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?

Anyway, I’ll probably make a post about NOM3 (the business venture) later this week. But for now — Paris pictures! This (March 17th) was my last full day of the trip, and the inner art history geek in me had yet to check out the Louvre and the Musée de l’Orangerie.

The Louvre is massive and chock-full of famous works of art that you’ve probably seen in your history books. Like the Winged Victory of Samothrace in all its … uh, winged glory. And this one painting that I randomly found at the Louvre:

Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix — a Coldplay fan would surely recognize this!

The thing about the Louvre is that it’s so easy to get lost. I literally spent half an hour scrambling around the different wings trying to find the exit. Smooth. After that, I walked a few blocks to the Musée de l’Orangerie, which might be a tiny museum compared to the behemoth that is the Louvre. But dude, this place has some of the most AMAZING curating. Case in point:

…you might be thinking, “Uh, why did you post a bunch of pictures of Monet’s Nympheas against a white wall?” Because this, my friend, is not just any ordinary Monet’s-Nympheas-against-a-white-wall exhibit! Work with me here and imagine you’re in a closed, oval-shaped room that’s completely stark white. In the center, there’s a bench. And you’re sitting on the bench. And these huge Monets are wrapped around the walls so that you’re sitting in the middle of Monets with a 360-degree view. And all you see are the waterlilies. It sounds like such a simple concept, but there’s something to be said about immersing yourself in the paintings. AND there were two rooms of waterlilies.

The Louvre (or any museum in NY, for that matter) was totally frenetic and crowded, with throngs of people trying to snap pictures of every remotely famous work of art. On the other hand, the Orangerie is very soothing. It’s very easy to just sit on the benches for an hour and be genuinely awed by the artwork.

After the Orangerie, I went to the Pompidou and sat outside for a little bit while I ate lunch. I then met up with my friend to visit the Catacombs, where we walked past stacks and stacks of bones that made up the walls underground. It’s amazing how many skeletons were kept there!

After the Catacombs, I went back to good ol’ Pierre Hermé and Ladurée for a final macaron fix.

Isn’t the packaging adorable?!

Pistachio, green apple, rose petals, and licorice (my personal favorite!) macarons. I got a bit hungry, and subsequently, a cassis and a second licorice macaron never got to be a part of this photo.

After dinner, it was time to pack up and go home to New York. Thank goodness I didn’t run into any flight troubles like I did with my arrival flight. And so concludes my Paris trip! I miss it already. As I’m writing this now, I’m craving macarons again, except it’s not as if I can walk around the neighborhood and easily find a place that sells them. Sigh, such is life!

I started off the day with a trip to the Musée d’Orsay. It’s one of my favourite museums: a former train station filled with works of my favorite artists (Gauguin! Courbet! Renoir!) but sadly, they don’t allow photos. But if you love Impressionist art (or art history in gen) and happen to be in Paris, it’s every bit worth the visit!

Next up, I went to Musée Rodin which had this neat sculpture garden along with the actual museum. The weather was nice enough for me to sit outside and appreciate the famed sculpture below:

…The Thinker. I’m so used to seeing this on campus that seeing it in Paris didn’t really resonate with me. But once I stepped inside the actual museum, there were several sculptures that caught my eye:

Come lunchtime, I was starving and went to L’As du Falafel, where I ate one of the best falafel pitas that my taste buds have ever encountered.

A pita chock-full of eggplant, lettuce, cucumbers, and falafel? Um, yes please. After that, I did lots of window-shopping and not a whole lot of actual shopping. And I ended up at the Arc du Triomphe, because … well, just because it’s the Arc du Triomphe. Here, have some painfully tourist-y photos!

I wasn’t too keen on paying the ticket to stand right under the arc, so I passed and resorted to taking photos from the street across. I then went to Place de la Madeleine, where they had Maille. Maille has the best mustard ever. I mean, come on, their boutique has mustard on tap. And their mustard ranges from plain to fig & cilantro to berry to vanilla. If that isn’t brilliant, then I don’t know what is.

clockwise from left: red berry, apricot & curry, pesto & rocket (arugula), fig & cilantro, parmesan & basil, and dried tomato & pepper

Anyway, the next and final installment of the Paris posts will be coming soon! There will be macarons.

Outward journey: Paris Nord to Brussels Midi
Inbound journey: Brussels Midi to Paris Nord

Basically, I ended up taking advantage of the Eurostar and bought tickets for a day trip to Brussels! An hour and a half later, I was no longer in France. Purse in tow and camera in hand, I made my way out of Gare Midi and walked my way up Anspachlaan, the main road in downtown Brussels. Along the way, I came across Bourse/Beurs which is basically the stock exchange.

A lot prettier than the NYSE, if I do say so myself. And that was just the side view.

Anyway, a few turns eastward, and I finally got to Manneken Pis, which translates to um, “little man urinating.” If London has Big Ben and Paris has the Eiffel Tower, then Brussels has Manneken Pis. I remember when I was younger, my dad came back from a business trip in Belgium and brought back a wine bottle opener of the Manneken Pis with a strategically-placed corkscrew. So I suppose that was my first impression of the much-beloved icon. Anywho, I digress. I was expecting some huge, elaborate fountain but it was actually quite small — it barely took up a tiny corner of the street block. And no, that’s not what she said. For such a little guy, he drew a quite a large crowd.

Apparently there is a Janneken Pis (a female counterpart!) out there, but I didn’t get to visit. Maybe next time!

A few blocks north and I made it to Grote Markt or Grand Place, which is pretty much the main square of Brussels. Again, to make an analogy, Times Square is to New York as Piccadilly Circus is to London as Grand Place is to Brussels. Except Grand Place doesn’t have the garish neon lights or absurdly large billboards; instead, it has some of the most beautiful architecture, dating back to the 17th century. Suffice to say, the buildings definitely brought out my inner art history nerd.

This is the Brussels Town Hall, which is situated in Grand Place. Ugh, the details are totally mind-blowing.

These buildings also surround the perimeter of Grand Place; they used to be guildhalls back in the day, but now they mostly consist of different shops and boutiques.

Because food always manages to worm its way into my entries, I’ll talk about brunch that day. I’d totally talk about breakfast, except breakfast was a mere croissant and a coffee on the train. How exciting. Anyway — brunch. Brunch was had at the flagship Le Pain Quotidien. Basically, Le Pain Quotidien (or Het Dagelijks Brood) is a chain of restaurant-bakery-lovechildren with some of the most fabulous baked goods out there. The scones and spreads are incredibly delicious in all their sweet, fattening glory, and they can make some amazing tartines (open-faced sandwiches). There are a couple locations scattered around New York and I’ve even been to the one in London, but when I found myself at the Grand Sablon neighborhood, the all-too-familiar sign of Le Pain Quotidien came calling and I figured what the hell, might as well dine at the original!

Raspberry limonade!

My boeuf basilic tartine: beef tartare, pesto, parmesan, and cilantro on wheat bread! The beef tartare initially threw me off guard, but I really liked it! Might have been the pesto that sealed the deal.

After brunch, I walked over to the Grand Palais. The gates were locked (thwarted!), but I was still able to snap a couple pictures, like the one above.

One of my favorite aspects of Brussels is the architecture, by far. Brussels is so photogenic; it’s hard to take a shitty picture of the city when there’s so much art nouveau. And the detail! So, so stunning and picturesque.

I went on a Monday, so nearly all the museums were closed. I was a little disappointed when I found this out, but I’m kind of glad, because I spent most of the day walking around and ooh-ing and ah-ing over the amazing architecture and I know I probably would have spent the entire day in the Magritte or the Horta museum and missed the train. So there!

By the late afternoon, I was hungry yet again, and I got the moules-frites at Chez-Leon. Three words: mussels and fries.

So basically, I had this huge platter of fried mussels and a helping of fries on the side … I’ll let the photo speak for itself. After this meal, I was reminded once again that the best comas are food comas.

Oh, and I also had a glass of lambic raspberry beer! I love beer but holy mother, raspberry beer seriously tastes like juice. Brussels definitely has some amazing-tasting beer, and I ended up buying some bottles of Trappist beer and lambic beer (cassis and apple flavored!) to bring back home.

I then went back to Gare Midi, my newly-bought chocolates, pralines, and beer in tow as I headed back to good ol’ Paris. All in all, a good day.

But before I get started with the photos, let me just say that getting to Paris was an absolute hellish, frustrating nightmare. The original plan was that I had a flight from New York to Paris with a brief layover in Zurich. I would leave at 6pm, arrive at Charles DeGaulle at 1pm. I ended up in Paris at 7:30pm. Here’s what went terribly wrong:

• I left my campus at 3pm, hoping to make my 6:10pm flight. Normally it takes 30 minutes by cab.
• Surprise! It took 3 hours to get there, thanks to a killer combo of NY rain and Friday afternoon rush hour. Needless to say, I missed the flight to Zurich.
• I was put on a new flight to Zurich (and later, Paris), except this one would be 3 hours later, at 9pm. Okay, no big deal. I got dinner and patiently waited at the gate.
• Except it totally became a big deal when this flight was delayed by 2 hours…
• …and I missed my connecting flight by a mere 15 minutes.
• I got put on a new connecting flight to Paris, except I had to wait 3 more hours for this one. I was not amused in the slightest, but at this point, there’s nothing you can really do except take advantage of the complimentary 20 euro meal voucher. And wait.
• I barely made the flight because I had stupidly written down the gate for a Paris flight from a different airline, when I had to go to a different gate at the opposite end of the terminal. Let’s just say that two bags, two separate check-ins, and a 20 minute sprint do not mesh well.

Once I got to Paris though, everything went by smoothly. I was a little disappointed because 6 hours worth of plans were set aside thanks to me being late to the airport by 30 minutes, but hey, what can you do. After meeting up with my friend, we went to dinner and then a friend’s birthday party. Surprisingly, I fared pretty well amidst all that jetlag.

The next day (Sunday!), my friend and I went to Marché Richard Lenoir, a Thursday/Sunday market that sells all these fresh foods! Perhaps my favorite stall was the chicken lady, who sells these amazingly savoury chickens like the ones below:

My friend and I devoured the thyme chicken in a matter of minutes. I even broke the provided plastic fork in the process of my gluttony, because the chicken was that good.

After lunch at the market, we went to Berthillon on Ile Saint-Louis for some ice cream. I don’t think I can ever eat ice cream again without comparing it to Berthillon, because for the love of all that is holy, they have the most wonderful ice cream. Normally, I avoid using superlatives, especially when it comes to describing food, but this is way justified.

I had a scoop of pink grapefruit sorbet and another of gingerbread ice cream, topped with chantilly. The sorbet actually had the tartness of real grapefruit, and the gingerbread had the tiny pieces of — well, gingerbread. Such a shame that I can’t buy it in America!

Notre Dame — the much beloved Gothic spectacle — was only a short walk away.

Gothic architecture isn’t really my favorite, but I’m always in awe of the amount of detail. Stunning!

Very close to the cathedral was Shakespeare & Company, a very cute little bookstore in the Left Bank. The owner lets young writers stay in the bookstore, as evidenced by the beds and writing desks nestled between the bookshelves.

I was getting a little hungry again, so I went to Pierre Hermé which makes the best macarons known to mankind (again, me with the superlatives). I had originally planned to go later in the week, but I figured I could use a little snack.

I bought the olive oil macaron and the wasabi-strawberry macaron. The olive oil macaron has a very rich, buttery taste, but it has a little olive-y kick to it. Definitely a new favorite. The wasabi and strawberry macaron sounds horribly gross, but I go crazy for wasabi-flavored things, so I wasn’t going to pass this one up. There’s a sharp hint of mustard, but it’s balanced out by the sweet strawberries in the middle, so the overall effect is this slightly spicy strawberry taste. It’s not as disgusting as it sounds; I actually liked it quite a bit!

Ladurée also makes some mighty good macarons and other baked goods (as evidenced by the pink cake above!), so I ended up stopping there to buy a box to save for later. Afterwards, my friend and I went to Le Grand Colbert, where I had a nice dinner of steak-frites! A fun fact: we were sitting in the exact same booth where they filmed Something’s Gotta Give!

After that, I went back to snooze because I was headed for a trip to Brussels the following day. More on that later!