Best of 2016

I know it’s already 2017, but before really kicking off the new year, I wanted to take a quick look back at the highlights of my past year. Here come the Best of my 2016:

Best moment
The day in early March when Robert signed his new contract and our move to Shanghai was confirmed. We had a special champagne bottle saved in case life-changing events like this would occur, and that night the cork was certainly popping. Shanghai had been our “if you could choose any city in the world to live in” -place ever since we moved away from Asia the last time in 2013. You can imagine how crazy happy we were when that was suddenly becoming reality. Consequently I also became a huge believer in law of attraction!

Best trip
It’s been an awesome year for me travel-wise. Very hard to choose the best one, but the cake goes to the perfect Golden Week beach vacation in Phu Quoc, Vietnam with Robert. Beaching, eating, reading, exploring, drinking drip-coffee and mojitos while enjoying each other’s company in gorgeous surroundings was definitely a highlight of my year.

An honorable mention goes to my spontaneous trip to New York in May to visit my parents. I had an unexpected extra couple of weeks before the move to Shanghai, so I decided to head out to the US where my parents are currently living. Just spending casual quality time with them is such a rare treat these days, so this was definitely the best bonus. Home cooked meals, watching SNL with mom and dad, shopping with mom… Perfect.

Best decision
To study Mandarin full-time at Shanghai Jiaotong University. Becoming awesome at Chinese has been a goal of mine for some time now, and it feels crazy cool to be able to pursue it 100%. It’s been way more intense and time-consuming than I expected, but I’m making good progress, which in turn gives me lots of energy and motivation to keep going. Final exams for the fall semester are next week, and I just signed up to keep going for at least another semester in the spring. Yikes and yay!

Best party
My goodbye-party with my girlfriends in Copenhagen before moving to Shanghai. Oh what a night, we went all in and had one of those girls nights you’ll remember forever (or kind of remember…). I miss my girls like crazy, but I feel that these are the kinds of friends that will always be close no matter how far apart you actually are. (The picture is not from the party, just from beautiful Copenhagen.)

Best purchase
Definitely my camera, Canon PowerShot G5X. It’s a small but powerful camera that I bring with me pretty much everywhere. I’ve gotten more and more into photography this year, and I definitely plan to keep at it in the years to come. Right now I’m considering making a GoPro the first big purchase of 2017, since so many holiday photo-ops are missed without a waterproof camera… What do you think, is it worth it?

Best food
This is a really tough one, but I have to go with the Salmon Benedict on Kabb’s weekend brunch menu in Shanghai. Kabb is not a very special restaurant in general, but I just find myself craving for this amazing dish of theirs quite often. The runner up would probably be Chicken Xiaolongbao at Din Tai Fung. Yum.

Best drink
Hands down the fresh Passionfruit Mojito at Peppercorn Beach Resort in Phu Quoc, Vietnam. A little sweet, a little sour, so refreshing. Not the best picture of it, but you can take my word for it (the one on the right). It was heavenly.

Best book
For some reason this was a really slow book year for me, but the best of the 5-6 books that I managed to read would be Stalker by Lars Kepler. Kepler’s books are always terrifying page-turners that I can only read when it’s light out, preferably in the summer time. Stalker didn’t disappoint.

Best dress
My maxi-dress from Marks & Spencer (on the left). This was the most comfortable summery evening dress, and one of my favorite outfits all year. I love the simple cut in a fabric and color that makes it stand out. I’ll definitely be taking it to the tailor market in spring to have it made in other colors.

Best workout
My hike up Victoria Peak in Hong Kong. A perfect one hour workout with a killer view. Besides that, 2016 was also the year when I discovered Zumba. I know, I’m about 10 years late, but OMG how awesome is Zumba!? The most fun workout ever!

Best song
Thanks to going to Zumba every other day, my absolute favorite song of the year is La Bicicleta by Shakira and Carlos Vives. La Bicicleta always equals dancing feet and a smiley face!

All in all my 2016 was a year of big changes, new beginnings, pursuing passions and traveling. The best of all was that I got to share it with the love of my life. And despite being far away from family and friends, I got to spend much more time with them than expected. Lots of feelings of gratitude here now when I think back on it all.

Can’t wait to see what 2017 will bring. Happy New Year to you all!

My Instagram #bestnine2016. Don’t forget to follow @shanghaistablog for more pics!