This global nomad's recap of the past decade 2010s
Image top L-R: Winery in the Mount Etna region of Sicily, Kings’ palace in Amsterdam, Christmas chokladbollar, Sunset in Oulu in Northern Finland, Hanging in the sun in Malta, Singapore’s Merlion, Paceville in Malta, Copenhagen’s Nyhavn district, Crans Montana in Switzerland
Happy New Year! I hope the 2020s bring you much adventure, growth, balance, and peace.
I’m joining the masses of other bloggers and doing a recap of the decade… although I don’t think its that interesting but then again, maybe you might find it interesting to look at how far I’ve traveled in the past decade from New York City to Vermont to Lake Tahoe to Hong Kong to Australia to Edinburgh to Rovaniemi and places in between…I just wished I had a better camera in the earlier part of the decade.
2010: I was still living in New York City as a dancer, dance educator, choreographer, performer, artist, etc. I had started A.H. dance company in 2008 and worked through two seasons with such talented groups of dancers. When we returned for the fall of 2009, I had resurrected re-choreographing a Third Culture Kid themed multidisciplinary art dance project, titled Chameleon. I received my first grant for this project and was being presented at a NYC performing arts venue, a few festivals in the Tri-State area, a conference in Houston, and a couple festivals in Washington D.C. I always knew that I wanted to take my dance company and projects on festival tours because it was really fun to perform in a different city.
Performing my solo from Chameleon at Capital Fringe Festival 2010. Photo by Joe Flood
2011: It always takes more than a year to see a project take off right? Well this was a year where Chameleon became its own being. From NYC, Washington DC, to the highlight of living and performing the summer festival season in Toronto. It was another whirlwind season! I also got to travel locally to Vermont for ski season, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco and the Bay Area, Montreal, Ottawa, Philadelphia, New Jersey for the holidays. That summer in Toronto was really fun though meeting Canadians and artists who were really creative and supportive.
Chameleon promotional pictures by Brooke McGowan. Prop design by Natalia K.
2012: What a year of change! That summer I moved back to Singapore to be with my parents. I re-set and choreographed Chameleon on high school students as well as created a fun contemporary dance piece for middle school students. Remember PSY and Gangnam style? Yea it was a lot of fun! I got to travel around Southeast Asia to Kuala Lumpur for a performance of Chameleon, then for the holiday season ended up in Bali, Melaka, and Chiang Mai! I also suffered the worst reverse culture shock returning to Southeast Asia after 11 years away.
Eating dessert in Chiang Mai's night markets
Doi Suthep golden temple in Chiang Mai
2013: Probably one of the hardest years I have ever experience in terms of cultural adjustment to being back in Asia. I started the year traveling to Hong Kong with my sister and Australian cousin for a few days then I traveled to Guangzhou, China to re-set a version of Chameleon on Middle school students and by the end of the weeklong residency, the students performed with such honesty and integrity that made me tear up a lot. I had never been to China before so it was very eye-opening and a cultural shock to find how pollution and rampant urbanization has completed turned Guangzhou into a busy hub for economic growth. When I returned back to Singapore, I got very busy with teaching and rehearsals for the summer festival in Edinburgh! It was 48+ hours of teaching plus an additional 4-6 hours of rehearsals per week. By the time I got on that flight to the UK, I was exhausted but ready to perform and live among artists at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The dance production I was creating was called Habitat and we performed it every day for 3 weeks straight that summer. I also got to visit London and Edinburgh for the very first time! I caught the European travel bug and came back for the winter. I ended the year in Zermatt (Switzerland), Berlin (Germany), Copenhagen (Denmark), Lund (Sweden), and Amsterdam (The Netherlands).
Kensington Gardens by the Kensington Palace in London
In front of the Fringe Shop in Edinburgh
Edinburgh castle grounds
Skiing in Zermatt - I had signed up for lessons for the week so I wouldn’t have to ski the alps for the first time alone!
Christmas in Berlin
The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen
2014: I definitely caught the European bug. This was another year of change. I wanted to travel more in Europe and wanted to find a way to live there. For Spring break, I ended up back in Amsterdam for the tulips. What a gorgeous time to be there! Even though it was very touristy, Keukenhoff gardens with all the varieties of tulips blooming in season was such a beautiful treat. I always thought tulips were such elegant flowers. That summer, I went on a trip to Milan, Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, Seville, Lisbon and then continued to Copenhagen, Gothenburg, and Stockholm. What a whirlwind and exciting summer that was! A weekend trip to Bali then a very cold autumn trip to Stockholm before finishing off the year back in Singapore.
Tulips in Keukenhoff gardens
The Duomo in Milan
Jumping with joy in Barcelona
2015: This year changed the course of my life. I returned back to school for postgraduate studies in Hospitality Management in Switzerland. Basing from a tiny mountain village in Switzerland, I could travel around Europe by train, bus, or planes. I traveled to Helsinki, Rovaniemi, Stockholm, Innsbruck, Geneva, Oulu, Annecy, Leukerbad, Berlin, Prague, Barcelona, Zermatt, Milan, Lucerne, Zurich, Vevey, Montreaux, Sion, Sierre, and Crans Montana. It was easy to travel for short day trips, weekend getaways, and of course during school holidays.
On a field trip to the food museum in Vevey, Switzerland
Berlin Wall in Berlin
Prague castle in Prague
2016: Before the end of 2015, I moved to Brussels to do my internship and the winter weather in Belgium plus moving to a new city with knowing no one really tested my ability to adapt. Despite having lived in Singapore, Jakarta, Los Angeles, New York City, and then Switzerland - there were friends or acquaintances already living there or an academic setting where meeting new people and making new friends was easy; Brussels was the first country and city that I have ever lived in that I knew no one. It was quite a challenge but I grew into a nice routine and met some nice people in the office as well. However it was still quite an adjustment. I even wrote a blog post about it. Brussels has a unique location like Switzerland, its easy to get to anywhere within a couple hours in Europe. Perhaps why the EU chose to have the EU Headquarters in Brussels. I got to travel on short weekend trips to Malmö, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague as well as Switzerland. Flixbus, trains were fairly inexpensive so I found myself in The Netherlands quite often. After my internship was over, I traveled to Amsterdam, Malta, and Vienna that summer. In the fall, I enrolled in wine education courses through WSET London so ended up in London for a few weeks and then had my birthday in Copenhagen eating at Noma and Relae (Highlight of my year!) My mom, sister, and I traveled to Copenhagen and Vienna for Christmas that year. It was a special trip because it was the first time they had ever been to Europe and experienced the Christmas markets.
2017: The year of wine! I mentioned earlier that I delved into wine education the fall of 2016. This year became my wine year. I visited three wine regions in Adelaide (Australia), Bordeaux (France), and Sicily (Italy) as well as two WSET levels this year. I spent a lot of time self-studying my materials for the courses and going to MANY wine tastings. There was a lot of memorizations of terroir, winemaking, grape varietals, and what makes that region special for that particular varietal. It was a lot of information to take in! But the travel to different wine regions that year was exciting and really helped my wine study for the WSET London intensive courses. Read more about WSET and choosing to study wine in London.
La Cite du Vin - the city of wine museum in Bordeaux
Wine tasting class at La Cite du Vin in Bordeaux
Wine tasting day in the Mount Etna region in Sicily
2018: By the end of 2017, I was left tired and exhausted emotionally but was charged up with a new big project of writing my very first cookbook! For years, I’ve been making Swedish chokladbollar for friends and family and didn’t have a direction on what I would do with these confections that I have perfected and artfully experimented with. I contacted cafes from Stockholm, Gothenburg, Helsingborg, Lund, and Malmö to interview and planned them all at the beginning of the year. Writing all the recipes down was such a big project as well as the interviews. But by the end of September everything was all set to be designed and sent to the printers! When I received the books in November it was so exciting! The book is listed worldwide on all major online retailers from Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, Adlibris, Bokus, Waterstones, Ebay, Kinokuniya, Opentrolley, etc. I had to learn a lot about the publishing world really fast with a lot of help from my publishers and editors at Springtime Books.
Photo by Pierre Orsander
Creating recipes in Lund
Bourgeois take on the classic chokladboll using Valrhona cacao, truffle salt, single origin coffee, etc.
A fika at home in Malta is a good excuse to try out my recipes on friends ;-)
2019: The year seemed to fly by so quickly. I spent most of the year marketing my book and getting physical copies into small stores in Singapore, Sweden, and the UK. Currently, my book is in The English Bookshop in Sweden, Fika cafe and The Moon bookshop in Singapore, Books for cooks in London. I also had been selling them in markets and popup events throughout the year. The best marketing has been word of mouth and social media as well as attending events and networking with people with samples of my chokladbollar. Its a slow process but seems to work really well. Once people try the chokladbollar, they tend to ask more about my book and how to purchase copies of it :) A busy time was during the Bak & Choklad festival in Stockholm in October. I met so many wonderful chocolate lovers and bakers during the festival and sold out the few copies of books I brought with me. On the travel front, my boyfriend and I managed to take a trip to Iceland (yay bucket list country!) and a short weekend trip to the small Swedish island of Ven. Iceland was so breathtakingly beautiful! I highly recommend visiting even though it has gotten so popular with visitors. We got to see glaciers, waterfalls, and the auroras.
137 Likes, 9 Comments - Alaine Handa (@travelwithalaine) on Instagram: "The goofy grin I have hasn't really stopped at @bakochchokladfestivalen because all the chocolate..."
67 Likes, 9 Comments - Alaine Handa (@travelwithalaine) on Instagram: "Stracciatella chokladbollar! New chokladbollar to add to my 50+ different types of chokladbollar..."
99 Likes, 11 Comments - Alaine Handa (@travelwithalaine) on Instagram: "Love at first bite... I've been posting my new chokladbollar creations lately but haven't posted my..."
111 Likes, 16 Comments - Alaine Handa (@travelwithalaine) on Instagram: "You're seeing my simple presentation of chokladbollar for the @bakochchokladfestivalen I still have..."
87 Likes, 7 Comments - Alaine Handa (@travelwithalaine) on Instagram: "Windswept in the small village of Vik in the south coast of Iceland. Iceland has been on my bucket..."
80 Likes, 8 Comments - Alaine Handa (@travelwithalaine) on Instagram: "Iceland's natural landscapes are magical! With active volcanoes, stunning glaciers, black sand..."
What a decade of changes! I hope everyone reading has also had time to reflect on how far they have come in the past decade. May this new decade bring on new experiences and lessons for you.
All opinions and pictures are property of Alaine Handa except otherwise stated. All rights reserved. (c)
