need opinions!

Hello! so my fiancé and I are leaving for our honeymoon 2 days after Christmas this year. we definitely settled on going back to Southeast Asia for our tropical part of the getaway. Its such a long flight as we've both done it now twice (we just want to keep going back) We want to break up the trip by doing a direct flight from NYC to somewhere then to Thailand. We will be in whatever country for New Years Eve, so want to choose somewhere that has a fun celebration. if people have done a trip to Asia before, have you stopped anywhere first? Hong Kong and Japan both came up in discussion!