Hello to the space that feels familiar yet so foreign these days. Suppose nobody really reads blogs anymore, and I occasionally question the purpose of renewing my domain again. Surely I can go back to the good old "blogspot.com" hosting and things would still run the same? But there are days where I refuse to give up on the name, because "CANTUSLUPUS" means everything to me. It was my youth, it was the beginning of my career, and it's just where I feel best. So for now, I guess I'll still continue to pay Exabytes year after year.

But just in case you forget, this is me!

And now, onto the better parts! In the blink of an eye, we're now out to say goodbye to 2025. While I'm not ending the year with how I expected to, I still think it deserves a wrap up, so I can see how far I've come perhaps 10 years from now.

I travelled a lot in 2025

Considering my other half and I didn't go back to Malaysia this year, most of our travels focused on exploring Europe as usual. In January, we visited Hallstatt and Salzburg, with the former being the most magical experience imaginable. I think I've put down a mental note to talk about Hallstatt on this blog eventually, but sometimes you just need the right moment for that. Maybe someday! 

At the end of April, I was sent by my former agency to Berlin for a 2-day shoot, and while it was really tiring considering the early travel in and late travel out, I have to say it was plenty of fun. My other half then booked us a trip to Lisbon in May, owing to the fact that he was bored while I was away and watched one too many YouTube videos about the city. Honestly, I loved our trip to Lisbon though I may or may not have had too many pastéis de nata in the 5 days we were there. Come July, we also visited Paris for the Japan Expo and spent an unspeakable amount of money at the Gundam Base Pop-up and I'm still convincing myself it was worth it. 

In September, my mum and two aunts came to visit and this sparked our 10-day long travel to Prague and Budapest. We obviously also explored plenty of cities in the Netherlands when we got back, and I finally got to see the popular cheese market in Alkmaar. The year ended with a Christmas invite from a friend of my father's to London, and while we didn't get to renew my other half's passport like we had planned (thanks for closing the immigration office without prior announcement, Malaysian High Commission!), the season was still as magical as we had imagined...bar the absurd levels of crowd. So yeah, it's definitely been an exciting year for my €60 suitcase and I hope the wheels will continue to hold up. 

I read a lot in 2025 

In the weirdest twist of events for the year though, I found myself reading a lot more thanks to my e-reader. It's been an investment that I've considered getting for the longest time, but I always wondered if it was going to be another piece of tech that I thought was cool to have and accidentally ignore after a while. Surprisingly though, I find myself curling up under a blanket on the couch with my Kobo a lot more these days, with some of my favourites for the year being Murder on Mt. Fuji and Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. I also finally finished the Crazy Rich Asians series that included Crazy Rich Girlfriend and Rich People Problems, and boy was that a ride. I'll be starting on another major bestseller called Butter soon, and I can already foresee the Kobo continuing to be a staple in 2026.

I tried something new in 2025 

Having stayed in Amsterdam for the past 6 years, I've always wanted to visit the A'Dam Tower and hop on the Lookout Swing that's perched on the very top. But somehow my other half and I always found an excuse for each other - it was too sunny, it was too rainy, it was too windy...or we were just scared. Honestly, I think age also makes you fear a lot more things. So this year when SAIL 2025 happened, we thought about how else to admire the ships that were gliding through the IJ and it turns out the answer was to put on our brave faces to conquer the swing. The experience was a 10/10 but I'll think hard about having to ever go on it again, but at least we tried something new this year!

I went to my first rock concert in 2025

If you'd known me long enough, you'll know that I've never quite been to an official concert in my whole life. In fact I may have even been avoiding it because I don't do well to extremely loud noises, but when I saw One Ok Rock making Amsterdam one of their stops, I just knew I needed tickets to see them live. As luck would have it though, I was tasked to attend a content shoot with a colleague on the day of the ticket release, so my other half had the most important task of securing tickets for us. At the end of the day, I really enjoyed myself with the buzzing energy and good vibes through the night...though my ears disagreed for the next 2 days. Worth it.