and dance, so I joined them and we all stood on the infamous Nikki Beach huge white cushions whilst throwing some shapes. Most of the time, the two newly wed couples (MC and Nick, Jay and B) were holding hands or sitting in each others' laps, and at one point, I even spotted Jay Z discreetly and playfully smacking his wife's world famous derriere whilst dancing. Cute!
When Timbaland dropped loads of Biggie tunes, the place was on fire with Jay Z leading our section's dances and jamming. But when Tim dropped LL Cool Js Headsprung, the section went quiet and Jay Z sat down quick! Tim performed all his hits and then he played us lots of his new stuff - which nobody knew. Just as we were looking at him like, "hey, it's New Year not your private listening session", he dropped a classic Jay Z medley spanning from 1995 to present day, which made the club bounce on its beach front stilts!
We left the party on a high at 3am and back at our mountain-view villa, we jumped into the cold pool to cool us down. (Well, MC's manager Jim did!) Then, we staggered off to our individual rooms and packed our cases for our next flight to Mr and Mrs C's home in the Bahamas. What a way to bring in 2009! (The Voice)
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