San Francisco - Part 2

Reflecting on my journey of navigating life in this beautiful and chaotic city.

It’s been about 5 months since I moved back to San Francisco. So I thought it would be a good time to post an update about everything new and wonderful I’ve experienced in the city so far.

I moved back to SF on Dec 20, 2025. The fated day where about a third of the city had a PGE outage. Including my new apartment that I had just moved into. And my office building as well. I was tired from moving everything all by myself (okay, being dramatic. I had help from movers) and hungry and wasn’t even able to order food for myself cause the restaurants nearby were also out of power.

Here I was, having just moved into the city with eyes full of dreams and hope and the universe just presented me with a power cut. I spent my first night back in SF falling asleep watching TikToks on my couch with no power, all alone. Kind of a sad start you could say. I had quite the mission at hand. Making new friends in the city (pretty much everyone I knew at that point was in South Bay), convincing people from South Bay to move to SF (for personal gain obviously), going to social events and exploring different parts of the city on foot. And figuring how how this “living by yourself in a big city for the first time” worked. I had always lived with roommates prior to this.

I realized building a social life would require a lot more elaborate planning than before. Took some time to get into that rhythm. But before I could embark upon that journey, I decided to celebrate my birthday for the first time fully alone. Kind of a way to gift myself the birthday I thought I deserved. So I went to Twin Peaks to watch the sunrise on my birthday. And I told myself, I’d revisit to catch the sunrise on my next birthday, and hopefully my life would look a little bit better and different by then.

It took a lot of effort to organize all of my furniture and decorate my apartment the way I liked it, and it was such a satisfying experience. I made it nature themed cause I adore nature. I realized San Francisco was heaven for a nature lover. I have really quick access to Golden Gate Park, Panhandle and also Alamo Square Park which might have been one of the biggest ROIs I’ve had since moving to my new place. I can visit them every time in a bad mood or stressed out.

I started exploring the restaurant culture in SF. I would have never thought I’d enjoy croissants and matcha so much but this city has made me addicted to them. There’s also a lot of pop up music events and night markets every now and then. There’s always something to do and that has been quite the relief for someone that’s single.

Speaking of which, dating has been challenging as always, and SF is a weirdly small city where there are high odds two people you’ve dated are connected to each other somehow. Or you randomly bump into an old Hinge match that didn’t go anywhere. It does get weird but makes for some interesting stories I guess.

And then I used the same approach for making friends - used Bumble BFF - and that took a while to figure out but I did end up meeting some awesome girlfriends that way, that I needed very much.

Life gets pretty frustrating sometimes and dating in your 30s comes with its own set of challenges. With that, throw in work related frustrations, trying to get promoted, maintaining a social life, physical and mental health and immigration and visa related struggles - it can stir up quite the storm. But I do feel like I’m equipped to also deal with all those challenges.

And as chaotic as the city life can feel at times, specially working in tech, the city does provide so many avenues for me to find moments of peace. Like right now as I write this post. Sitting in Golden Gate Park and listening to some amazing live music, watching kids play nearby.