Hi everyone! Welcome to my first travel diary entry. The purpose of this blog section is to just provide real-time live updates and thoughts. I've always enjoyed writing and journaling because it serves as a reminder of who I was at a certain point in time. When I look back and read what I wrote, it always teleports me back to who I used to be and what I was feeling at that time. The change is interesting, and I appreciate seeing how life unfolds and the growth that comes along with it.
Why did I decide to plan a trip to SF?
Well..! First things first, I have wanderlust. Ever since studying abroad in Hong Kong in 2017, my eyes have been opened to traveling and I fell in love with wandering, exploring, and just immersing myself in different cultures and experiences. I love the feeling of teleportation I get when I travel - almost as if I'm living in an alternate dimension.
San Francisco was also always in the back of mind of places that I wanted to visit because I knew that a lot of my YouTube & Twitch viewers were from there. If you guys don't already know, my YouTube channel first began with MapleStory animations and vlogs - and that's how I found and built the majority of my viewer-base. It's only recently that I started to create more personal growth and travel vlogs!
But the real push that made me plan a trip to SF was because my boyfriend (Larry) suddenly had a work trip scheduled there, so we used it as an excuse to travel the weekend together!
This is what my current schedule looks like:
Friday, March 6th: I'll be flying in from YYZ to SFO by myself and meeting up with one of my Twitch friends (Alan) for dinner & dessert. We've talked a lot when he tunes into my streams and he's super chill, but I only know him by his username and first name LOL so it'll be interesting. I'm still waiting for him to send me a picture of him before this date, so it won't be the awkward blind date situation where I ask, "where are you? what are you wearing?" hahah, although I've done that a few times at other meet-ups like Singapore xD Alan said he'll send me one once he finds a good picture LOL. He's always been supportive of my content and once inquired about me flying out to SF for a wedding shoot haha. He also said he can lend me an extra sim card, so I'll have data in SF :')
Saturday, March 7th: Larry will take an early morning flight from YYZ to SFO (since he has work the day before), and we'll spend the day exploring all the touristy stuff. This will be our first trip together since our Asia graduation trip last November, so I'm excited to break away from our normal routine and create some new memories!
Sunday, March 8th: Larry & I will travel together for another day before he has to join his team on the evening of. He'll be staying at his own hotel room along with his co-workers about an hour away from SF, so I'll have the next few days alone to explore!
Monday, March 9th: I have brunch plans with Alan, and in the evening, I'll be having dinner and a tour at Airbnb with one of my good Instagram friends (David) who's also a really talented photographer! I'm super excited for that because I LOVE Airbnb haha. I use their service all the time, and I'm happy to finally meet David in person too! We've talked a lot about video/photo stuff and I remember he was teaching me to fall on my fists when he saw that I was learning how to snowboard for the first time xD
Tuesday, March 10th: You know what's crazy? One of my HK friends who I met in exchange back in 2017 (Vicky) is actually in SF now doing an exchange! We actually have the same birthday, and we're planning to spend the day together chilling and catching up since she's off that day! It's honestly amazing how travel brings people from across the world together. That evening, I'll also be meeting a different YouTube friend for dinner and dessert (Katherine). We've talked a bit over the course of a few years, but I'm excited to finally meet in person and get to know each other better too! It's gonna be an all girls day hehe.
Wednesday, March 11th: This will be an interesting day because I'll be meeting two of my good Twitch friends IRL for the first time. One of them is Joe (my Twitch mod), and another is Jimmy (loyal supporter). They both tune into my streams often and we all interact on Discord together, but it'll be our first IRL interaction hahah. I don't even know how their voices sound like LOL - I guess that's with almost everyone else I'm meeting up with in SF, but yeah haha. I find the meeting part always so funny, but we'll see how it goes! We'll probably go for lunch, bubble tea, and play some (board) games together. After that, I'll be meeting back up with Larry and two of our mutual university friends for dinner (who are also working in SF)! They were both Larry's old roommates and we all used to play on the varsity badminton team, so we'd see each other at tournaments too.
* I also have to return the sim card to Alan LOL. Need to figure that out, but if I can drop it off before I meet up with Joe & Jimmy, that would be ideal.
Thursday, March 12th: Fly home! Unwind, relax and start planning for upcoming Europe trip (with my best friend, Vanessa)! Lots of work to do before I go out and enjoy again. Then after I return from Europe (March 25 - April 8th), I'll be really busy editing the vlogs and writing travel itineraries to update this blog! And soon after, wedding season will be in full swing and that's when the work chaos begins ahah.
Alright - that's the end of this post. Stay tuned for more diary entries! I'll be vlogging my entire SF trip, but I'm so backlogged with Asia vlogs still... so it'll be a while until this vlog comes out haha. That's why I wanted to start a blog and do more updates here since writing is a lot easier! I definitely spend too much time editing sometimes...
Anyway, thank you all for reading and I'll catch up with you soon!
With love,
Mel
