The year 2004 is the year of the monkey. If you're someone who doesn't believe that all the people born in the same year have the same personalities, destiny and propensity for success, then phooey on you! You'll have no fun in Asia, where much of life is believed to be ruled by factors that are, quite thankfully, beyond our control.
This way, we can accept that we have no control over fate, so we can just sit back, eat bananas, and wait for the powers that be to act. Because there's no monkeying around with fate.
The first thing you need to do to usher in the new year is get rid of the herds of sheep you collected in 2003, the Year of the Sheep. If they're live, you can butcher them and take part in various culinary traditions such as eating sheep heads (Iceland-style) and Western-style mutton with mint sauce.