According to Instagram, here are my best nine photos from the previous year…

first row: best loved pair of shoes from Steve Madden, Airbus A350 simulator experience, visiting Frodo’s hobbit hole at Hobbiton Lord of the Rings Movie Set in New Zealand (will post about this soon!) second row: an evil bunny ice floe on Jokulsarlon glacial lagoon in Iceland, a picture representing my first time to try aerial yoga, a throwback pic of my beloved and long-missed autumn at the Japanese Garden in Toulouse third row: trying out new wide angle lens on night time view from our balcony, throwback pic at Piazza di Spagna, the fittest i have been this year after 2 mos of xtendbarre + yoga + wall climb

…nine best, meaning the “nine most liked” photos of the year. I admit that, like most people, I tend to get carried away and get overwhelmed with the social media “likes” from time to time. But I try to remind myself that I’m doing Facebook mostly to keep in touch with friends, especially those who live far away. Making people jealous is just second priority (insert wicked evil laugh here). And the “likes”, I really usually do not care about. A 1000 likes do not equate to being a 1000 times less lonely. Most of the time, it’s quite the contrary, actually. Especially since, you will only get a lot of likes if you give a lot of likes also. It’s not really because your picture deserves it or that these “likers” really like you. I’d always prefer good old-fashioned personal meet-ups any time or a personal private message if bodily presence is constrained by distance. Non-virtual relationships are seemingly becoming more and more of a rarity these days.

I like Instagram because i treat it like a pin board of all the good things happening in my life, whose essence, I would like to somehow freeze and capture in frames that I can look back on gloomy days to cheer me up. But the truth is, my most loved memories from last year cannot be captured in just a few photos. There were so many of them. For this, I am truly grateful and feeling “blessed” as the overused hashtag goes…

Happy new year, everyone! More photos and more adventures await!