the things i miss most about san francisco.

Blue Bottle Co. @ The Ferry Building

French Navy by Camera Obscura

outside lands

This post is long overdue, but I still haven't written about the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco. I got to see Arcade Fire and The Decemberists on the 3rd day which was unbelievably exciting as I love them both dearly. My brother and his (now engaged) girlfriend took me, and we brought a mat and had a picnic while we were waiting.
There didn't seem to be a massive amount of people there for The Decemberists, so it gave me a pretty good view of the screen for the most part. I also found a window in which I could see Colin Meloy perfectly. They were so great live- one of the funniest performances I've ever seen.

1. The Decemberists ending with The Mariner's Revenge Song
2. Colin Meloy on the screen
3. The perfect, perfect window

If you haven't yet, youtube their concerts. They were wonderful. Also,   Jenny Conlee wasn't touring with them, because of her cancer treatment, but  Sara Watkins was filling in for her, and she is seriously the cutest thing ever when performing.

Arcade Fire was next, but we waited a little close to an hour until they came out. The crowd grew exponentially, and my 5'1 frame really was not helping me in terms of breathing or seeing. For the entirety of Arcade Fire's set, I stared at the back of this really tall guy's plaid shirt. He also kept elbowing me in the face, and I swear to God I was about to kick some plaid ass. They were really amazing, of course. For a few songs, my brother put me on his shoulders, and I had the most beautiful view of them and I almost cried when I had to come down, because people behind us were getting pissed. It was great though. I can't begin to describe how happy I was right when they stepped back on stage for an encore and played Sprawl II & Wake Up.

Sprawl II by Arcade Fire


P.S I'm in college now. It's exciting.

adventures in the city part 1.

Things have been a little hectic lately as I'm moving back and forth between both of my brother's apartments. I'm currently watching Criminal Minds reruns- one of my favorite shows, so excuse me if I sound a little distracted. I really wanted to update though. I've been putting it off so much.
As some of you know, Mika came from Bangkok to stay with me for a week. It was a lot of fun showing her around, shopping, eating good food, and doing touristy things. I'll be brief as I have an entire week to cover (or because I probably can't remember details that far back). Also, consider yourself warned- I am going to talk about food a lot.

Day 1: We picked up Mika from SFO. It wasn't hard to spot the pale Japanese girl among all the baked tan blondies coming back from vacation in Florida. We had burritos at this Mexican place that had the funniest advertisements posted everywhere. After settling in, we had dinner at an Indian restaurant that just opened called Curry Up Now. It's pretty damn good, and the interior of the restaurant is so cute! Mika and I proceeded to wander around, but realized everything was closed, so we hung around in a grocery store to looking at all the cereal they had in order to keep warm.

1. Too funny

Day 2: This was our major shopping day. We took the BART downtown and shopped at all the major shops down there. There were instances where I was certain I'd lost Mika (a few times in Forever 21). We also stared at shoes in Urban Outfitters for a while. It was painful. Afterwards, we crossed the street to Rasputin Records, which was probably the absolute highlight of my day. Flashback: I was here last summer and on almost ALL OF MY FAVORITE ALBUMS, there was a sticker that said "Matt's Recommendation" on it. If you look back at my music post, you'll remember me going on about how I left this guy a note claiming we were musical soul mates. So when I came back last week, we found that the note was still there and this guy wrote a message back. It was pretty cool. Mika actually went up to one of the workers and was like "Does a Matt work here?", but he was like "Uhhh, I'm new. I dunno." I ended buying a Decemberists record, Elliott Smith's either/or and... something else. I don't remember which CDS I buy on what day. I think it might've been Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People. I go crazy with CDs here cause you really can't find anything in Thailand. After getting pulled in by those people at Lush, we had a late late late lunch at Cafe La Taza. I used to come here almost everyday. 

1. Riding on BART     2. Powell Street
3. Inside of paninis    4. Cafe Sport in North Beach
5. My Decemberists record and Mika's Villagers record

1. Mika in front of Rasputin Records   2. Cafe La Taza  3. Iced Tea & Panini
4. Inside Rasputin Records   5. Mysterious Matt and our musical soulmate-ness

Day 3: We spent the day in Haight Street which was full of vintage shops, smoke shops, record stores and a massive amount of other interestingness. I ended up buying a lot of stuff there including a red cashmere sweater for $6 and some boat shoes. We also spent a good amount of time in Amoeba Music and Booksmith (this bookstore was really awesome). My friend, Victor, I met last summer met up with us afterwards and we stuck these unicorn stickers on everything that Bigger Things In Mind sent to me to put up around the city.

1. Mika and our mini-mes  2. Sometimes forgetting to adjust lighting turns out cool
3-5. Unicorn stickers taking over the city

That's Part 1 of me and Mika's adventures in the city. I'll try to get on Part 2 soon. I also wanted to mention that I was at Barnes & Nobles the other day and this creepy man came up to me and said something along the lines of "I see you like books. I have a lot at my house if you want to come take a look. You can keep all of them." I got really scared because I just watched a program about Jaycee Lee Dugard's abduction. People are so nice here, but at the same time there are some real sickos. Don't talk to strangers. Please. I also have some really exciting news, but I want to wait to tell you guys until it's set in stone! Even though it's so cold and windy here, Best Coast can always make me feel warm.

When I'm With You by Best Coast

californiaaaaaaaa.

Good morning everyone. I've just made the move from Bangkok to San Francisco (the flight consisted of me sitting next to a guy who smelt like piss and cigarettes and him picking up his cellphone while the plane was about to take off) and I've just been settling in (more on my thoughts about that here). I haven't done much as I just landed about 36 hours ago, but I can already feel how different things are. The vibe here is just completely different to Thailand and everything just feels strange. I know, I know, I'm here almost every summer, but it's just hard to wrap my head around the fact that I live here now. I've been fighting my jet lag and ended up waking up at like 7AM yesterday. I made myself some granola, grapes, and Chobani vanilla yogurt, had some coffee, and if you follow my tumblr, you'll remember me talking about the nectarine the size of my face.

The townhouse I'm living in is right by a lake and it's absolutely beautiful. My brother gave me his old longboard, so I did that for a while, but it's so cold! The weather was super overcast and then it started raining for pretty much the rest of the day.

1. Outside the front door  2. The view from my room

Did some major shopping at Target. I swear I spent about 2 hours in the shampoo/hair product aisle. How the hell do you choose which shampoo you use? It was so overwhelming, I almost couldn't handle the pressure. I also bought like a gazillion different chapsticks, because once I got off the plane BAM my lips were chapped, and that usually never happens. Damn Thai humidity. I'm so used to not putting on any moisturizer or chapstick. We ate at Hotaru, came back home, and my brothers and I played some mini golf in the house with my dad's golf clubs and coffee mugs. I totally won (I must say luck was completely on my side).

Me: I WON!

Ricker: (high fives me)

Ryan: Yeah, you won yourself a high five. Go ahead and cash that in, man.

Ryan is seriously one of funniest people I know. I've missed them so much. They're both in their late 20s, but they still act like little kids. Anyways, it's going to take a lot of getting used to. My lips are so chapped (wait, I think I mentioned this already).

Speed Trials by Elliott Smith
I know this isn't a really fitting song as this is a new beginning for me and blah blah blah, but I've been falling asleep to either/or and playing this album non stop.

bangkok summers.

It's been about a month since I've graduated high school, and I can honestly say that I do not feel any different than I did before. Plenty of times I've sat and just thought about everything that's happened, everything that's happening and just wait for the tears to spill- but they never come. This past month has been great, amazing almost. Strange to see all my friends go.

1. Badass   2. Korea! 

3. Sam & DJ  4. Ramen Party  5. Oh, these two

6. The rain  7. 3-year-old Dr. Pepper

8. Brahman noodles

While I'm writing all this, I wanted to let you guys know that I'm watching Love Actually. We bought a bunch of movies yesterday and we ended up not watching this because guys don't like chick flicks. Instead we watched this 'horror' movie called The Hole, which really wasn't the best movie. But yay for clearance section DVDs. I need to pack soon. Oh yeah, and Tam took us to Al Majils for dinner. They had Twilight, New Moon, and Eclispe cocktails. Slightly amusing. Harry just brought Sarah home and I think they're going to do it (yay for live movie blogging).

I've kind of been on a The Decemberists binge this week, but since I'm not feeling right now, this is Sleazy Bed Track by Bluetones

get up in the morning and give it your all.

So a lot of things have happened since my last blog post. I'm going to make it a thing to blog more often. Now that it's summertime, I have a lot more time to focus on recreational activities like the recording of my life into my internet life and what not. Anyways, since I last updated I have

• Graduated high school
• Went to the beach
• Done A LOT of shopping
• Hanging out with my friends almost every night
• Partying it up at Nana, Ekkamai, and long ass taxi rides
• Been ignoring the fact that I am really very sick
• And not packing

I feel like things have changed a lot for me. I feel myself becoming a different person, but then again I feel like nothing has changed. Ignore the fact that I'm contradicting myself. I'm just in that awkward transition between high school and college... trying to figure out who I am. HAHAHA. I'm joking. I'm just really enjoying life right now, and I don't think I want this summer to end. I'm leaving at the end of June back to San Francisco, and then I'll be heading off to Malibu. I don't know why I chose Pepperdine, I really don't. I feel like a lot of it was pressure from my parents wanting me to go to a "well known school", and I'm not entirely sure if I made the right decision. Albeit, I am excited. Mika is going to live with me for a week in SF, and I'm really looking forward to that. 

I feel like I've been really lacking creatively lately. I really need a breath of fresh air. 

Here are some pictures of graduation. I haven't been taking many pictures lately, although I should. I'll never get these months back.

Under Cover of Darkness by The Strokes


Despite what everyone says, I don't think I'll ever get tired of this album.

happy birthday, richelle. you are finally eighteen!

Hey you guys, just so you know, I haven't completely fell off the face of the Earth. I haven't given up on my blog yet! It's just that soooooooooooooooo (I never usually overuse a letter, but this was necessary) many things have been going on in the past month and a half. It's near the end of my senior year and I've just been trying to get as much time as possible in with my friends and getting ready for college to move from Thailand back to California. Things have been crazy, and my weekend have been filled with even crazier things that I can't really remember because so much goes on in the weekend (mental note: recollect the memories and write it down somewhere). I'll have a huge update about that later, since my friend, Dongjoo, brought to my attention that I have exactly 5 hours to write a blog post before I break my promise with him.

I mean, I'd rather write in my blog than answer the 200+ people writing "happy birthday!" or "HBD" on my wall. I swear like 70% of the people who wrote on my wall I either 1) Have spoke to them briefly once or twice 2) Haven't heard from them since elementary school or 3) Don't even know who the fuck they are. But then I realize, the people I'd expect to get to wish me happy birthday on my wall were with me at the time. However, it's also nice to know that people have the ability to check their facebook home page, see it's my birthday, and actually take 5 seconds out of their busy lives to wish me a happy birthday in short form. I do like the long messages I get. Some even hold inside jokes. There's actual genuine feelings behind some of them and some have brought a warm feeling to my heart reading some of the messages. I like those. They make me happy and I realize who really does care.

Since it's my birthday, I'm going to attempt to remember every single birthday party I've ever had.
April 30th, 1993: Born
April 30th, 1994: I have no idea
April 30th, 1995: ...

Okay, I don't think this will work out too well, but if I get any ideas, I will edit the unfinished list above. I'll just talk about what I did for my birthday. Friday night, Monica, Joanna, Namwan, Sam, Sarthak, Ben, and I hung around at T-kom's apartment for a little pre-party before going to KS, but we ended up not going anywhere since we were having fun where we were (and some people were already out of it). It was a good night filled with way too much laughing, talking, and me dissing on my friend's boyfriend's music tastes (RELAX!). Very chilled out, intimate hang out of some of my closest friends, which I personally really enjoyed. It was quality time spent with people who meant a lot to me and probably one of our last nights together as graduation is coming up so soon.

In the morning, the girls and I made cupcakes and listened to old school Avril Lavigne. I swear I felt like I was in 6th grade instead of just turning 18, but hey, I have to savor the rest of the childhood I have, right? After we baked, we headed back over to my place and met up with Micah, Mika, Katy, and Grace. It was so strange, because I felt like my eighteenth birthday would be this huge thing, like a huge change from transitioning from a kid to an adult, but I didn't feel anything at all. It felt like any other weekend- maybe even more laid back than the weekends we've been having lately. It was really nice though, just to sit back and relax amidst all the chaos that's been happening in the past few months. Every weekend something big was happening, some party, Prom, performing, and other things all packed up into such a small time slot, but this weekend, it felt like we had all the time in the world.  And I think I spent my birthday weekend really well.

We had a marathon of "The Office" and realized that we could match up a character from the show to a person we knew in real life (I am a female version of Andy Bernard, by the way). I think I'll make an entire post of that on it's own, just because it is completely irrelevant to this post. Namwan made me a cake, and my parents bought me one too. I had wayyyyyy too much cake today, I think I'm going to explode. Today, I realized how much my friends mean to me. I realized how much I'm going to miss hanging out with them and doing simple things like sitting around and watching TV with them. I'm going to miss how each and every one of them have a distinct unique laugh and how we can laugh at incredibly stupid things and lame jokes. Damnit, I'm getting all sentimental now. I have to save this for when the time has come to actually say goodbye.

Anyways, I had a really great time last night and today and I got a couple of really great birthday presents. I'll post pictures tomorrow, as lighting is terrible when there is no natural light. As for pictures from my birthday, Prom, and other weekend adventures, those are going to have to wait. But wait! Here are some presents that I got and am completely obsessed with now

1. Joy Division Unknown Pleasures tank top (from Mika)

2. Furry hat (from Monica & Namwan). This picture is currently my desktop background.

I will leave you with this song that someone posted on my wall today for my birthday. I think it's
fantastic and also very relevant for today.

I'm Eighteen by Alice Cooper
I'm eighteen
And I don't know what I want
Eighteen
I just don't know what I want
Eighteen
I gotta get away
I've gotta get out of this place
I'll go running in outer space

sunburnt russians & stupid teenagers.

It has been an extremely tiring week. On Sunday most of our senior class took a trip down to Pattaya, one of Thailand's beach cities as our "Senior Skip Day". We spent 3 days at a hotel right by the coastline. It was a pretty okay trip. It proved how segregated our class really is- hopefully that will change? It's not like we have much time left anyway. The hotel was beautiful, but there was an unusual amount of Russians populating the beaches (most were very old, quite obese, and had no shame in walking in their speedos and bikinis). We might have been the only teenagers there. On the way to Pattaya, the movie 127 hours was put in and it was damn depressing. We almost let one armed James Franco set the mood for the trip. I really liked the movie though- it reminded me a lot of Requiem For A Dream, the way it was edited and the soundtrack as well. Anyways, I didn't have to pee the entire 2 hour bus ride (which, I must say, is quite an accomplishment for me). I roomed with Joanna and Mika and we went to the beach. I didn't intend on going in (the water in Pattaya isn't that clean and I really didn't want my hair and clothes wet), but then I was picked up a thrown into the ocean. Later that night we took a song-thaew into the city, ate dinner, and hung out at this place called the cocktail car. The guy who worked there was nice enough to let Monica go behind the bar and teach her how to make some drinks. Then we went back to the hotel. 

1. Writing a song about Joanna- you can clearly see her face of appreciation.

2. The sea 3. Our hotel 4. Sam, Joanna,  and Ayaka

5. Monica being a bartender for the night

6. Back from dinner, outside of our hotel

7. Monica, Me, Mika, and Karl on a song-thaew

8. Joanna, Sam, and Namwan

At one point on the road, Karl pulled a Chinese fire drill. At a red light, he jumped out of the song-thaew and violently ran around 3 or 4 cars and safely back into the back of the truck. Possibly the most amusing thing I've witnessed in my entire life. On the second day, we pretty much just hung out at the beach and took a trip into the city to grab some stuff to eat.

For dinner, we ate at this Lebanese restaurant and headed over to Walking Street. The place as filled with all these bars, people trying to sell you stuff, and of course, the prostitutes. Really not the best place to be. Ever. Around midnight, Mika, Joanna, and I finally put my guitar to use and headed toward the beach with intentions of singing and playing by the ocean. While jamming on the beach, these two Russian guys came over and sat by us and just listened. We talked to them for a while, and they sang along when we played Nirvana. They were nice, but it took a lot of effort to communicate. The rest of our friends came down to the beach, so we took a quick picture and they retreated back to their beer and lawn chairs.

We went back up to our room at about 3 in the morning and I seriously experienced some crazy paranormal activity in our room. Shit, I can't even type about it because it's so freaky. Both Joanna and Mika were taking showers (there were 2 in the bathroom) while I laid on my bed waiting for them to finish when I started to hear some knocking sounds. It wasn't our door. I didn't think much about it, but every couple of minutes or so I'd hear it again. Suddenly I heard a really loud knock and looked up quickly. That's when I saw a white figure/flash shoot into the bathroom door. I am certain I saw this and at first I thought it might have been Mika in a towel, but when I got up to check, the door was shut and I didn't even hear it close. When I opened the door, Joanna and Mika were both showering, so there was no way it was either of them. I was really freaked out, so I kind of chilled in the bathroom until they finished (fucking courageous, I know). I took about a 5 second shower cause I kept hearing the sounds in the bathroom as well and reluctantly told Joanna what I saw. Turns out she saw some pale figure in the bathroom while she was showering too and was hearing some noises as well. I think we over analyzed, but there's no way we were imagining it. I fell asleep terrified, but I slept pretty well that night. I was just too tired to deal.

1. FOOD  2. Tam, Sarthak, and Jacky

3. After walking through Walking Street

4. Friends  5. Our Russian groupies

We left the next day. I think we were all ready to go home (at least I was), but we took a nice stroll on the hot beach (dodging sunburnt Russians lying on the sand) and drank some nasty coconut juice. I don't know- the mood just wasn't there. It was overall a pretty good trip. There will be a lot of things I will look back on and laugh about.

1. Monica, Joanna, Mika, Me

2. Sour coconut juice

3. So much swag

4. About to leave

I feel like after this trip I'll be forever tired. I am still recovering.

Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
Bask in the contagiousness of this song. We are performing it for the banquet.
Band practice today was a lot of fun. I'm going to miss times like these.
P.S. I've finally gotten accepted to a university!