2025 wrapped 🎀: what I did this year other than take 37 flights
the personal part of a corporate ghibli gal's 2025 annual review
part 1 of 3: where I capture, review, and reflect on the past year and my 2025 goals!
Another year well-planned but this one, er, had a bunch more chaos.
I started the year celebrating my birthday with my parents, then my friends. They somehow found the prettiest cake I have ever seen and that really set the tone for the year. I spent an abundance of time with my friends this year – stirring endlessly for a homemade french onion soup, being available for anything wedding-related, wandering, snowboarding, and most of all, eating.
But to my delight, I also felt so in control of where my time went this year! I took a personally long-awaited trip to Paris, and the land of baguettes and pastries and tarts and croissants was better than I could’ve imagined – I’m already scheming my return. I took little books everywhere I went and I don’t think I finished any of them. (Stay tuned for part 2, where I recap my media consumption for the year!)
It’s impossible to separate this year from the weddings of three of my closest friends this year. Surrounded by so much joy, friends and family gathering from afar for celebration, and watching them relish in this moment in their own ways has been one showstopper milestone after another. It’s such an honour to bookmark this year, and my life, in this way.
Then among this, I actually spent most of this summer in Vancouver! Long-awaited as well, I’ve moved back to my favourite city in the world (Don’t tell Hong Kong, or Tokyo, or Paris).
My friends actually know me quite well, it turns out. The best surprise from my housewarming was being brought a mixed fruit cake to celebrate! I also received a tiny succulent who unfortunately is no longer. Over the summer, I also watched a pair of baby seagulls grow up on the roof across from me, and now they’ve flown away. It was also the summer of strawberry matchas – remembering that Yelp is unreliable but also that TikTok is just overexaggerating. Some of the best strawberry matchas I had this year were Boba Run and AiyaOhno Cafe!
Outside of the friends I see consistently, all the time, it was also a year of crossing paths with people I hadn’t seen in a while. Not tragic, just how it is – but it’s such a lovely thing to catch up with people that I used to see every day in high school, or every time I visited our outreach office at UBC, people from church, or people I used to work with across time zones. The connections that are fainter are just a reminder of the infinite paths that take us for a wander and find ways to cross again with yours.
The year feels satisfying not only because of all the comfort and delights from my frequent sweet treats but also because of the intensity, dependency from others, and tensions that put life into perspective. A little bit of chaos, more saying yes to three activities a day, I’d do it all again.
goals of 2025
And along the way, this year has actually been a realization of the ambitions I set for 2024! The fact that these items are complete isn’t a surprise, but moreso the fact that these were items that I wrote ahead of 2024 and we’re now here, on the other side! Ready to make brand new ones for 2026.
It’s motivating yet low-pressure to set stretch / moonshot goals for the year, knowing that you can have them top-of-mind to set yourself up for the next. Some things, like getting into backcountry skiing and moving back across the country, take time!
I have a lot to say this year, as you’ll notice from how we’re still in the preamble of this year’s 3-part wrapped. Moving into my 30s, a new decade, is feeling anticipatory in a wondrous and curious way. And subsequently, it has prompted a tidal wave of capturing the moment as I’m currently living and feeling at the edge of my 20s.
This has been a year of friendship, gratefulness, and life stability amidst location variety. I feel very lucky to have had a year full of goodness and adventures and newness, alongside time and energy for personal challenges and world exploration.
This has been a year defined by celebrating the people around me.
This has been a year of patience. Going into next year, I think I can be more selective – letting patience be earned, letting others be the problem solver, letting myself have more breathing room.
It’s easy for me to recognize now: if I’m too tired or busy to write about my last adventure, I’m moving too fast. But there are always exceptions – like friendship trips and spontaneous trips bounded by seasonality. An intention, not a rule.
the hardest thing I did this year (and probably ever)
I’m ending the year with a sense of fulfillment that I haven’t had in a while! If you’ve seen me in real life since December 10, you’ve heard me exclaim more dramatically (for good reason) than I probably ever have about how I went backcountry splitboarding for the first time. (Thanks to Natural Freedom! <3) First time in the depths of the backcountry, and my very first time on a splitboard! New sports are inherently new challenges but this was a particularly momentous event for me because it’s been a very long time since I’ve felt this challenged.
It was both physically and mentally taxing – a humbling experience reminding me that I should do more intentional cardio. At one point, I started repeating head thought in my brain, feeling very confused while taking my consistent steps (ski steps?), until I finally conjured up the phrase I was looking for: no thoughts head empty.
My Todoist shows that I added splitboarding to my “30 before 30” list on March 11, 2022. This was definitely the hardest thing I’ve willingly pursued and done – and reminds me that challenges like these are the things that expand my vision of what life can be. Throughout the journey, although I was breathing heavily, I was never cold and I never felt unprepared or unsafe. It reminded me that I can do hard things and I should do more of these – not just in a backcountry setting but continue to pursue more of what this life has to offer.
Along the way, I had a moment where I felt a cry developing, where I was feeling overwhelmed but still capable. It felt like this:
Not in a fragile way—but in the way people cry when something inside them is cracking open. After performances, in rehearsal packages, during interviews. She kept saying things like “I didn’t know I had this in me” and “This experience has completely changed me.” She talked about discipline, about pushing past fear, about feeling powerful in her body and mind for the first time in a long time. — Alix Earle Chose Paris (And Why You Should Too), Alyson Rego
I love the city, but it could never make me feel the adrenaline, determination, fear, and excitement that I felt while survival skiing through the tightest trees I’ve ever skiied, with my pack trying to pull me down into the snow. The thing about firsts is that every feeling is valid because that’s the beauty of newness. It feels dramatic to be so grateful – for a supportive group, girlhood, my body, my mental willpower, my life events that led me to afford and succeed in this experience – but I’m so proud.
An expedition captures the beauty of collective legacy – not in a global impact way, but as an etch in each person’s journey. It’s a unique feeling when you have no choice but to believe in your own abilities, your awareness, and your preparedness. What a beautiful, beautiful thing.
2025 wrapped, serena edition
This year’s word was reroot. Looking back, I had a lot of moonshot goals. I continue to collect video footage that I continue to promise to edit. It’s been a year of a lot of events over accomplishments. Here’s what happened:
Newness this year:
Jan: I got my PMP! Yay project management!
Feb: AST-1. I did this avalanche course on snowshoes but it was a fun foray to set myself up for this year and even better that I did it with a friend!
Mar: I lived in Paris for three weeks! (lived, visited, whatever! I unpacked!). I learned how to make viennoisseries! Also, took my first sleeper train!
May: First Business Class flight! (It was like Business Class service in an economy class setting but thanks British Airways!) Also, my first bridal party!
Jun: Signed a lease for the first time since 2022!!
Jul: Co-planned a bachelorette!
Aug: Went to my first music festival!
Sep: As part of my second bridal party of the year, I danced in my second wedding this year!
Oct: First fright night at the pne! (never again)
Nov: Sandboarding!! In Peru!!
Dec: Backcountry splitboarding in whistler!
An extract of the new things I learned about myself this year:
My favourite animal is a sea otter
I have Type A expectations with Type B energy
I don’t have a good answer to what I’m afraid of, or what I fear. Definitely bugs, but also stagnancy? (Which makes sense because stagnancy attracts bugs.)
I must continue to pursue new things! What a great feeling!
Three key thoughts I’m taking into the next year:
Pay attention to what you have patience for. It’s a reflection of what you’re willing to invest time and energy in, a reflection of care.
Maximizing for luck and the butterfly effect, although not productive in the moment, is always productive in the long run.
Writing is thinking. Use writing as thinking.
Favourite tangible purchases this year:
Splitboarding setup (I’m a burton girlie forever apparently)
Muji soft napping cushion when my heat was broken in a brisk Vancouver October which looks like it’s out of stock now?! but it looks like a turtle and is perfect for cold fingers
Rolling snowboard bag: I will never travel by air without wheels on my snowboard bag ever again. I got mine at the Whistler outlet but any one will do. Db makes the slickest bags and it’s on my wishlist for the far future.
La Grande Épicerie tote bag: it’s tall and minimal but also reminds me of Paris every day.
Llama mug from the Peru duty free that condones waking up to gossip
Rent in Vancouver
Travel this year:
37 flights (incl. connecting flights)
10 personal trips (from home, away, then back to home)
5 work trips: 5 (4 onsites, 1 offsite)
Places I revisited: Tofino, Whistler, Oslo, Edinburgh, London, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Yoho National Park, Banff National Park
New places: Paris, Stockholm, Lofoten Islands, Isle of Skye, Austin, Iceland, Peru (Huacachina, Paracas, Lima), San Diego
Activities this year:
Hikes: Arthur’s Seat (Edinburgh), Mt. Fromme (BC), Sunshine Meadows → Egypt Lake → Pharoah’s Peak (AB), Misc. hikes along the South Coast (Iceland), Mt. Frosty (BC), Joffre Lakes (BC)
Paddles: Twin Island (BC), Desolation Sound (BC)
Music experiences: Sabrina Carpenter (Paris), Osheaga (Montreal), Hozier (Toronto), Laufey (Vancouver)
A few bonus stats:
2 train fiascos where we… eventually got to our destination, many hours delayed 🚆
1 Wicked show in the West End 🧙♀️
4 weddings (twas supposed to be 5 but I didn’t have a visa to get to the last one 😭)
3 bachelorettes 🥂
5 road trips 🚗
17.5 weeks in Vancouver
54% of weeks between June and December spent in Vancouver
15km intentionally run this year (10km around downtown Vancouver, 5km in San Diego)
2 less teeth of the wisdom
Life total: we’re now at 36 countries!
Last year’s edition:
Life is a path surrounded by flowers and in mine, I like to linger around the orange ones, perhaps even lie down next to them, take a detour, then return. I love a little dilly dally.
Cheers to more dilly dally in the new year, and may your dreams feel closer in the new year.
xx,
- serena
December 25, 2025; 12:25:06 AM
What a lovely year! Loved looking at your pics and today I just learned about what split boarding haha