Yes, we're still here

Shamans perform a ritual dance on Thursday in Lima, the capital of Peru. Friday came and went, and despite the Mayan 'prophecy' of the world's destruction, there was no sign of the apocalypse. Martin Mejia / AP

The Grand Jaguar pyramid at the Tikal Mayan ruins on Thursday. Thousands of people flocked to the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza in Mexico on Friday. Reuters / William Gularte

Doomsayers hunkered down to await the coming apocalypse on Friday, but most took a lighthearted view of a Mayan "prophecy" of the world's destruction, laying on stunts and parties.

Thousands gathered at the majestic Mayan ruins of Tikal in the jungles of Guatemala to await a fiery climax to the ancient civilization's "Long Count" calendar, which points to an era of more than 5,000 years ending.

Australia was one of the first countries to see the sun rise on December 21, supposedly the end of days, and Tourism Australia's Facebook page was bombarded with posts asking if anyone had survived Down Under.

"Yes, we're alive," the organization responded to fretting users.

Tongue-in-cheek scientists in Taiwan planted an electronic countdown timer atop a two-story replica of a Mayan pyramid, drawing crowds at the National Museum of Natural Science.

Seven-year-old Wang Si-shien was unimpressed. "I'm not scared at all," she said as she visited the museum with her school class.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard set the tone this month with a spoof video address, vowing to keep fighting however the end comes, whether "from flesh-eating zombies, demonic hell-beasts or from the total triumph of K-Pop".

Indeed, some argued online that an impending milestone for the Gangnam Style video of South Korean rapper Psy - one billion views on YouTube - was itself a harbinger of doom, enlisting a fake Nostradamus verse in their cause.

Across Asia, Europe and North America, many partied like there's no tomorrow with apocalypse-themed dinners and pub nights.

Hong Kong's Aqua restaurant promised to pick up the tab for its HK$2,112.12 ($273) six-course meal if the end is nigh - though patrons had to stump up at midnight.

If the world had ended, Chinese furniture maker Liu Qiyuan was prepared with his own safe haven, a fibre-glass pod he designed that can carry up to 30 people and withstand towering tsunamis and devastating earthquakes.

Over the centuries, the end of the world has been predicted countless times.

At the Tikal ruins, actors in costumes and headdresses staged elaborate dances to a mournful pan-pipe tune.

Thousands more people flocked to another set of Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza in Mexico before daybreak on Friday.

Even though Mexican officials said no special celebrations were planned to mark the turn of the Mayan calendar, which coincides with the winter solstice, up to 20,000 revelers waited at the site's pyramids.

The US space agency NASA has been contacted by thousands of worried people asking what to do. In a web page devoted to debunking the Mayan prophecies, it reassured them that the world will not end in 2012.

"Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012," it said.

NASA's words were lost on those who headed to a number of towns around the world to designated safe zones from the impending disaster, and others who took refuge in mountains or bunkers, or stockpiled guns and survival kits.

The December 21 mystery stems from a carved stone found in Tortuguero, a Mayan site in Mexico. The relief contains a cryptic allusion that something really big would happen on Friday.

However, most experts interpret the calendar to mean December 21, 2012 was simply the end of a 5,200-year era for the Maya and the start of another.

For the most part, everybody made sure that the supposed end of times was the best of times.

(China Daily 12/22/2012 page6)