Anyway. I’ve got 357 more days to appreciate whatever the year has to throw my way, so no matter. Instead, I’ll talk about 2010, which was actually a pretty good year. Like most years, I did an absolutely shit job at remembering — let alone keeping — my resolutions, and there are still areas in dire need of self-improvement. However, 2010 wasn’t like 2009, which got off to a fantastic start only to fizzle out come September. Nor was it like 2007, which swung to pendulum-esque extremes of highs and lows. Nor was it like 2006, which uh — plain sucked, end of story. The fact that I made it through 2010 alive and enjoyed myself along the duration of the ride is probably a Very Good Thing, because usually during intropsective times like these, I tend to launch into hyper-critical mode where I’m like THIS YEAR COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER IF I (verb) AND IF I HAD BEEN MORE (adjective). Yeah, my super-deep entries about Life and Other Facets of the Universe are, in fact, glorified Mad Libs games. What about it.

Since pictures do a better job of speaking a thousand words or whatever, and I’m feeling inarticulate at the moment, I’m going to pilfer through my Flickr and present to you my year in pictures. So, let’s do the Time Warp (…AGAIN!) and relive my 2010. It’s picture-heavy and it errs on this side of rambly, so don’t say that I didn’t warn you!

(click on the photo to zoom)

JANUARY:

Still reeling from the hot mess that was the latter half of 2009, I rang in the New Year at Phuket in Thailand. I distinctly remember I had a delicious Pad Thai, pineapple rice, and Thai iced tea that dinner, and I watched the fireworks from the window.

WHY HELLO, Singapore. I went with my mom on a business trip to the Lion City, and just about gorged myself on every delicious thing known to mankind: naan, grass jelly, mee rebus — no seriously. Check out the Flickr set if you think I’m merely listing deliciously good food solely for shits and giggles. Needless to say, all the abundance of good food more than made up for the swelteringly hot weather.

…and I turned 21 aka the legal drinking age in the US.

I also got a New York driver’s license that month and kicked off the spring semester of my junior year.

FEBRUARY:

(source)

Let’s see — February? I basically stanned the hell out of the Winter Olympics (2). There are few other forms of entertainment as gratifying as fangirling your favourite athletes and screaming at the TV, so thank goodness for those glorious two weeks.

MARCH:

PARIS, je t’aime! During Spring Break, I visited a good friend of mine who was studying abroad in the City of Lights (and Love!). I chilled out at her apartment, and while she was in class, I’d venture out in the city and stuff myself silly with macarons.

Which brings me to my new favourite European city: Brussels! During my week in Paris, I took a day trip to the EU capital and fell in love with the city. I can’t really put my finger on why the city appeals to me so much, but there’s something to be said about things like lambic beer, moules-frites, Le Pain Quotidien, art nouveau, and the Magritte museum.

Not too long after I got back from Europe, I gave this site a much-needed brand-spankin’-new facelift. And a couple friends and I worked on NOM^3, a student-run business venture to bring a food truck to our campus.

APRIL:

April was a relatively quiet month, as I had just wrapped up my midterms. I took two different weekend trips that month: one to D.C. and another to Princeton. I didn’t really take many photos during that time, so um, have a gratuitous photo of a meerkat that I took in the zoo at D.C.?

MAY:
I finished junior year, and let’s just say I was ever-so-glad to put that year to rest.

After exams, I headed home to Shanghai with a few friends in tow. We visited the Shanghai Expo, which consisted of super cool pavilions (like the UK one) that made my inner architecture geek swoon and super long lines that would put any major theme park to shame. I remember waiting around 3 hours for the Switzerland one. In my defense, it had a SKI LIFT ON THE ROOF, OKAY.

While I was on the other side of the hemisphere, my mom had a business trip in Taipei, and I tagged along. It was there I uncovered my love for night markets and rediscovered my love for grass jelly and steamed pork buns.

And then near the end of May, I had a weird fever/flu bug, which meant that I was basically confined to the house for the last few days of Shanghai. Boo. But on a plus side, I got featured in this wallpaper showcase for Smashing Magazine!

JUNE/JULY:

I’ve got two words for you: WORLD CUP. I don’t understand what is with me and organized sporting events that reduces me to a ridiculous level of excitement and fangirlishness, but we can discuss my sanity later and talk about the World Cup. Talking about the World Cup gives me pangs of nostalgia because I suddenly get “Wavin’ Flag” by K’naan stuck in my head and I fondly remember going pub-hopping for all the games and bonding with so many people over the beautiful game. (And for all the games that aired on weekdays, we’d watch them all on a projector screen in the office, so there was no way I was missing a game.) There’s no possible way for me to elaborate more without me blathering about how proud I am of Die Nationalmannschaft. Germany/Argentina — look that game up and watch it in its 90 minutes of amazing entirety if you don’t believe me! (And I’ll um, forget that 07/07 ever happened. Selective memory LA LA LA.)

In non-football related events, I got an apartment for the summer with two friends of mine, I started a new internship, and my brother came to visit me for about a week.

AUGUST:

If I had to make a list of the top 5 places that I’ve visited, Kenya would rank among them. It’s one of those places that renders words like “breathtaking” or “stunning” so prosaic and inadequate. I went with my family on a safari to Masai Mara, Nakuru, Aberdare, and Hell’s Gate, and I’ve been itching to go back.

Later that month, my friend and I finally fulfilled our dream of going to South America, and we went on a weeklong backpacking trip in Peru, where we trekked around the country through Huaraz, Cusco, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, and Lima. The high altitude got wind of me, but no matter! If you want an otherworldly travel destination with natural splendor and good food to boot, GO TO PERU and never be disappointed.

SEPTEMBER:
I started senior year and immediately kicked into let’s-freak-out-about-the-LSATs mode. When I didn’t have my nose buried into an LSAT prep book, I went to Fashion’s Night Out (where I saw Marc Jacobs! In the flesh!), I met Anthony Bourdain at the 92Y (he signed my copy of Medium Raw!), and I stalked Joseph Gordon-Levitt who was filming his new film on our campus. But I mostly freaked out about LSATs. So much so that I have no photos to capture my alarming stress levels.

OCTOBER:
I finally took those darned LSATs. And I had midterms following that week, because academia is a cruel mistress.

For fall break, my friend and I went to Las Vegas, where we hit up the Strip and took a day-long jaunt to Death Valley. We didn’t gamble much because I’m of the risk-averse sort, but um, we ate a bunch of good food if that’s worth anything. And we went to a Halloween party at a club. In Vegas.

NOVEMBER:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows got released, and I went to the midnight premiere and remembered why I love the series so much. Not that I actually needed a reminder, but you know.

On a suckier note, I got a nasty bout of food poisoning during Thanksgiving break, and subsequently spent the remainder of the break getting acquainted with the bathroom floor. And then I got a nasty cold right after. Now that I think about it, my immune system was a bucketload of FAIL this entire year.

DECEMBER:
I finally finished my exams! First half of senior year — complete! Cue the unnerving epiphany that I’ll be graduating in four months hitting me like a ton of bricks.

Later that month, my family and I went to Vietnam (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City) and Cambodia (Siem Reap) for our winter break vacation. I ate enough pho to feed an entire family and went to many of the locations filmed in Lara Croft (Angkor Wat, anybody?), albeit not with the intent of going through the Cradle of Life.

PHEW. Typing this entry was like a whirlwind in itself because there’s something to be said about trying to recount what you did in X month of Y year especially when you have only the dregs of your immune system to combat this devil of a flu. Also, I realize that I never blogged about most of these events. FOR SHAME. There goes one of my failed resolutions from 2010.

Sickness aside, I’m curious to see what 2011 has in store. For one, I graduate, which is a daunting milestone event with possible side effects that include job-finding stress, existential crises, and a weird sense of nostalgia for the last four years. I don’t know where I’m going to be a year from now, let alone eight months. This is a fact that is both exciting yet extremely capable of raising my blood pressure levels. It’s crazy to think that four years ago, I was in the exact same position, not knowing where I’d end up for uni, and welp. Here we are again.

What do you have planned for 2011? Any resolutions or goals that you’d like to accomplish?

Since the firewalls here aren’t too fond of my website³, I’m going to delay the Australia and Shanghai photos and maybe give an update or two on my life. I have one more week of break left before I head back to NY. There are many things I’m looking forward to, such as watching the inauguration on TV and my 20th birthday among other things. But as far as break-after-Australia goes, not much has happened.

Except for a car accident that happened the other day. In China, the Asian-driver stereotype is quite true to a frightening degree⁴, yet the amazing thing is that I have never seen a car accident occur there. Ever. Anyway, that day I wanted to go get KFC, which is 10 minutes away by car, whereas my dad insisted that I get some exercise and walk to the nearby grocery store for food. Since I hadn’t had Chinese KFC in ages, there was no way I was going to pass it up. So as we’re driving out of the neighborhood, we have to take a U-turn at the end of the divided street. As we’re taking the U-turn, another car also attempting a U-turn rear-ends us. Nothing serious though, considering that nobody was hurt and both cars got scratched and nothing more. But before that, I had never been in a car collision of any sort nor had I ever seen one in China. There’s a first⁵ for everything, I suppose.

Oh yeah, and when my dad heard about what happened, he spared me the if-you-had-walked-this-wouldn’t-have-happened talk. I can’t exactly say that the KFC was worth all the trouble though.

—
¹: Is it spring yet? Because that’s usually the season for pastels and I could really use warmer weather these days.
²: And first.
³: Unless you have dialup or an equally bad firewall, you have no idea how slowly my site loads here. I’ve had this “Add New Post” page opened up for a good 15 minutes, and the page is still loading. Thank goodness for XXAMP otherwise I would never get around to uploading the layout. When I first posted my last entry, the site lagged for so long that half my entry got cut off!
⁴: Passengers yield to cars, not the other way around.
⁵: And last.

Being in a host city for the Olympics is an experience. There are so many inconveniences¹ abound, but being able to see the actual games live and in-person makes you forget about all of that. I got really good² seats for the track and field events on Sunday, August 17th. We got there a bit early, so we walked around the Olympic Green, stalked the Fuwa³, and took pictures. Because I uploaded a buttload, I don’t want to bog down this page with a billion huge photos. If you click the thumbnails, you should get a larger version of the photo.

Basically, it was six straight hours of pure, unadulterated excitement. They covered women’s 100m hurdles, men’s hammer throw, men’s long jump, women’s triple jump, women’s 3000m steeplechase, women’s 400m hurdles, women’s 400m run, women’s 100m dash, men’s 1500m run, men’s 10,000m run, and a few medal ceremonies from the night before’s events. And I used to run two of those events, so bonus points! Any photo you want me to elaborate upon, just ask.

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¹: … such as avoiding the subway/bus for safety’s sake, not being able to get train tickets to other cities, clubs/bars closing down, quiz night cancellation, et al. Funny how most of those things aren’t even directly related to the Oly games. Seriously, QUIZ NIGHT? What gives? Not to mention, every time I’d go to the Olympic flagship store to buy souvenirs for friends (and ….. er, myself), the crowds would get worse and worse each time. The crowds are enough to give anybody the worst case of claustrophobia. I even sympathized with an employee who had been screamed at by hordes of little kids. And they even veiled the huge Fuwa displays as the Olympics neared just so people wouldn’t take pictures in the middle of the store, causing major traffic jams and holdups. As if that store needed anymore!
²: FIRST TIER, baby. It really comes in handy because you can actually see the athletes. It doesn’t come in handy when you want to see every single event upclose. For example, the 100m dash was on the direct opposite end of the stadium, so I could only check out the huge screens on the side. If major neck craning isn’t your cup of tea, second/third tier would probs be the way to go.
³: Oh, I love those Fuwa. On the top of my wishlist is a giant Nini Fuwa for my room this year. Granted, it’ll probably take up half the space and shipping charges would be up the wazoo, but it’s so hard for me to say no to giant Fuwa. Anywho, I highly, highly insist that you watch this Fuwa promo that’s been way overplayed here but much adored. Then I insist that you watch this little gem.

Anyway, Olympic frenzy is well and alive here in Beijing. The Opening Ceremony last Friday was very A+, by the way. Zhang Yimou did a really great job that I even sat through all four hours. (Yes, including all 200-some countries.)¹ If you missed it, I recommend that you look it up on YouTube; it’s really something spectacular! As for events, I’m most excited for swimming, gymnastics, diving, and track/field. (Unfortunately, CCTV is absolute crap when it comes to airing them.² And even worse, I have to miss most of those events because I’m in class during the morning and afternoon. What I wouldn’t give to stay on the couch and watch TV.) And speaking of, I got track and field tickets, Fuwa merch³, and Beijing 2008 flags —- so I’m set!

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footnotes:

¹: I’m mostly talking about the actual performance, since the procession of all the countries took … a while, to say the least. I thought it was cool how they went in order by taking the first Chinese character of each country name and going by number of character strokes, but I think that novelty eventually wore off. What can I say, it made a really interesting Chinese lesson; now I know more country names than I ever did before.

²: Case in point: Saturday night, I was frantically flipping through CCTV because swimming took place from 6:30-9:30 pm. And none of the CCTV channels were airing it at the time, so I refreshed the Olympic pages on the Internet every five minutes just to find out if swimming was indeed happening. They finally started airing it at 9:30pm, but the excitement was kinda lost, since I had already gotten all the heat results from the Internet. Sigh! And they aired the fencing semifinals but didn’t air the fencing finals, which is such a shame because HELLO, USA MEDAL SWEEP?! At least Sunday morning’s swimming finals got aired at the right time.

³: Fuwa are SO cute. I want to buy out the entire Olympic flagship store, because they have everything Fuwa-related. Chopsticks, towels, crystals, backpacks, you name it. Betcha can’t guess which one’s my favourite.

Once I got to the top, the rain stopped and I got lunch and took heaps of photos. However, once I made the descent, it started raining … again. Let’s just say that at this point, I had fully given up on the rain jacket and umbrella.

The next day (Wednesday), we had to wake up early to catch the bus from Yangshuo back to Guilin. After the hour-long bus ride, we had to take a two-hour ride from Guilin to the Longji Rice Terrace Fields.¹ The first half of the ride was sleep-inducing, but the second half consisted of a steep ascent and multiple picture stops. The moment we got out the car to climb the summit, Mother Nature decided to take a piss on us. Umbrellas, sadly, were no match for the massive downpour as we made our way up to the top.

The view was worth the soaked clothes though. Behold, visual proof!

(click for larger view)

Part two coming up, for loading time’s sake.

Now, to begin where I left off. The second day of Yangshuo was a more relaxing day, which I guess isn’t saying much, considering that the break’s been pretty chillax in general. I biked around the countryside (read: mountains and lots of ‘em), went on yet another bamboo raft to the other side of town, and visited a few parks. I’ll post the rest of the photos from the trip soon; I’ve got two posts coming.

(click for larger size)

(click for larger view)

These are all from the second day, right after I arrived in Yangshuo via boat. Anyway, I’ve got to go, so see you all when I’m back in Beijing!