367: A GOOD YEAR

Countdown to New Year's with my close friends, celebrating with Pink Elephant champagne from Penticton. 

Let's sum up 2010:

It was a year of firsts: my first time skydiving, my first hockey game, my first Sun Run. Speaking of which, I beasted it up this year.  I bought a new bicycle (Norco City Glide 8 ST) and rode it around town, and I took up yoga and started going rock climbing regularly. The 2010 Winter Olympics were held in town, and as the world turned its eyes to the city, I got to take part in an incredible 2 week display of national pride. 

I attended a live recording of the Colbert Report and went to nine concerts this year.  I saw the Lion King when it came to Vancouver, as well as the opera Madama Butterfly. I honed my photography skills with a class over the summer, and I recently bought a Nikon d7000 because I grew out of my entry level SLR. 

I traveled a lot - Cambodia, Laos, Penticton, Montreal, Paris, and Berlin are now crossed off my list of places I have never been to. How did I get so much vacation time to go to all these places? I went to Nanaimo and Victoria to accumulate travel days. 2010 saw me take 13 trips out of town, 26 ferry rides, and so many taxi rides that the taxi drivers in Nanaimo and Vancouver started to recognize me. It was tiring, especially since I didn't take my stat days in order to save them for my holidays, but the travel bug has taken hold of me and it has shown no signs of leaving.

All in all, it was a pretty great year. This is the end of my project 365 for 2010 (I am not sure how I ended up with day 367 - probably added extra photos in due to time zone changes during my travels), and it was a good one. It became a photo journal that has documented my year, and I was able to make good use of my then-brand-new SLR. It has taught me my limitations but has also expanded my creativity.

What will I do now that my Project 365 is over? After much consideration, I have decided to start a new one for 2011. Thank you to all my friends and readers for supporting me (and commenting!) this past year, and I hope you continue to for my next project 365.

366: HIDE YOUR KIDS, HIDE YOUR WIFE

Run and tell that, homeboy

This is Jamie. Instead of the happy birthday song, he was serenaded by 30 of his closest friends with the Bed Intruder song. Happy 24th birthday!

365: PHNOM PENH WINGS

There is a Cambodian/Vietnamese restaurant in Vancouver called Phnom Penh, and I think it may actually taste better than the food I ate from the REAL Phnom Penh. I could eat a whole plate of these chicken wings all by myself!

364: CANUCKS VS FLYERS

 

My brother took me to my first ever hockey game as my Christmas present this year. We were lucky because his tickets were originally near the back, but he found someone who wanted to trade with him and we ended up with row 8 seats! That was pretty awesome. I could see the puck so clearly, much better than on tv!

I also got to watch the fights up close. Here is Volpatti being pummeled by a Flyers player.

Fortunately, the Canucks played very well today and we won 6 - 2!

363: SUSHI EXCITEMENT

After belaying Evy and April at Cliffhanger, we went to grab some sushi. And they put the sushi in a boat!

362: DOCTOR DEREK DAY

My friend Derek is back in town, which made me happy because I only get to see him once a year. This guy cracks me up - please move back to Vancouver soon! After catching up over some London Fogs, we headed out to take some pictures for our 365 projects.  He was the one who introduced me to Project 365 a year ago, which was when this blog was born.

361: DIM SUM

Merry Christmas!

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360: CRABS

Time to start all the big Chinese family dinners for the holidays! This is the time of year where my family eats out for many many meals.

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359: LIGHT UP POINSETTIAS

Fake colourful Christmas flower centerpiece.

358: AT THE OVAL

Contentment: Climbing, skating, sushi, and catching up with friends.

357: D7000

I finally bit the bullet and dropped some serious cash on the Nikon D7000, which I have been lusting after for the longest time. It's great in low lighting conditions, but it's twice as heavy as my old camera! This is going to break my neck one day. Merry Christmas to me :)

356: HANDLE WITH CARE

355: SUIT UP FOR SECRET SANTAS

Phil expressing his joy (???) at my secret santa gift for him - an ab roller!

And here is Anna going for a run in Will's shoes.

354: FRENCH PASTRIES

Macarons from Laduree in Paris. Merci Cat!

353: BIOPSY

Three needles were used- one thin needle to anesthetize, and two THICK needles to draw samples. I watched in fascination on the ultrasound as the doctor jiggled the needle around the whole area. Afterwards, he patted my head and told me I was a brave girl. It was painful as I rode the bus and walked home, but I'm feeling all better now and am ready to watch 17 Again, which I borrowed from the library. I am treating myself to a relaxing night with Zac Efron - I hope it is better than Charlie St Cloud, which was pretty horrible.
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352: LADY GAGA SHOES

Cat, who I think should take my suggestion of blogger name Homestyle Oatmeal, is back from Paris and sporting some interesting shoes at Tim Horton's.

351: LEAF CLOSE UP

350: BRIDGE CROSSING

Looking out the window as my bus drove along the Lion's Gate Bridge

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349:ECLIPSE

So I watched Eclipse on the plane. I was expecting it to be horrible, just like the first two movies, but I actually enjoyed it. It was the best movie I saw during that plane ride!

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348: FLIES

I was doing a closing shift by myself with no break, so I brought a sandwich with me to eat during my downtime. I had noticed a gigantic fly buzzing around the pharmacy the whole day, but I decided it was too much work to kill it. I started eating my sandwich but then had to set it aside to help a customer. When I came back to my sandwich, the fly flew out of it. I was so angry at the fly because I had to throw my sandwich away and I didn't bring any other food with me! That was when I brought out the fly swatter, and I started chasing the fly around the pharmacy. Good thing there were no customers around to see me.

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347: EMPTY STREET

Why does translink always randomly reroute busses to other streets? I was waiting on Granville, playing with my phone and therefore oblivious to the lack of busses passing by, and would probably have waited even longer if a guy who was also waiting didn't ask me about it. Anyway we ended up having a pleasant conversation while waiting for our respective busses after walking to the Howe street stop. Turns out he has a fancy nikon dslr and just moved here from india to study photography!

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346: TESTING

It's probably nothing but I am a bit scared now...

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345: LUNCH BREAK

I really love Japanese food.

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344: DRY SHOES

I had to borrow my mother's shoes because my work shoes were still wet from walking and bussing home in the rain yesterday and stepping into multiple puddles.

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343:RAMEN GOODNESS

At a new ramen place on Robson and Bute.

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342: SKYTRAINS

Here I am, back home in Vancouver and taking public transit. I got a bit sick of my SLR after my trip so there are lots of lo-fi phone pictures to come.

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341: POSING FOR ROGERS CHOCOLATES

It looks like I forgot to take a picture for this day because of the time zone changes as I flew home. Here is a picture from the beginning of my trip instead, taken at YVR because we had nothing better to do. 

340: THAI TRAIN

We took the overnight train back to Bangkok and were woken up at 5am by the train crew. The train seemed old but was surprisingly clean and comfortable....I almost prefer it to my hotel room in Vientane! I was just trying to take a picture of the train itself but I guess one of my tourmates decided to pose for the picture!

339: OH MY BUDDHA

At the Buddha Park in Vientane.

I walked up some very narrow stairs.

338: OUTDOOR CLIMB

I went outdoor climbing in Vang Vieng! But first we had a very long walk to get to the mountains...

The best part of my day was when Jen didn't want to climb the overhang and decided to try to climb a tree instead. This is my favorite picture ever.

337: VANG VIENG

We had a winding and bumpy 8 hour drive through the mountains to Vang Vieng. The scenery in that part of the country is gorgeous, but the town itself was a bit of a hole. It was full of drunken and/or stoned tourists who were there to do the infamous tubing down the river. The tubing is actually quite dangerous because of all the bars along the river, and having intoxicated people in the river leads to a lot of injuries and even deaths. When we arrived, my tour guide warned us of all the drinking, drugs, deaths, and rapes that occur here, and the impression of the town that I got from him did not get better as I walked around and saw that it was full of tourists and that there were barely any Laotians.

My tour guide said, "At night time you will see a funny thing. You will see lots of naked people coming back from tubing!" And sure enough, there were tons of scantily dressed foreigners - some covered in mud, some with no shoes, some with writing on their bodies, all of them wasted - coming back from the river. It made for some good people watching during dinner!

This town is a bit different from all the others I had been to, where conventional clothing (covered shoulders and knees) is recommended. There are way too many swimsuit-clad tourists here for the locals to really care. In fact, Vang Vieng had a bit of a surreal quality to it. Instead of the constant smiles and 'sabai dees' I had become accustomed to, all I got in Vang Vieng were blank stares from the locals and an invitation to join a circle of happy, stoned people. Everything was catered to Westerners - all the restaurants were full of tv's showing old episodes of Friends and Family Guy.

I felt that despite the beauty surrounding Vang Vieng, it was missing something that the other parts of Laos had - it seemed too hedonistic, as if it had lost its soul.