2011 list

San Francisco

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Headed up to San Francisco for the weekend to visit friends.
Driving in to the city over the Bay Bridge;

A couple of our friends live in Castro, which they say is “the gayest part of the gayest city”.

When you walk around the neighborhood you can come across windows with dolls in them, cute you may think at a first glance…

Before you realize they have their pants down. This is apparently totally normal.

We walked from Castro to the Mission district to grab brunch.
San Francisco have these cute call boxes on the street corners in case of a fire, I love them!

Chocolate Pudding for brunch, what else?

We kept on walking around the Mission after brunch and checked out a bunch of cute stores and sights. This building used to be the Levis Strauss factory, before I assume, they moved it to China or Taiwan…

Santa Con (people dress up as Santas and go bar hopping) was in San Francisco this weekend, so we saw a bunch of Santas on the streets. I wish I knew about it and I would have bought my Santa hat.

After a couple of hours of more walking, it was time for an afternoon beer break.

“What? No, we’re just hanging out on the street corner.”

My friends thought it was time for some coffee and so I had my very first freshly roasted and brewed cup of coffee.

High on caffein from my first ever cup of coffee, I was not ready to go home and stopped at about one million places to take photos. I love San Francisco though, it is very photo friendly!

More Santas on their way home from the pub.

Tennis at the Satellite

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We went to see Tennis playing at the Satellite. Miniature Tigers were opening for them and I’ve seen their name around, but didn’t really knew who they were. I recognized quite a few of their songs and they were really good live. Last time we were at this venue we saw Vanaprasta do an awesome performance, and that will be difficult to live up to, but the Miniature Tigers were really good as well! 

Tennis were up next and I was really excited. The majority of singers I like are men, I often tend to dislike a lot of female singers and the girl from Tennis is one of the few girls I like. It turned out though, they were not as good as I expected and I was a little disappointed. Most of their songs sounds the same.

11 Things To Do In 2011

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I know this year has not come to an end just yet but I made a list last December of 11 things to do in 2011. I am already wrapped up in Christmas and don’t see myself ticking anything else off the list before it turns to 2012, so how did I do on my 2011 list?

1. Camp out
Yep, I went camping, twice! Catalina Island and Malibu

2. Go to 5 concerts
Hmm, yeah, I’ve been to a lot more concerts than 5 this year,  favorite so far has been Prince which totally surprised me and blew me away!

3. Re-design www.popnea.com
FAIL! I can’t believe it’s been a year and I still haven’t even thought about what I want my new website to look like! Isn’t that what they say though, that the shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot?

4. Read 5 books
FAIL! I read one book; Queens New Hat by my friend Tomo, and I started reading a Beach Boys book but I never finished. This was kind of expected.

5. Run three 5k’s
Yes, I ran three 5k’s. Started off with the Warrior Dash in May, then the Malibu Dirt Dash in September and ended with the ROC race in October.

6. Stay up and watch the sunrise
Yup, on July 3rd.

7. Take a beginners class in Spanish
Yes! I took a Spanish for Absolute Beginners and continued with Beginner’s Spanish! It’s fun, I should study more Spanish!

8. Visit a city in the US I have not been to
Yes, went to San Diego and Santa Barbara

9. Visit 5 museums I have not been to
That’s exactly what I did!

10. Visit Catalina Island
Yes, twice! In April and in July

11. Volunteer for a soup kitchen

FAIL! And I’m really disappointed in myself! I did some research and all the shelters I could find only want help on the weekdays during business hours – when I work! Next year I will have to find some other way to help.

Now I’m gonna start thinking of what to add to my 12 things to do in 2012 list. Whatever I failed with in 2011 will have to carry on over to 2012, so I have;
1. Re-design popnea.com
2. Read 5 books
3. Help a shelter in any way
I also want to
4. Run a 10K. This doesn’t have to be a race, I can just do it by myself on the streets in my neigborhood. I just wanna be able to say that I can run a 10K!

I need 8 more things, what to do?

Vanaprasta at the Satellite

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I’ve been trying to catch Vanaprasta live for the last 8 months, but I’ve been out of town and festivals has been cancelled so I have never had a chance until today. It turned out, they were awesome! I will definitely start following this band!

Vanaprasta at the Satellite

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I’ve been trying to catch Vanaprasta live for the last 8 months, but I’ve been out of town and festivals has been cancelled so I have never had a chance until today. It turned out, they were awesome! I will definitely start following this band!

Youth Lagoon at Origami Vinyl

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We went to see Youth Lagoon play a few of his songs at the Origami Vinyl in Silverlake before his set at the Echo next door.
It was really good and we tried to get tickets for his show later on but it was all sold out. Oh well, maybe next time!

Indeed.

Hanging out in a record store gave me flashbacks to 7-10 years ago when I used to spend all my money on records.

Foster the People at the Wiltern

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Foster the People are back in town for two sold out shows at the Wiltern.

It was a pretty awesome line up with the Reptar going out first followed by the Cults and then Foster and his Peeps as the headliner. Tons of energy on stage and the best version of Pumped Up Kicks so far!

TV on the Radio at Hollywood Bowl

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There were actually quite a few bands playing at the bowl tonight. TV on the Radio was headlining, but there were also Arctic Monkeys, Panda Bear, and my favorite Smith Western. 

Drinking wine out of plastic cups, so classy!

We used to drink this wine all the time when we were in Chile 7 years ago (wow!), the locals laughed at us cos they did not consider it being a great wine… I have not seen it since, but someone bought a bottle tonight!

Malibu Canyon Dirt Dash

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We did another 5k obstacle run today, and I was a little worried for how tired I would be since we went camping last night, but did way better than last time! I did the whole thing in 46 minutes, which is 10 minutes faster than the one we ran in May.