Travel · The Windy City · March 2016

Made a trip out to Chicago, Illinois for a couple days with my family, thanks to my sister having her spring break from UCSD and the family wanting to take advantage of that week off! Despite the cold weather compared to the SF Bay Area and California in general (which locals over there said was actually warm, at ~40 degrees Fahrenheit), we had an amazing time and were able to visit a lot of beautiful locations, both tourist attractions and local hotspots alike. In regard to the food, don't even get me started! The Chicago Deep Dish Pizza was definitely enough to make me want to go back, easily the best deep dish-styled pizza I've had to date (go figure). All in all, a wonderful time spent in the Windy City, and an even better time given that it was quality time spent with the people that matter most.

Believe it or not, this short trip was the farthest east I've ever been in the United States, but this only makes me even more excited for this coming summer, where I'll be making trips to both Ohio & New York! 

Personal · Gone South

Having been back in the San Francisco Bay Area for not even two full weeks, I soon found myself back on the road, headed south to Los Angeles. This trip was taken more for leisure purposes than anything, primarily to eat good food and visit friends, as well as my sister who is currently studying at UC San Diego. After visiting my sister, though, I also had the pleasure of meeting up with some local Instagram buddies, Zac (@seahola) and Aaron (@aaron_gill), to go and shoot around the beautiful Sunset Cliffs of La Jolla on a cloudy evening -- always a pleasure linking up with talented and motivated individuals.

I'd like to give a special thanks to my good friend, Nick, for housing me during my stay in Southern California and being willing to drive anywhere and everywhere! A dedicated photo-trip to SoCal is definitely in the works, so I'll definitely be back soon.

Travel · Japan · January 2016

"Arigato gozaimasu" ("thank you very much"). This was probably the most-used phrase during the entirety of our Japan trip, and also happens to be the phrase that embodies the idea to which I believe any great personality and mindset would be centered around -- the showing of thanks and appreciation towards others. This Japan trip not only allowed me to realize just how big our world is (and how little of it I have seen), but also that the universal language, comprised of kindness and thankfulness, was enough to break the imminent language barrier that we faced during our whole trip, for none of us knew how to speak Japanese. Yes, maybe the fact that I had been reading "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho during the downtime moments (plane, metro, and bullet train "shinkansen" rides, etc.) of our trip played a role in me being more open to discovering this supposed universal language, but I firmly believe that smiles and positive interactions from anyone and everyone can go a longer way than we'd normally expect. 

Simply put, Japan was an absolute culture shock. Being from the United States, we had to rely on wits, instinct, and the godsend "tourist" and "english-speaking" booths that were fortunately present in most of the spots we set foot upon. Did I mention that none of us could speak Japanese? One thing I was able to take from Japan was how clean the country was. Tokyo, for starters, was ridiculous. It's no joke when people say that it's the cleanest city, among major cities, in the world. When you take pollution and size ratios into consideration with all of the world's major cities, it's no surprise that Tokyo takes the cake. I honestly don't know what they do, or how they do it, to keep the city so clean... But whatever it is, it's definitely working! The people were also extremely friendly, as well. Everyone there was courteous and respectful, despite us not really being able to respectively understand each others' words.

Another thing that I also realized was that in the midst of one's travels, it's not always about the breathtaking places you get to see, the delicious food you get to eat, or interesting encounters you make with the locals there.. But rather, it's also about the people you're with that allow the ends to justify the means. I'd like to give a very special thanks to my friends Rolo, Mindy, Carl, and Altoni, for the countless laughs and great conversations that we shared during the entirety of this Japan trip. I agree, we were probably foolish to have planned this trip to be only a week long. From a general standpoint, however, I'm so unbelievably grateful to have had this opportunity to make this foolish mistake in the first place, considering that many people in this world don't even have the opportunity to take a simple road trip out of the town they grew up in for a couple of days. I will say, though, that in our short amount of time, we covered a lot of ground! We definitely took advantage of our week-long JR (Japan Railway) Passes, being able to cover a good majority of Tokyo (although one could easily spend months upon months exploring that city) and take day-long trips out to Osaka, Kyoto, Nagano, and Hakone.

Japan undeniably humbled me in many ways, but the most prime way that I feel it humbled me was reminding me about how it's okay to make mistakes. Being the person I am, I'm not the biggest fan of making mistakes, but after taking all of those incorrect turns during navigation, getting off at the wrong train stops, and making inaccurate time calculations that would cause us to stray away from our planned itinerary, it was apparent that Japan was trying to teach me something. Mistakes are a part of who we are, as people, and are definitely a big part of vacations or any normal outing in general. They're what remind us that we are human, and they're the kind of things make us feel alive -- and I'm a big fan of anyone or anything that makes me feel alive.

Travel · Pacific Northwest · January 2016

Decided to take a rather spontaneous road trip up north with a couple of my closest friends - Kelsey, Jon, Nick, & Xavier - in the second weekend into the new year! Going on dedicated photo trips can always be fun, but personally, I'm also a big fan of going on trips with friends who don't necessarily deem themselves as creatives, but rather, those who simple would like to do touristy things, eat a ton of good food, and go shopping. Not only does it take the pressure off of myself (in terms of capturing the best content that I can, sometimes taking the fun out of it), but I've also recently realized how very liberating it can be, having the opportunity to hang out with the people that I studied, struggled, and celebrated in college with - despite not being able to see each other everyday now that we've all got our own respective undergraduate degrees.

Even though we didn't have much time to spend in the Pacific Northwest, we still made the best out of it (special thanks to Jon's friend, James, for the hospitality and housing us when we were in Portland!) and managed to hit up a lot of awesome places. We even visited Seattle, WA during one of the days! Considering that these plans were only finalized nearing the last couple of days in 2015, I'd say that 2016 is definitely off to a great start!